The Hispanic Challenge: Understanding Latino Immigration in America

1. The Hispanic Challenge? What We Know About Latino Immigration Strum and Selee, Eds., Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2004

2. Key questions • What is the probable impact on this nation of a very large number of immigrants from nations with cultures that are markedly different and with different kinds of governmental systems? • Should those immigrants be embraced as potential producers of enhanced diversity and excitement and wealth, or should they be regarded as highly problematic? • If they are to be incorporated into the American polity and economy, what public policies would aid the process? (“The Hispanic Challenge? What We Know about Latino Immigration,” Strum, p. 1)

3. Is Mexican immigration so different, Mexican culture so alien? • Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream US culture • forming their own political and linguistic enclaves—from LA to Miami • rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream • “Contributions from immigrant cultures modified and enriched the Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers. The essentials of that founding culture remained the bedrock of US identity…”

4. “Irreconcilable Differences”? • “As their numbers increase, [Mexican Americans] become more committed to their own ethnic identity and culture. Sustained numerical expansion promotes cultural consolidation and leads Mexican Americans not to minimize but to glory in the differences between their culture and US culture.” • True? What’s Huntington’s evidence?

5. Robert Suro describes article as “shoddy scholarship” • “With the exception of the aberrational period between 1924 and 1965, the US has always been a multicultural society…in which there has always been disenfranchised people such as the slave population, Native Americans, and various immigrant groups. What Huntington has not taken into account is the diversity within the Latino immigrant population, not only between US-born and foreign-born but within various nationality populations and across a broad array of other variables as well.” (pp. 26-27) • Notes change in how “the poor are demonized” • From “Welfare Queen” to poor people with “too great a work ethic”

6. Other criticisms • Mexicans/Latinos already ARE here, the country HAS changed • Nearly half of undocumented population in US (45%) do not enter illegally, but “overstay visas” (Pew Hispanic Ctr, 2006) • Continued immigration is necessary to replace retiring workers, to keep the workforce young

7. Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion – Introduction Lechner & Boli, pp. 345-347

8. Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979) • A "major world event," "put fundamentalism on the map" • The outcome of a long struggle to overthrow the Shah of Iran (Reza Pahlavi Shah), seen as a puppet of the West, esp. the US, which had previously maintained close ties with Iran • Iran was predominantly Shi'a (the two main sub-groups of Islam are Shi'a and Sunni) • Shah was seen as an "illegitimate tyrant who had tried to modernize the country in violation of Islamic norms" • Revolution showed it was possible to build an Islamic state under modern circumstances

9. Islamic Revolution inspired activejihadamong a minority of Muslims • jihad: a religiously motivated opposition to a secular, liberal global order • In predominantly Sunni countries, a movement w/similar purposes was growing, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which also rejected Western culture and advocated a restoration of sharia • sharia: Islamic law • In Afghanistan, after the Soviet invasion in 1979, an extremely conservative group called the Taliban took lead in resistance to invasion and established an oppressive, orthodox regime in the 1990s • The struggle attracted militants from other countries, such as Saudi Arabia

10. Militants increasingly thought of jihad as global struggle to restore Islamic caliphate and implement sharia • culminating in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 • to some, 9/11 was the expression of a new global political divide, a "Clash of Civilizations" (à la Huntington)

11. Islam, like Christianity, is diverse • Believers have a range of perspectives on globalization • Muslims differ on basic questions concerning the relationship between religion and the state, gender roles, democracy, etc.

12. Secularization & Fundamentalism • secularization:transformation of society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions • Considered by classical sociologists to be a master process of modernization • fundamentalism: belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles (often religious in nature). It typically emerges in response to modernity/modernization and the various social processes associated with it, e.g., secularization, urbanization, marketization – and globalization • Fundamentalist movements attempt to rescue religious identity from absorption into modern, Western culture • Islamic fundamentalism seeks a return to the what are considered the "fundamentals"(basic principles) of Islam • Christian fundamentalism, a return to the "fundamentals" of Christianity

13. Islamism/Political Islam • Islamism: a set of beliefs that hold that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system • also referred to as "political Islam"

14. Ch. 43, "The Challenge of Fundamentalism," Bassam Tibi (pp. 358-363)

15. Fundamentalism • Fundamentalism is an ideology symptomatic of the "Clash of Civilizations" and Islamic fundamentalism is simply one variety of this new global political phenomenon • Even before the 90s and the end of the Cold War, we have seen the politicization of religion, a turn toward religious fundamentalism • When religion is politicized, religious principles become the bases of political claims, i.e., claims about the distribution of power and authority

16. Islamic fundamentalism • Fundamentalist movements attempt to rescue religious identity from absorption into modern, Western culture • Islamic fundamentalism seeks a return to the what are considered the "fundamentals"(basic principles) of Islam • Islamic fundamentalism is a political ideology rather than expression of traditional Islamic belief

17. Fundamentalism and the International State System • It has global political implications, it's one pillar of an emerging new world disorder • Fundamentalism, much more than extremism or terrorism, is a threat to the international system of secular nation-states • Since this system is rooted in Western institutions, fundamentalist challenges to it are considered a "revolt against the West"

18. Islam as religion vs Islam as politics • We must distinguish b/w Islam as a religionand civilization and Islam as a political ideology • Islam as a religion is not a threat, but Islamic fundamentalism is

19. The threat to the international state system • "…Islam has become the West's leading challenger for one simple reason: in contrast to those of Hinduism, for example, Islamic perspectives are not restricted to national or regional boundaries. In this respect, Islam resembles Western civilization, in the sense that it is universal in both its claims and outlook." (p. 360) • "It is thus easy to see why Islam and the West clash more consistently than do other competing civilizations" • In resisting the Western world order, Islamic fundamentalists direct their views and actions against the institution of the nation-state and the domestic Muslim elites who rule it

20. John Locke's "Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) • In England in 1689, it was Catholicism that was seen as a threat, encroaching on English society from outside, threatening their "way of life." Locke responds to the problem of religion and government by proposing religious toleration as the answer. Unlike those (e.g., Hobbes) who saw uniformity of religion as the key to a well-functioning civil society, Locke argues that more religious groups actually prevent civil unrest. Locke argues that civil unrest results from confrontations caused by any magistrate's (civil authority's) attempt to prevent different religions from being practiced, rather than tolerating their proliferation.

21. Locke's goal: to "distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion" • government is instituted to promote external interests, relating to life, liberty, and the general welfare, while the church exists to promote internal interests, i.e., salvation • the two serve separate functions, and so, must be considered to be separate institutions

22. Excerpt from "Letter": • I know that seditions are very frequently raised upon pretence of religion, but it is as true that for religion subjects are frequently ill treated, and live miserably. Believe me, the stirs that are made proceed not from any peculiar temper of this or that church or religious society, but from the common disposition of all mankind, who when they groan under any heavy burthen endeavour naturally to shake off the yoke that galls their necks…. • Some enter into company for trade and profit, others for want of business have their clubs for claret. Neighbourhood joins some, and religion others. But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotions, and that is oppression. (John Locke, "A Letter Concerning Toleration" (1689), Montuori 93-101)