That's What I Figured

Check out this letter by La Queen Sucia to the press on the topic of immigration (via Eschaton).

The point about 3rd-generation Latinos being thoroughly assimilated is correct as far as I can tell. What's been missing in all the furor over Latino immigration is that Latino immigrants are behaving in precisely the same way that every other immigrant in the U.S. ever has - low-wage jobs, language barriers, ghettoization, and political resistance in the first generation. Partial assimilation in the 2nd generation (with 50% speaking english as a first language and marrying outside their ethnic group), and total assimilation in the 3rd generation. Germans, Italians, and now Hispanics - it's all the same story.

My only real concern is that the geographic proximity of Mexico and the decline of the American middle class economy could alter these patterns. I'm happy to hear that they're not.