Stranger
Page 15
I also have to thank the multitude of researchers who provided me with the data and analysis with which to understand both immigrants and the growing Hispanic community. Much of the book is based on studies conducted by the Pew Research Center, the Migration Policy Institute, and the American Immigration Council and on Census Bureau statistics, among many other sources. Beyond the important surveys and data, I always give credit to the researchers. They are the ones leading the way.
Cristóbal Pera of Penguin Random House put all of his trust in this book before he had even read a single word. He is the one who wisely suggested that we give it the same title—Stranger—in both Spanish and English.
Ezra Fitz has translated so many of my books into English that sometimes I think I’m actually writing for him. Ezra is an amphibian extraordinaire. I write my books in Spanish, but his tremendous talent (and speed!) has allowed me to get to where I am in English. Ezra is the one who builds bridges.
Andrés Echavarría did all the necessary juggling so that I would have the time I needed—almost a year—to write this book. His enthusiasm for journalism and his incredible organization are the first things I see every morning when I get to the office.
Chiqui’s passion for books, her unabashed feminism, her ever-present love, her practical advice, and her patience—granting me many months alone in front of the computer—made this latest delivery possible. Thank you again.
Several of the ideas appearing in these pages were first discussed with my daughter, Paola. It has been one of the greatest sources of pride and satisfaction that I have ever had, both as a writer and as a father.
Paola and Nicolás know that they are the two most important things in my life and that deep down everything I do is for them and because of them. The three of us learned to love this nation at the same time. If I want the United States to become even better, it is fundamentally for them and their generation.
Notes
PROLOGUE
born to minority parents: D’Vera Cohn, It’s Official: Minority Babies Are the Majority among the Nation’s Infants, but Only Just (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, June 23, 2016), 23, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/23/its-official-minority-babies-are-the-majority-among-the-nations-infants-but-only-just/.
GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY
“When Mexico sends its people”: Washington Post staff, “Full Text: Donald Trump Announces a Presidential Bid,” Washington Post, June 16, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/?utm_term=.9d6229cd87a1.
“@Univision said they don’t like Trump”: Hollywood Reporter staff, “Donald Trump Bans Univision Staff from His Properties, Publishes Anchor’s Phone Number,” Hollywood Reporter, June 26, 2015, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/donald-trump-bans-univision-staff-805464; Jordan Chariton, “Donald Trump–Univision Battle Gets Nastier as Mogul Posts Jorge Ramos’ Cell Phone Number, Bans Staffers,” Media Alley (blog), The Wrap, June 29, 2015, https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-univision-battles-gets-nastier-as-mogul-posts-jorge-ramos-cell-phone-number-bans-staffers/.
come by plane or overstay their visas: Pew Hispanic Center, Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant Population (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, May 22, 2006), http://www.pewhispanic.org/2006/05/22/modes-of-entry-for-the-unauthorized-migrant-population/.
my first exchange with Trump: “Donald Trump Throws Fusion Anchor Jorge Ramos out of His Press Conference,” YouTube, August 25, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AghbhqhHMgs.
my chance to confront Trump: “Jorge Ramos Presses Donald Trump on Immigration at Iowa Press Conference,” YouTube, August 26, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD0PwbMdW7Y.
Romney earned only 27 percent of the Latino vote: Mark Hugo Lopez and Paul Taylor, Latino Voters in the 2012 Election (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, November 7, 2012), 4, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2012/11/2012_Latino_vote_exit_poll_analysis_final_11-09.pdf; see also http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/11/07/latino-voters-in-the-2012-election/.
31 percent of the Hispanic vote: Mark Hugo Lopez, The Hispanic Vote in the 2008 Election (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, November 7, 2008), i, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/reports/98.pdf; see also http://www.pewhispanic.org/2008/11/05/the-hispanic-vote-in-the-2008-election/.
27.3 million registered Latino voters: Jens Manuel Krogstad, Key Facts about the Latino Vote in 2016 (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, October 14, 2016), http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/14/key-facts-about-the-latino-vote-in-2016/.
FAR FROM HOME
Spanish author Javier Cercas: Javier Cercas, La verdad de Agamenón (Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 2006), 70.
“the decision to migrate”: John F. Kennedy, A Nation of Immigrants (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 4.
STRANGER
2010 Fortune 500 company founders: Partnership for a New American Economy, The “New American” Fortune 500 (New York: Partnership for a New American Economy, June 2011), 2, 6, http://research.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/new-american-fortune-500-june-2011.pdf.
“somebody else’s babies”: Mahita Gajanan, “Rep. Steve King Tweets Support for Far-Right Dutch Politician: ‘Culture and Demographics Are Our Destiny,’ ” Time, March 12, 2017, http://time.com/4699168/steve-king-supports-dutch-politician/.
MY ROAD NORTH
Mexican presidents were chosen por dedazo: Tim Weiner, “The Mexican Election: The Defeated; Political Machine Dependent on Power Loses Its Power,” New York Times, July 4, 2000, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/04/world/mexican-election-defeated-political-machine-dependent-power-loses-its-power.html.
rapid growth in the Hispanic population: Antonio Flores, Gustavo López, and Jynnah Radford, Facts on U.S. Latinos, 2015: Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States, Trend Data (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, September 18, 2017), table 1-trend, “Population, by Race and Ethnicity: 1980–2015,” http://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/09/18/facts-on-u-s-latinos-trend-data/.
THE REVOLUTION IS HERE
non-Hispanic whites will cease to be the majority: Sandra L. Colby and Jennifer M. Ortman, Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060, Current Population Reports, P25-1143 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, March 2015), 1, 9, https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143.pdf.
2044 projections: William H. Frey, “New Projections Point to a Majority Minority Nation in 2044,” The Avenue (blog), Brookings Institution, December 12, 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2014/12/12/new-projections-point-to-a-majority-minority-nation-in-2044/.
non-Hispanic whites…Latino and Asian populations: Colby and Ortman, Projections of the Size and Composition of the U.S. Population: 2014 to 2060, 9, table 2.
Projections indicate that Hispanics will jump: U.S. Census Bureau, 2014 National Population Projections Tables (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2014), table 10, “Projections of the Population by Sex, Hispanic Origin, and Race for the United States: 2015 to 2060,” https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2014/demo/popproj/2014-summary-tables.html; see in particular https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popproj/tables/2014/2014-summary-tables/np2014-t10.xls.
“the future is ours!”: 1984 Cesar Chavez Address to the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco, November 9, 1984, Cesar Chavez Foundation, Keene, California, http://chavezfoundation.org/_cms.php?mode=view&b_code=001008000000000&b_no=16&page=1&field=&key=&n=8.
15 million Latinos to 14.9 million non-Hispanic whites: Phillip Reese and Stephen Magagnini, “Census: Hispanics Overtake Whites to Become California’s Largest Ethnic Group,” Sac
ramento Bee, June 30, 2015, http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article25940218.html; Morning Edition, “Census Data Confirms: Hispanics Outnumber Whites in California” (Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio, July 7, 2015), https://www.npr.org/2015/07/07/420769494/census-data-confirms-hispanics-outnumber-whites-in-california.
Latinos will represent 18 percent: Vanessa Cárdenas and Sophia Kerby, “The State of Latinos in the United States: Although This Growing Population Has Experienced Marked Success, Barriers Remain,” Race and Ethnicity (blog), Center for American Progress, August 2012, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2012/08/08/11984/the-state-of-latinos-in-the-united-states/.
“Stories about Latinos”…4.1 percent of the directors: Frances Negrón-Muntaner, with Chelsea Abbas, Luis Figueroa, and Samuel Robson, The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in U.S. Media, Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (New York: Columbia University, 2014), 3, https://fusiondotnet.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/latino_media_gap_report.pdf.
HATRED
“a theory of ‘activation’ ”: Sanam Malik, “When Public Figures Normalize Hate,” Race and Ethnicity (blog), Center for American Progress, March 25, 2016, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2016/03/25/134070/when-public-figures-normalize-hate/.
hate groups in the country: Southern Poverty Law Center, Hate Map, 2016, https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map.
anti-Muslim groups…Ku Klux Klan: Mark Potok, The Year in Hate and Extremism, Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama, February 2017, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2017/year-hate-and-extremism.
“The glorification of one race”: James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Dial Press, 1963), 82.
“hate groups rail against non-white immigration”: Abraham H. Foxman, foreword to A Nation of Immigrants, by John F. Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
“get the people that are criminal”: Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Julia Preston, “What Donald Trump’s Vow to Deport up to 3 Million Immigrants Would Mean,” New York Times, November 14, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/donald-trump-deport-immigrants.html?_r=1.
three hundred thousand undocumented immigrants: Muzaffar Chishti and Michelle Mittelstadt, Unauthorized Immigrants with Criminal Convictions: Who Might Be a Priority for Removal? (Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute, November 2016), https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/unauthorized-immigrants-criminal-convictions-who-might-be-priority-removal.
11.2 million undocumented immigrants: Sara Kehaulani Goo, Unauthorized Immigrants: Who They Are and What the Public Thinks (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, January 15, 2015), http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/immigration/.
8.6 percent of adult U.S. citizens: Sarah Shannon, Christopher Uggen, Melissa Thompson, Jason Schnittker, and Michael Massoglia, Growth in the U.S. Ex-Felon and Ex-Prisoner Population, 1948 to 2010 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2011), 12, paa2011.princeton.edu/papers/111687.
undocumented population…those who were born in the United States: Walter Ewing, Daniel E. Martínez, and Rubén G. Rumbaut, The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States (Washington, D.C.: American Immigration Council, July 13, 2015), 1, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/the_criminalization_of_immigration_in_the_united_states.pdf; see also https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states.
immigrants added $54.2 billion to the U.S. economy from 1994 to 2013: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2017), 171, https://download.nap.edu/cart/download.cgi?record_id=23550; see also https://doi.org/10.17226/23550.
immigrants earn approximately $240 billion a year: Laura Reston, “Immigrants Don’t Drain Welfare. They Fund It,” New Republic, September 3, 2015, https://newrepublic.com/article/122714/immigrants-dont-drain-welfare-they-fund-it; Jessica Lavariega Monforti, “Immigration: Trends, Demographics, and Patterns of Political Incorporation,” in Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity, and Religion: Identity Politics in America, ed. Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Dorraj Manochehr (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 95, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Lavariega_Monforti/publication/269635089_Immigration_Trends_Demographics_and_Patterns_of_Political_Incorporation/links/5490e3170cf214269f27d5ab/Immigration-Trends-Demographics-and-Patterns-of-Political-Incorporation.pdf?origin=publication_detail.
THERE IS NO INVASION
11.3 million undocumented immigrants in 2016: Pew Hispanic Center, Unauthorized Immigrant Population in the United States, 1990–2016 (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, May 3, 2017), http://www.pewhispanic.org/chart/unauthorized-immigrant-population-in-the-united-states-1990-2016/.
Mexicans living in the United States…sixteen million Mexicans migrated: Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S. (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, November 19, 2015), 5, 7, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2015/11/2015-11-19_mexican-immigration_FINAL.pdf; see also http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/.
“principles of equality and human dignity”: John F. Kennedy, Letter to the President of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House on Revision of the Immigration Laws, July 23, 1963, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9355.
Wall Street Journal report: Neil Shah, “Immigrants to U.S. from China Top Those from Mexico,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/immigrants-to-u-s-from-china-top-those-from-mexico-1430699284; see also Eric Jensen, “China Replaces Mexico as the Top Sending Country for Immigrants to the United States,” Research Matters (blog), U.S. Census Bureau, May 1, 2015, https://census.gov/newsroom/blogs/research-matters/2015/05/china-replaces-mexico-as-the-top-sending-country-for-immigrants-to-the-united-states.html.
A USELESS WALL
Mexico and the United States share a border: Sarah Trumble and Nathan Kasai, “The State of the Southern Border,” Third Way, February 2, 2017, http://www.thirdway.org/memo/the-state-of-the-southern-border; Richard Misrach, “Surreal Photos Show Walls Dividing U.S. and Mexico,” National Geographic, September 2017, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/proof-border-wall-united-states-mexico/.
“border communities”…“much safer than Washington D.C. or Chicago”: Julián Aguilar and Alexa Ura, “Border Communities Have Lower Crime Rates,” Texas Tribune, February 23, 2016, https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/23/border-communities-have-lower-crime-rates/.
“very safe, very secure area”: Testimony of Sheriff Tony Estrada to Congressman Raul Grijalva’s Congressional Ad-Hoc Hearing, Office of the Sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Nogales, Arizona, September 13, 2013, https://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/Sheriff%20Tony%20Estrada.pdf; see also https://www.acluaz.org/en/press-releases/arizona-congressman-us-mexico-border-district-hear-regional-stakeholders.
24.6 million Americans: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Drug Facts, National Survey on Drug Use and Health (Bethesda, MD.: National Institute on Drug Abuse, June 2015), https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends.
a “scar”: Carlos Fuentes, The Old Gringo (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1985), 185.
“that fucking wall”: Jorge Ramos, “Former Mexican President to Donald Trump: ‘I’m not Going to Pay for That Fucking Wall,’ ” America with Jorge Ramos, February 25, 2015, https://fusion.net/story/273374/former-mexican-president-to-donald-trump-not-paying-for-that-fucking-wall/.
between $12 billion and $15 billion: Tom LoBianco, Manu Raju, a
nd Ted Barrett, “McConnell: Border Wall Will Cost $12B–$15B,” CNNPolitics, January 26, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/border-wall-costs-republican-retreat/index.html.
barely 150,000 immigrants: Kennedy, A Nation of Immigrants, 17.
a visionary study…demographic tsunami: Pew Research Center, Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change through 2065: Views of Immigration’s Impact on U.S. Society Mixed (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, September 2015), 7–8, 10, 23, http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2015/09/2015-09-28_modern-immigration-wave_REPORT.pdf; see also http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/modern-immigration-wave-brings-59-million-to-u-s-driving-population-growth-and-change-through-2065/.
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL
“No human being is illegal”: Elie Wiesel, “The Refugee,” in Sanctuary: A Resource Guide for Understanding and Participating in the Central American Refugees’ Struggle, ed. Gary MacEoin (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 10.