Immigration,
individualism
and Italian ices
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
MY ELDEST daughter and her husband returned Sunday from a trip to Italy. Big deal. Her Mom and Dad walked through Little Italy in lower Manhattan over the weekend, which is just as good, and cheaper.
No jet lag. All the authentic Italian eateries you could want, from pasta to espresso to exquisite pastries. Sure, it’s a little touristy, but so is the other Italy.
And if you get tired of it, just walk a little further down Mulberry Street, cross Canal, and bada-bing! You’re in Chinatown. A whole other country, as Forrest Gump would say. Sidewalk tables with old guys
gesticulating and hurling Italian at each other give way to old Chinese guys playing chess at park benches. The sudden shift, the stark cultural, ethnic and linguistic contrast, is stunning to anyone who is accustomed to living in… well, America. No assimilation, no melting pot, no tossed salad, or any of those other metaphors that make me hungry (did I tell you about the pastries?).
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is what we came for, the ethnic pageantry. That, and the Italian ices. We went there to experience something we can’t get in West Columbia — unless, of course, we were to enter a Mexican tienda for one of those Cokes that taste better than the ones bottled for sale in this country (or so I’m told).
Which brings me to David Brooks’ column earlier this week, endeavoring to explain all the passion over illegal aliens.
I appreciate that he trashed the notion that this is some sort of simplistic left-vs.-right flashpoint. You can find just as much anxiety among “progressives” who worry about wages and working conditions as among know-nothings who simply don’t like foreigners.
But ultimately, when he tried to explain what the dichotomy was as opposed to what it wasn’t, he got it wrong:
Liberal members of the educated class celebrated the cultural individualism of the 1960s. Conservative members celebrated the economic individualism of the 1980s. But they all celebrated individualism. They all valued diversity and embraced a sense of national identity that rested on openness and global integration.
This cultural offensive created a silent backlash among people who were not so enamored of rampant individualism and who were worried that all this diversity would destroy the ancient ties of community and social solidarity. Members of this class came to feel that America’s identity and culture were under threat from people who did not understand what made America united and distinct.
Mr. Brooks should read the comments on my blog sometime. He’ll discover that the most adamant 
individualists — the strident libertarians, who tend to bridle at the very word “society,” much less the idea of paying taxes — are most likely to call our senior senator “Lindsey Grahamnesty.”
What is America’s “identity and culture”? We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those English-speaking white men who drafted our Constitution. But America is also about opportunity for all. It is about bigness, and the ability to absorb. It’s about pizza and hamburgers and chili con carne. We’re not threatened by that stuff, we dig it. Bring it on! Our appetite for the big, messy smorgasbord of cultures sloshing around and swapping juices is our thing; it’s what we grow on.
OK, that sounds kind of like the first group Mr. Brooks described — except for the “individualist” part, which is key. If I can be categorized, it’s as the opposite, a communitarian. My attitudes toward the richness of the American stew arise from the same impulses that Mr. Brooks described when he wrote recently, in a piece headlined “The Human Community,” that Tony Blair’s commitment to Iraq arose from his communitarianism.
I’m surprised at Mr. Brooks.
America doesn’t define “community” in terms of everybody looking, speaking or eating alike. We
leave that kind of self-defeating smallness to ethnic cleansers in the Balkans, or traditionalist jihadists in the Mideast. We’re selling something else, and it’s so big and rich and free that you can’t stop it. Once you narrowly define a thing and say it’s this and not that, you limit it, and this country is not limited.
It’s an essential part of who we are that you can’t easily pin down who we are.
A place like Little Italy or that tienda on Sunset would seem to run counter to that, to embody ethnic homogeneity and specificity to the point of rejecting essential Americanism. But they don’t.
If we were satisfied with McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and white bread sandwiches from the chain supermarket we’d be who the French think we are, and they’re wrong about us.
We have a place like Little Italy because we can afford it. We’re big enough, and sure enough of who we are, to have it all.
Last Saturday, we continued through Chinatown and walked across the bridge to Brooklyn. On the way 
over, we kept passing Manhattanites coming back from Brooklyn carrying pizzas. It’s one thing for a tourist to make the trek, but to walk to the next borough and back for a pizza? What was that about?
When we got there, we saw where they were going. The place sat alone on a dreary block right under the bridge. There was a long line outside just for takeout. People from Asia, from Europe, from Africa, all waiting eagerly, and untroubled about the long walk to get there. Apparently, the pizza was just that good.
I still don’t know how to philosophically characterize all the passion over immigration or how to address the very legitimate concerns (beyond the passion) about the many ways our immigration “system” fails to work.
But I know that as long as the pizza is this good in this country, they’re going to keep coming.
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How many of the people you saw in Little Italy and Chinatown entered the country illegally? Why is that key point always ignored in the rush to create Los Estados Unidas de America?
I don’t care how many people want to immigrate legally. But anyone who does so illegally or employs people knowingly who do so are committing a crime. Plain and simple. Any bill that attempts to resolve their illegal act by paying a fine without requiring them to leave the country and come back through the legal process is wrong. What is the point of having a border if the country is not willing to protect it?
We have to go after the employers of illegal labor. Senator Grahamnesty wants to protect many South Carolina industries by allowing them continued access to a pool of cheap labor. He (and others) live in a fantasy world where he believes that 12,000,000 illegals will rush forward to get an id card and pay $5000 when the alternative is, uh, nothing? Anytime the subject of deportation comes up, the response from the pro-illegal amnesty crowd is “It’s impossible to round them up and send them back”… so then what are we going to do with X million who do not come forward? Wait for the next Grahamnesty-Kennedy offer? Maybe the next amnesty bill will include free busfare from Tijuana? At what point do you think the illegals will stop crossing the border in the dead of night even if this bill is passed? How are you going to tell if an illegal came in before the bill or after?
Perhaps the best solution would be for a million Americans to march across the border into Mexico and see what happens. You think we’d be greeted with open arms? Recent anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise (American soccer teams being booed in the World Cup, America’s Ms. Universe contestant being booed at the pageant in Mexico).
I refer you to this paragraph:
That there are problems with ILLEGAL immigration is assumed here. That’s the "very legitimate concerns" part. This column is not about that. It’s about Brooks’ attempt to categorize the people on various sides of the political issue, and my observations about the limitation of his theory.
Once again — NOT about the fact of illegal immigration, but about why people react to the political issue so differently.
I found the theory put forward by Brooks interesting, but flawed.
Brad,
Frankly I’m puzzled at the way you casually dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as a “strident libertarian,” while strenuously resisting any attempt to identify yourself a “strident communitarian.” Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical?
As for those you label “libertarian,” you should be aware that it includes a rather diverse community. Reagan Republicans, moderate libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, evangelical Christians, and even some conservative Democrats share many of the views you dismiss under one label.
I do not doubt your sincerity in wishing for a better world. We share that wish. However, what I do worry about is your enthusiasm for using political power to mold a particular vision of the social order. As F.A. Hayek pointed out sixty years ago in “The Road to Serfdom,” people with good intentions believe political power can improve the world, and end up discovering that political power is quickly usurped by those who use it for their own ruthless ends. This explains much of the pointless suffering of the 20th century.
And before you dismiss Hayek as a “strident libertarian,” you should know he resisted the label. He did repudiated conservatism and was sympathetic to socialism (a careful reading of “The Road to Serfdom” reveals a social policy not too different from the Democrat Party Platform of 1992). Hayek preferred to call himself “an Old Whig,” a term I think we should revive for its quirkiness, if for no other reason.
Ben Rast
President, The Bastiat Society
Treasurer, The SC Club for Growth
http://www.bastiatblog.blogspot.com
http://www.scclubforgrowth.com
Brad,
This sentence from your column seems to sum up, at least metaphorically, your immigration position to me:
“We have a place like Little Italy because we can afford it. We’re big enough, and sure enough of who we are, to have it all.”
And, yes, anything will fit in the great melting pot, up to a point.
A flashpoint: 9-11.
Now, moreso than ever, we need immigration laws that work flawlessly.
It could be some cultures just won’t fit under the gigantic American umbrella.
And it could be immigration laws could be discriminating without being discriminatory.
Would the Grahamnesty bill pass that test?
Weldon, I agree, but I also think it isn’t so much that some cultures “just won’t fit under the giant American umbrella,” it’s that NO societal umbrella, giant American or otherwise, can continue existing if certain virulent social strains are allowed to infiltrate and steal their way under it. For example:
-What society can withstand a huge and sustained influx of illegal andd foriegn interlopers who have NO intention of assimilation, but are totally dedicated to the exploitation of the benefits of that culture?
-What society could withstand an unresisted assault by forces sworn to destroy that society by the sword?
The torrent of illegal Mexican aliens and Islamic jihadists are the virulent strains I’m thinking about, and I don’t see how Brads’ “big tent” feel good vision for America can survive long in a world like ours. Ed
Another thing while I’m on a roll: The emotionalism and fuzzy feel-good logic of people like Brad are on prominent display when he writes about Little Italy. Guys like Brad have a couple of good warm summer days in Little Italy and extrapolate from this insignificant anecdotal vacation experience that everything is right with the world, and the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…blabbity blabbity blah blah. I do not understand it, but the Brads in this country must believe that their personal experiences are good foundations for whatever social vision they happens to support. If vehement disagreement with this foolishness makes one a Libertarian, then I am a Libertarian. But I don’t think it does though, I just think people like Brad are dangerously wrong. Ed
Ed,
The argument certainly can be made that Islam, be definition, cannot fit where church and state are separate, or next door to a Jewish synagogue.
And I certainly agree that not much that has to do with modern immigration problems can be extrapolated from a feel-good melting pot experience in Little Italy.
As much as I’d like for Brad to be right, the possibility that he’s wrong risks too much.
Just pet the friendly dog the wrong way and watch it bite.
Just so Weldon, just so. Ed
I dream to visit New York, maybe the next year.
See you !
I visited New-York, last summer, during one month.