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Cruelest Insult to Immigrants John L. Perry In this nation of variegated immigrant lineage, ethnic insults abound. The absolute worst is that they have no individuality, and will habitually vote as a block. This canard, which history refutes, is now being used as a primary argument to enact the "comprehensive" immigration legislation deservedly floundering in a Congress obsessed not with what's best for the country, or even for Latinos, but for members' own precious political hides. The tempting apple of self-service that's being dangled before Republican fence-straddlers in particular is that if they don't support the bill in its present contortion they will forever forfeit any possibility of attracting a significant share of the Latino vote. The rock-solid foundation of that false premise is the hokum that if given an opportunity Latinos will vote as a group, not as individuals making up their own minds independently. Such nonsense has long been a cardinal article of faith of the Democratic Party leftist base: African-Americans will vote collectively for Democrats, so therefore Latino voters will do the same.
After all, they are not really individuals but indistinguishable, manipulable components of blocks who, in predictable Pavlovian fashion, will salivate when the master rings the right bell.
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For years that worked with multitudes of African-American voters. Those days are rapidly sinking into the past. In cities, counties and states all across America, conservative African-Americans are being elected to public office in ever-greater numbers. This myth of lock-step ethnic political behavior was long ago exploded for the English, Scots, Irish, Italians, Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Swedes, Norwegians, Cubans and, most recently, Asians, to name but a few. Now, Latinos from south of the border (around whom the current debate centers) are beginning to reveal their own political individuality. And not only in matters political. The Catholic Church is having a tougher and tougher time holding its communicants in line. For better or worse, religious adherents of all faiths are insisting upon their own individuality. Witness the implosion of the national Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America. A local story in the Knoxville, Tenn., daily newspaper featured the remarkable growth of conversions of Latino immigrants to the Baptist Church from the Catholic Church. In a recent column, Dick Morris, the former pollster for President Bill Clinton, reported that a third of the Latino population in the U.S. has been converted to Protestant evangelicalism. Ironically, he uses that to support his urging of Republicans to support the immigration legislation — so as not to lose forever those Latino voters.
Two things are wrong with that thinking: One, to support an immigration bill that simply doesn't make common sense just for the purpose of maneuvering a political party into position to be the beneficiary of a minority group's political support down the road is a cynical way to try to build a successful political party. It's also a sure way to lose such presumed support by insulting the minority group as a flock of not-too-bright ward-heelers. Two, it ignores the reality that Latinos, like all immigrant groups, sooner or later, in varying degrees, become assimilated in the grand American tradition of voting as thinking individuals, not as mindless herds. The cruelest insult that can be hurled at any American immigrants is to brand them as incapable of making up their own minds. If the Republican Party is ever to have a fair shot at winning the voting loyalty of Latinos it will be because it appeals to them as individuals, not masses. This explains its success with voters of Cuban ancestry.
The surest way to earn the political loyalty of Latinos in America is to regain effective control of the Mexican border, from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Like Americans of every ethnic origin, most Latinos who are in this country legally do not want more illegal immigrants in their midst. Then, when a securely sealed border can be independently certified, the millions of illegal immigrants now within the U.S. can be dealt with humanely by legislation that respects them as individuals and opens a pathway for them — legally — to that precious, individual right of American citizenship.
That's what is best for the country. That's what is best for individual Latinos. That's what is best for the political party with the integrity and courage to offer such leadership. That, rather than a legislated ethnic slur, is what makes the most common sense. And common sense is what most Americans, of whatever ethnic origin, will be insisting upon in the 2008 elections. John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com. Read John Perry's columns here.
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