AMBIVALENCE ABOUT IMMIGRATION IN THE USA

Those two documents exemplify this curious ambivalence about immigration in the USA. Indeed on the one hand we find all the good reasons to welcome new immigrants and on the other hand all the factors that push people to refuse entry to the new immigrants.

Some people, ex-immigrant themselves do not welcome new immigrants on some rehashed grounds : in the cartoon they reproach them with taking all their jobs, costing money to health and social services and having too many children, not really wanting to be integrated and to take part in the American society and economy. In the text, Mario Cuomo, then governor of the state of New York expresses his sadness at seeing this renewal of anti-immigrant feeling: “ we can’t afford you, you might take someone’s job”. Indeed this attitude is common to all the rich countries experiencing new economic difficulties: a new country in expansion needs labour and welcomes everybody, all skills being appreciated but an older country with the development of new technology does not need as much labour.

America used to be a new country and is composed of immigrants who helped to build the wealth of the USA: they came at first from Northern Europe , then from Eastern and Southern Europe and finally from the far East, South America etc…Even though in the last wave of important immigration they had more difficulties to integrate American society , they still contributed to its becoming what it is today.

Mario Cuomo , the son of Jamaican immigrants defends the new immigrants by saying they still bring hope, energy , a spirit of enterprise which is at the very core of the American mind. In response to the statement that they take the Americans’ jobs, he claims that 20% of them are in white-collar and professional positions, therefore can immediately invest in America or bring their useful contribution to the development of the country. As to the others, they have saved the textile industry in New York , doing the jobs nobody else wanted , thus avoiding relocations abroad ( for cheaper labour).

However his main argument is that there shouldn’t be this ambivalence about immigration: old and new immigrants are the same, they bring the same values with them, forgotten by the old immigrants who have managed to find their place in the sun. So, according to him, America needs those new immigrants for economic and moral reasons.