How immigrants will change America

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the Chronicle of Higher Education,

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

A glance at the spring issue of The American Interest: How immigrants will
change America

 With immigration reform at the center of a national debate, it is worth
noting how American culture is being restructured by the immigrant
population, says Joel Kotkin, a senior fellow at the New America
Foundation, a nonpartisan public-policy center.  One need only to look at
the fast-food industry to witness how immigrants are reshaping the
economy, says Mr. Kotkin. The industry, "an invention of mainstream
American burger-and-fries culture -- has been mastered by ethnic
businesses," he writes. Take Panda Express, with its 600 stores, which he
calls "the most ubiquitous among Chinese fast-food start-ups."  The chain
"produces Chinese food the way McDonald's makes hamburgers, Starbucks does
coffee, and Wal-Mart sells just about everything else," he says. Its goal
is to open 10,000 stores, and not only market to non-Asians, but primarily
employ non-Asian personnel, he says. "Panda Express's drive to become the
next Starbucks or McDonald's reflects how the multiculturalism of the
streets shifts American culture through the marketplace. As Chinese food
moves from the odd shop to the mall, it becomes more a part of American
culture," writes Mr. Kotkin.

This cultural reshaping is being accelerated by geographic trends such as
the movement of more immigrants into the suburbs, he says. Minorities now
account for 27 percent of "the once lily-white suburbs," he notes. He
writes that "as kids grow up in mixed-race suburbs and experience
diversity ... they will create what, for lack of better word, is a
'blended' ethnic culture." This shift, he says, will also be influenced by
trends such as increases in interracial marriages -- particularly among
second- and third-generation Latinos and Asians -- and a preference by the
children of many immigrants for speaking English. Indeed, he writes, "the
emerging American national reality will not be shaped by the
pronouncements of either left-wing academics or conservative political
warlords." Rather, it will be the "product of the street-level trends that
operate below the radar of intellectuals, just as it always has."

The article, "The Multiculturalism of the Streets," is available to
subscribers or for purchase on the journal's Web site.

--Jason M. Breslow

http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/04/2006041901j.htm