Is Today's Immigration Debate Racist?

D'Angelo, Raymond and Herbert Douglas, eds. Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Race and Ethnicity, 7th edition (Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill, 2009) "Issue # 4: Is Today's Immigration Debate Racist?"

In this paper, the main point is to highlight that racism has an effect on today's immigration debate with regard to Latinos in particular Mexicans and deciding whether it has anything to do with racism. In addition to that, the two different opinions regarding the topic will be discussed. First, there is Carlos Fuentes; which is a prominent Mexican writer and social commentator. Fuentes truly believes that racism plays a large role in the immigration debate. Then there is Samuel P. Huntington who is a political scientist. He rebuts and says it is not racist, he just believes that Latino immigration is a threat to America's National Unity. He specifically referred to assimilation and as Mexicans and other Latinos would migrate to America, their numbers will have a great increase in the American population. Thus, one gave reasons as to why it will not be efficient for Latinos or Mexicans to be in America because they will hinder the American progress and the order in which America should be in. While the other objects, stating that instead of the hindering America's progress they are simply enriching and trying to diversify America to be what it was meant to be initially.

On the side of Carlos Fuentes, the debate is solely based on race. Like Fuentes, many support the migration of people from different cultures because they believe it will be good for America due to cultural enrichment and renewal. The reason for this is the way Huntington stated that immigrants are threatening the Anglo-Saxon heritage. Additionally, he says that the cultural difference causes major barriers that decline assimilation and threatens the unity of America. Carlos Fuentes, in defense basically stated that even though Huntington depicts Mexican immigrants as "the brown menace" which is affecting the unity of America. However, he mainly focuses on the cultural and economic benefits that the Mexican and Latino immigrants have to offer. Huntington counteracts that the debate is not racist. Nevertheless, what really worries him is that the Mexicans and other Latino immigrants are a menace and will diminish the foundational soul of the white, protestant Anglo-Saxon United States of America. Huntington fears that with the balkanization of Mexicans the "Anglo-Saxon" America will no longer be identified as what it was initially and they will lose their so called language. Huntington believes that if the Latinos continue to speak Spanish in America, the American people will be contaminated and begin to lose the real America. Fuentes, however, rebuts for the fact that many Latinos speak English and they do not have the fear of being overtaken by English. Carlos Fuentes especially disagrees with Huntington when he stated that Mexicans are in America not to work but to exploit and they are just a masked