To Be An American. Bill Ong Hing

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       TO BE AN AMERICAN

       CRITICAL AMERICA General Editors: Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

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      Hybrid: Bisexuals, Multiracials, and Other Misfits under American Law RUTH COLKER

      Critical Race Feminism: A Reader EDITED BY ADRIEN KATHERINE WING

      Immigrants Out! The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States EDITED BY JUAN F. PEREA

      Taxing America EDITED BY KAREN B. BROWN AND MARY LOUISE FELLOWS

      Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Color Blindness and the End of Affirmative Action BRYAN K. FAIR

      Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State STEPHEN M. FELDMAN

      To Be an American: Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation BILL ONG HING

       TO BE AN AMERICAN

      Cultural Pluralism and the Rhetoric of Assimilation

       Bill Ong Hing

      Copyright © 1997 by New York University

      All rights reserved

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Hing, Bill Ong.

      To be an American : cultural pluralism and the rhetoric of

      assimilation / Bill Ong Hing.

      p. cm. — (Critical America)

      Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

      ISBN 0-8147-3523-1 (acid-free paper)

      1. Pluralism (Social sciences)—United States. 2. Immigrants—

      United States. 3. Acculturation—United States. 4. United States—

      Ethnic relations. I. Title. II. Series.

      E184.A1H54 1997

      305.8’00973—dc20 96-35678

       CIP

      New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,

      and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

       For my children, Eric, Sharon, and Julianne

       Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction

       1 A Superior Multicultural Experience

       2 A Nation of Immigrants, a History of Nativism

       3 Mi Cliente y Amigo Rodolfo Martinez Padilla

       4 Searching for the Truth about Immigrants and Jobs

       5 How Much Do Immigrants Cost? The Methodology Wars

       6 Contextualizing Immigration

       7 Low-Wage Immigrants and African Americans

       8 Beyond the Economic Debate: The Cultural Complaint

       9 The Challenge to Cultural Pluralists: Interethnic Group Conflict and Separatism

       10 A New Way of Looking at America

       11 Back to Superior

       Notes

       Index

Acknowledgments

      The countless immigrant clients and families with whom I have worked over the past 25 years provided the primary impetus for the writing of this book. They are inspirational people who have taught me volumes about life. Most have been hard-working, decent, and law-abiding. Relatively few were criminals. I appreciate the opportunities I have had to get to know them; they have made my professional life worthwhile. I have encountered them in a variety of places: law offices, legal clinics, community presentations, the immigration court, and in detention facilities. They do not deserve the negative image that dominates much of today’s media.

      I think of my clients often. I thought of them a few years back when I read that the most common name given to newborn boys in Los Angeles County was José. Given what we know about the demographic development in certain parts of the country like California, that fact was enlightening but no surprise. I was quite happy that the parents of all the new Josés born in Los Angeles County sought to record the name as José rather than as Joseph or Joe. Their action was a departure from what I experienced generations earlier.

      When I was born in a small, predominantly Mexican