Andrew Friedman

Red, White and Green - and Everything In Between

Watching the scenes on NY 1 yesterday evening of sullen-looking French-Americans dressed in red, white and blue at bars in midtown and celebrating Italian-Americans waving the Italian flag in the streets of Bensonhurst and Little Italy, I could not help but remember the outcry when another group of immigrants to America dared to wave their red. white and green flag just a few months ago.

Somehow, I doubt we'll here so much strident commentary from Lou Dobbs about the decaying bond that holds us together as Americans this time around. The truth is that pride in our heritage, whether we hale from Europe, Mexico, Asia, or Africa, has nothing to do with our commitment to the American endeavor. We all have enough love in our hearts. Am I a less loyal son because I also love my grandparents?

Beyond my post-World Cup ruminations, though, there were a few interesting articles in yesterday's New York Times about immigration. The cover story from the New York Times Magaizine was an examination of the economics of immigration. There were a few interesting points:

21 million immigrants, about 15 percent of the labor force, hold jobs in the U.S., but the country has nothing close to that many unemployed. So the majority of immigrants can't literally have

taken

jobs; they must be doing jobs that wouldn't have existed had the immigrants not been here.

The article explains,

New workers add to the supply of labor, but since they consume products and services, they add to the demand for it as well.

The article goes on to say that,

economists have had a hard time finding evidence of actual harm

to native-born workers as a result of immigration. In fact, wages in cities with the most immigrants tend to be higher than wages with fewer immigrants. While that correlation is not proof that immigrants drive wages up, it does contradict Lou Dobbs' mantra, that immigrants are driving the middle class to the poorhouse.

The other interesting article on immigration appeared on the Op-Ed page, and it explored the fact that the Spanish, not the English, discovered and settled most of the United States first. The article puts the lie to legislators' claims that English

is part of our blood

, as Senator Lamar Alexander recently put it.

The article ends eloquently,

America has always been a diverse and fast-changing land, home to over-lapping cultures and languages. It's an homage to our history, not a betrayal of it, to welcomet he latest arrivals, just as the Indians did those tardy and uninvited Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth not so long ago.

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Posted at 7:30 AM, Jul 10, 2006 in Immigration
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