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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Assimilating in the wrong direction"

29 Comments -

1 – 29 of 29
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In general Americanization seems to make Mexicans less passive, more assertive....

Could this have something to do with religion? Mexico is just about 100% Catholic and the church has long been very powerful there. In America the Catholic church and its characteristics and influences are much less strong.

12/7/11, 12:57 PM

Anonymous MC said...

"Conduct Disorder"?

I didn't know that had a real name. I've always jokingly called it "Bad Kid Syndrome"

12/7/11, 1:04 PM

Blogger LemmusLemmus said...

That's actually been a well-known phenomenon known to U.S. sociology from the 1930s onwards: The less integrated immigrant groups show less crime, and the more integrated children of immigrants are more involved in delinquency (though 3rd generation immigrants behaving most poorly is news to me). It's hard to sort out causality, but it seems likely that part of the reason for that is that many immigrants and their children live in the kinds of neighbourhoods where assimilation to the neighbourhood culture means that you behave in illegal ways. The technical term is "downward assimilation" (which, in some usages, encompasses more than just illegal behaviour).

12/7/11, 1:16 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read Wambaugh's "Lines and Shadows" about 10 years ago, after reading that he is James Ellroy's favorite. It was superb, but it's interesting that I recall no ethnic chauvinism amongst the chicano cops. They were more interested in getting drunk and famous. Wambaugh didn't seem concerned about the cultural change brought on by illegals, but this was probably because LA in the late 70s still felt like a majoritarian city, as I recall. Ellroy, a diversity skeptic, has said that he doesn't recognize the LA of today compared to that of the 60s and 70s. When was the tipping point? Maybe the demonization of Gov. Wilson's support of Prop. 187?

12/7/11, 1:42 PM

Anonymous Kylie said...

"In general, Americanization seems to make Mexicans less passive, more assertive, more aware of their rights. This has positive and negative implications."

What positive implications would this have for non-Hispanic white Americans?

12/7/11, 1:55 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hope this story is brought up early and often in this campaign, because it *massive* I believe. Most (native) Americans detest sex-selective abortions against girls and yet they are *huge* in our immigrant population.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/284988/sex-selective-abortions-come-home-steven-w-mosher

12/7/11, 2:11 PM

Anonymous rippedphreak said...

testing ... (please approve steve, checking if work network blocks this now that i've uninstalled their monitoring software)

12/7/11, 2:18 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...


I didn't know that had a real name. I've always jokingly called it "Bad Kid Syndrome"


NewSpeak is wary of normative value judgements encoded in classificatory literature. Silly.

12/7/11, 2:19 PM

Anonymous Ed said...

Is "disorder" the new pc term for "being an asshole"?

12/7/11, 2:36 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The same reason that we don't push Mexicans to assimilate is the same reason that when they do assimilate, they assimilate to kitschy violent nihilism--our culture is badly damaged.

-Osvaldo M.

12/7/11, 3:24 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How do the rates of Conduct Disorder among these Mexican groups with different immigration histories compare to rates for African Americans?

12/7/11, 3:46 PM

Anonymous Maya said...

The thing is that like ADHD, Conduct Disorder is a real condition that requires accommodations, but nowadays, lots of kids who don't have it get the label. A child with a CD is a future sociopath. In fact, the only reason Conduct Disorder is in the books is that we don't feel comfortable labeling children as sociopaths. Rest assured, nobody becomes a sicko who gets off on hurting others or completely lacks empathy at 18.People are born that way, and nothing can be done to change them. However, a lot of today's kids with a CD diagnosis could be cured with some discipline and a proper upbringing. That's why this study found that the violent CD tendencies are genetic while telling the librarian to go f*uck herself when she asks you to keep your voice down is somehow dependent on one's generation and environment.

12/7/11, 5:11 PM

Anonymous JS said...

I wonder how much of this is historical alienation. In your race you wear your history on our sleeve, as it were. Just looking in the mirror shows a latino or african-american that they don't possess the same history and belong to the same historical traditions as whites. If assimilation is coming to conceive of a nation's history as ones own, and race forever shows you that this isn't true, then assimilation is impossible resulting in persistent alienation.

12/7/11, 5:34 PM

Blogger Wido Incognitus said...

The most obvious kind of assimilation is the ability to understand English better than your parents.
Anyway, this is a decent blog because it is open about differences between people without hating whatever is different from oneself or ignoring the many causes of one effect.

12/7/11, 5:39 PM

Anonymous Chicago said...

The second and third generation have lost the drive and willingness to work the jobs that their families did. They don't have the brains or educational background to enter the professions. They'll just become a large stagnant class of people that'll become increasingly problematic.
Next, people like McCain will advocate importing people from elsewhere in the world who will do the jobs the Mexicans won't do.

12/7/11, 5:54 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

JS SAID.....

If assimilation is coming to conceive of a nation's history as one's own, and race forever shows you that this isn't true, then assimilation is impossible resulting in persistent alienation.

I really think you have hit the nail right on the head, here. This is probably why immigration should be restricted as much as possible to people who look, or can pass for looking, like the majority of the peopel in a country. I also imagine the situation is far worse in countries like Europe with history going back milleniums.

12/7/11, 6:15 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A few thoughts if I may;

Could there be a racial schism? Do lighter-skinned Mexicans assimilate better, or more, then darker-skinned ones? Beyond complexion, lighter-skinned Mexicans would be more European and presumably have higher I.Q's then darker (more Indian) ones.

Another thought. Mexicans are, except for French-Canadians in Quebec moving into New England, the only ethnic group in America who move to the U.S. from a country geographically contiguous to the USA. A Pole or Japanese or Armenian for example has a home country thousands of miles away, and even with modern communications and travel, that is still a factor. Does the proximity of Mexico reduce or retard assimilation? And if so, to what extent?

12/7/11, 6:26 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I see a discussion like this, I always think of atheists who think the world would be a panacea without religion.

Regardless of how religious these folks are, do we think that if they all lost their religion, they would rapidly become more civil, rational, intelligent and autodidactic?

I mean, does anyone really think that would happen?

Okay, so my point is that these folks just do better when the expectations are clear, and the consequences harsh and certain. Does that require religion? Well, no, but religious indoctrination does help with the expectations part because unlike schooling, it never ends.

12/7/11, 7:30 PM

Blogger Seismic Puppy said...

"white Southern Californians don't drive to Mexico anymore the way they did in the bad old days"

Why bother going to Mexico when Mexico came to them?

12/7/11, 9:15 PM

Blogger Seismic Puppy said...

Maybe this sort of thing should be called 'ass-imitating'.

12/7/11, 9:16 PM

Anonymous Reg Cæsar said...

In general Americanization seems to make Mexicans less passive, more assertive....

Could this have something to do with religion? Mexico is just about 100% Catholic and the church has long been very powerful there.


Someone needs to take a tour of Boston, Providence, Nassau County, Hoboken, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago and Milwaukee. He's obviously never met an Irish- or Italian-American!

Mexico is far from a "100% Catholic" country. The upper crust is wholly laïcist, and most of the rest are crypto-pagans. Maybe the middle class is genuinely Catholic, but good luck in your search for that demographic.

12/8/11, 12:44 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The first reasonable argument FOR multiculturalism I have ever heard.

12/8/11, 5:07 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why bother going to Mexico when Mexico came to them?

Are you familiar with the final scene from The Shawshank Redemption?

Hipster [USA] Californians used to go to Baja California - for sport fishing, sailing, snorkling, surfing, etc - the way that East Coasters used to head to Daytona or Ft Lauderdale for Spring Break & some beach blanket bingo.

Nowadays, a gringo trip to Baja could very well end in a Daniel-Pearl-ing.

12/8/11, 6:16 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The second and third generation have lost the drive and willingness to work the jobs that their families did. They don't have the brains or educational background to enter the professions. They'll just become a large stagnant class of people that'll become increasingly problematic.
Next, people like McCain will advocate importing people from elsewhere in the world who will do the jobs the Mexicans won't do."

I disagree. They did not just lose the good work gene, any more than Americans did. The next wave of immigrants is simply displacing them from youth employment opportunities and the ability to form such social networks, and that is what is hurting them, as well as Americans for that matter.

12/8/11, 11:08 AM

Anonymous Noah172 said...

"Nowadays, a gringo trip to Baja could very well end in a Daniel-Pearl-ing."

Yes. Catholic Latin America has long had a deep strain of anti-Scots-Irishism.

Could make for a good Angelina Jolie movie.

12/8/11, 1:05 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nowadays, a gringo trip to Baja could very well end in a Daniel-Pearl-ing.

Ugh.

I was just re-reading that sentence, and it dawned on me that that could very well have been the sort of thing that a Roman man would have said to a Roman boy, circa the late 4th Century A.D.: "When I was a lad, all the hipster Romans would vacation in Andalusia - in Marbella, or Malaga - but nowadays, a Roman who ventured into southern Spain would likely get captured by the Visigoths and sold into slavery [if he even survived at all]."

12/8/11, 2:26 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes. Catholic Latin America has long had a deep strain of anti-Scots-Irishism.

No - my point was that if a cartel soldier sees a gringo he doesn't like, then he's just as likely to behead the gringo as to [merely] gut it.

12/8/11, 3:32 PM

Blogger Anthony said...

@Kylie:

"In general, Americanization seems to make Mexicans less passive, more assertive, more aware of their rights. This has positive and negative implications."

What positive implications would this have for non-Hispanic white Americans?


This makes the Mexican worker more expensive to hire.

12/8/11, 4:03 PM

Anonymous Jack Amok said...

Immigrants forming ethnic gangs certainly didn't start with Mexicans. Irish and Italian gangs are old, old tropes. But there are two differences today with Mexican immigrants. One is the "borderlands" phenomenom where they retain closer connection with the old country (couple with some lingering claims to the territory itself). But the second difference is paths upward.

They're different now. Back when waves of Irish and Italian immigrants were comming in, gangs were pretty much a dead end path upward. Legitimate business, legitimate careers were far better paths to happiness for amiericanized children of immigrants. Today, not so much.

VDH writes about immigrants in the Central Valley ignoring the blizzard of paperwork needed to legally run any sort of buiness in California and doing okay, while White residents dutifully try to follow the law, get ground down under the regulatory and tax burden, give up, and move out of state.

We're going to start seeing CD problems with everyone in the US of every ethnic background soon, because we're training kids that following the rules is a sucker's bet.

12/10/11, 1:04 PM

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