An uprooted population, globally inclined, aware of the fact that jobs will be scarce is likely to give away its current address in exchange for some job security. In particular if those jobs are in tune with the zeitgeist…

http://global-culture.org/blog/2009/03/26/a-nomadic-life/

That’s speculation (and perhaps wishful thinking) on Karlgaard’s part.

Michael, what gots your mother lit was things like bilingual education and prinitng voter ballots in foreign languages. Going out of our way to accommodate those who don’t speak English. Hard to see how someone who doesn’t speak English well could pass our citizenship test. It’s almost a red flag that voter fraud is occuring, with non-citizens voting.

#115 on SWPL: Promising to learn a foreign language.

http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/2009/05/an-american-heartland-renaissance.html

Evidently, some of the best and brightest WILL move to the hinterlands.

How likely and how sustainable do you think this is?

But their children spoke English. Just as the vast majority of Mexican and other Hispanic second generation speak English and the third generation generally speak no Spanish. They’re going to speak English, it always happens. In fact, most of the first generation I know speak some English (much better than my Spanish), many fluently.

My personal view is we should be doing all we can to have immigrant families teach their children the native language. Your Grandmother is a great example by being bi-lingual. We’re losing a tremendous resource in international competitiveness by not taking advantage of these languages. Think if American companies could send essentially native speakers to countries around the world.

Among my clients is a Somali refugee organization. The woman I work with most speaks Somali, Swahili, good English and some Italian (The refugee camps are in Swahili-speaking Kenya, and Somalia was an Italian colony pre-WW II). Her 2 year old will only speak English, somewhat to her dismay, although he understands Somali.

One of my son-in-laws family is Basque, another is Indian (by way of Guiana). Both only speak English, to their disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong. There was undeniably a surge of brilliance fleeing the Nazis and then the Soviets. But was the reality of the situation that we picked and choosed who entered, and that on net, we took in very few in this era? I think that that is exactly the situation.

I’d like to see the numbers, and how it compares to, say, the H1B visa numbers from the last few years. You might be able to make the exact opposite argument to the one that Richard is making (you can have extremely low immigration and still get the few immigrants that you really need).

And let’s not forget that the era from ‘32 to ‘65, during which there was virtually no immigration, contained many, many years with high economic growth.

As for your mother… I don’t know. People like her are pissed off at how Mexican immigrants are changing the nature of vast swaths of this country. I can see how, if that’s your beef, it really makes little difference if they’re legal or illegal.

BTW, my grandmother, the daughter of German immigrants, gets her blood boiling on the issue of Mexicans and others not speaking English. She speaks fluent German, and feels that her parents were forced to learn English, so why shouldn’t more recent arrivals. I don’t see this view as anti-immigrant. It’s something else (common sense, mostly).

I don’t think those Depression figures contradict. The first, net immigration, is raw numbers and would be mostly laborers moving for economic reasons. The second, high skilled talent, included many thousands from Europe fleeing Hitler and to some extent Stalin.

My gauge on anti-immigrant feeling is my aunt who lives in Salinas who rants against immigrants in general. Questioned closely she might make a legal/illegal distinction, but broadly it’s all those foreigners coming here to get welfare and taking all the jobs (doesn’t see any contradiction).

I also got my mother’s right-wing junk mail for a couple of years after she moved to assisted living. The English First and anti-immigrant propaganda didn’t distinguish legal or illegal, except to imply that all were illegal.

Everything else – goods, capital (both financial and direct investment), ideas/technology, and increasingly services – was all up-ticking nicely and mostly surpassing the relative intensities of previous episodes of globalization.

Labour, which if faced with poverty could hop on a boat 150 years ago and start a new life, doesn’t have that luxury now. Given that the more entrepreneurial types are more likely to migrate, it’s a pity that the era of the nation-state has led to restriction on freedom of people. Perhaps the forthcoming era of the city (*crosses fingers*) might see greater freedom for people to move again.

(Sorry, feeling in philosophical mood today!)

During the Great Depression, net immigration to the US, Canada, Australia and Argentina turned negative as new immigration virtually ceased and as previous immigrants headed home …

Then you have this:

The U.S., which had previously been sending its own talent abroad for scientific and technical training, gained immeasurably from a massive inflow of high-skill immigrants during the crisis of the late 19th century and perhaps even more so in the flood of scientific, artistic, and entrepreneurial talent during the Great Depression.

Don’t they contradict one another?

The only anti-immigration stance I see is the one against ILLEGAL immigration. And that has more to do with being against breaking the law than being against immigration in general.

In fact, the best way to address anti-immigration feelings in general would be to stop illegal immigration cold.

With so much opportunity in China and India now, we should really just expect immigration from there to totally dry up. This is not a bad thing. We need these developing countries to develop as quickly as possible, to alleviate human suffering. If that is a net negative to Silicon Valley, so be it.