Customer Reviews

The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again

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Every American who wants to understand the hope for our future and the destructive attitudes and policies of our elites toward integration and assimilation needs to read this book. Everyone who wants to understand the difference between Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and America should read this book.

This is a breathtaking tour of how American weaves a pattern of achievement and opportunity and how various ethnic groups have responded and are responding to it. The heart of Barone's thesis is that America has successfully integrated and assimilated people of different backgrounds, and that there are patterns to that assimilation that are working for 21st century new Americans just as they worked for the 19th and 20th century American immigrants. Barone asserts that the modern elite's attitude toward group identity, opposition to middle class society, and assertion of racial grievances actually retards the process of assimilation. He regards most bilingual education as a political spoils system for bilingual teachers, which actually hurts the very people it is designed to help. He notes that patterns of intermarriage and upward mobility in income and education are creating assimilative patterns even as university elites seek to divide young Americans by race and teach them to focus on historic grievances rather than future opportunities.

It is impossible in a short review to do justice to the brilliance of Barone's writing, the depth of his research, or the clarity of his examples. His parallels between Irish and African Americans, Italian and Latino immigrants and Jews and Asians are profound and extraordinarily thought provoking.

Barone thesis that the "new" groups (blacks, latinos, and asians) pursuit of the american dream runs parallel to earlier groups; (Irish & blacks, Italians & latinos, Jews & asians) is a well argued case. His arguement that blacks (or african americans if you perfer) belong in the "new" group becasue it was only in the 50's and 60' that the death of "Jim Crow" gave them the full rights of Americans everywhere is well made. There are several revelations here for modern americans who decended from these groups (not the least that Italians were not considered "white" and that all three groups were considered different races.) and these revelations should be noted and remembered by those who achieved the American dream thanks to the efforts of their grandfathers and grandmothers. It is an optomistic book about an optomistic future for this country and it argues that the growing pains of assemilation which every past ethnic group went through is the same pain that we their decendants don't recognize in others. He believes it will pass and in the end the genius of the concept of America will prevail for the benefit of all. I like the arguement and despite the time, happily subscribe to it. READ IT

Some of the criticisms of Mr. Barone's work, mostly from the anti-immigration nativists, seem to me to be wholly misguided. What Mr. Barone is encouraging people to do is to think differently about how America views immigration AND race. I think he clearly, and devastatingly, shows that today's victim-oriented, quota-based debate hurts the people it's designed to help. He also encourages Americans to be more hopeful about the ability of society to slowly assimilate different 'races' (he makes the point frequently that Jews and the Irish were once thought of as a 'race') and the ability of those 'races' to succeed in America.

I took this as a treatise much less on immigration policy than on what truly works for all American families to succeed. At it's core, it remains uncomplicated: a strong family structure, desire to succeed in school and an interest in success in the entreprenurial world. Very rarely is it about government programs, set-asides or quotas.

Reviewing Norman Podhoretz passionate "My Love Affair with America," Thomas Sowell remarked that if gifts were exchanged on the 4th of July, the book would make an ideal present. The same can be said about Michael Barone's immigration chronicle, "The New Americans."

For some reason, a number of conservatives have chosen to highlight the problems of illegal immigration as an excuse to advocate curtailing legal arrivals. Many liberals have sententiously denounced attempts to penalize illegal immigrants while surepttiiously erecting roadblocks wherever possible. Michael Barone writes from the right, and he properly sees that immigration has always been and will always be a major plus for America. Throughout the work, he happily acknowledges that the United States is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious land. It has never been a multi-cultural region, and pestiferous forces that are presently striving to make it such must be fought at all levels. This is not to say that every American citizen needs to become a carbon copy of each other; rather we all, despite our differences, need to blend together--giving a little, taking a little to enrich the one American culture.

America has succeeded so admirably for 200+ years largely because we rejected the vagaries now championed by multiculturalists. The melting pot brought all immigrants together, unlike the situations in Lebanon, the Balkans, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and other places synonymous with the horrors of group vs. group ideology. As politically incorrect as the concept has become, assimilation is the only way for burgeoning immigration to succeed. Fortunately many immigrants know this. Barone quotes California Professor Gregory Rodriguez who says of Latin American arrivals, "we are assimilating ourselves." Rodriguez also scoffs at the bizarre notion of a Latino minority as if all immigrants from Guatemala, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and the rest of South and Central America form a heterogeneous group. Barone, himself points out how the fixation on racial classifications has trivialized the distinctions between the many disparate European nationalities.

White supremacists and diversity advocates constantly remind us that the minority population is expanding, and the question of how the growth of different races will impact us weighs heavily upon both groups of alarmists. Barone documents how the Irish, the Italians and the Jews were each once viewed as a separate and in many cases inferior race as well. He sites locations in the south were "No Blacks or Italians" signs were posted. Luckily through natural assimilation practices, these canards eventually disintegrated.

The work is a triumvirate of comparisons--Blacks to Irish---Italians to Latinos--and Jews to Asians. In each section he compares such issues as family, religion, crime, work, the journey that brought them there, the impetus for them to leave, politics, and uniqueness. Striking similarities exist for each grouping of the trio. The success of each of first arrived pair of each group makes an airtight case for the melting pot and an intelligent argument against multicultural fads. As America passes its 225th birthday, the Statue of Liberty still holds a torch welcoming tempest tossed souls. Dire predictions may abound, but she knows how to stir the melting pot.

Those who are worried about the future of our nation's culture will be reassured by Barone's thoughtful book. Drawing heavily on the scholarship of such thinkers as Sowell, Fukuyama, and the Thernstroms, he makes a compelling argument that today's generation of immigrants strongly resembles those of the last century. No-one today would consider the Irish, the Italians, or the Jews to be anything but an asset to American society. Yet a century ago each of those groups was considered a threat to the American way of life. Today, the Latinos and Asians are viewed by many in the same way. Blacks are treated by Barone as an immigrant group in that they have made a mass migration from the rural South to the industrial North, thus starting over in a new culture. Each of these immigrant groups shares many similarities with the three fully assimilated groups from the prior century. Barone makes a forceful case that the success of last century's immigrants resulted from both their cultural capital of survival traits and their assimilation with the dominant culture. As someone who bristles at the worship of "diversity", I must say that I found his analysis very reassuring. I agree, however, with one of the critics on this board that he should have been a bit more circumspect at interweaving his personal political opinion, though I probably agree with him in most matters.

With all the agitation around immigration it is important to have as much actual information as possible rather than getting sucked in by old impressions and media slant. Michael Barone is one of our generation's treasures. He knows a great deal about our country and its politics because he has devoted a lifetime to the study of our history, our culture, and our politics. He says what he says the way he says it in order to inform rather than couching things carefully to win you to a certain point of view.

This book shows us that immigration has caused national concern in the past, that the concept of race, always useless and harmful, was once extended to the Irish and Italians, and that the integration of these groups into our national identity took many decades. Our present perspective on the mix of "nationalities" does not represent how it appeared to our ancestors any more than our present views will be held by our descendants.

That isn't to say that there aren't cultural differences. Some help the immigrating people to do well in the American culture, and others slow integration and hold back economic progress. Barone is not shy in letting us know what the facts are about the actual history of these groups as they made their migrations. However, much of what he says will surprise you because the facts do not agree with popular media representations or the popular myths many of us have accepted all our lives because we were told them as children.

Barone points out how similar our immigration issues today are to those on 1900. He compares how the African-American migration from the south over the past 50 years is quite similar to what the Irish experiences more than a century ago and why. He compares the Italian experience with Latinos today (while admitting that the number of Latinos coming into our nation is unprecedented by any previous migration), and that the Jewish experience in becoming part of the American mainstream has interesting parallels with the Asian progress of the past several decades.

This book will inform you and affirm your comfort with the idea of immigration in America. Barone does NOT address the issues about controlling our borders. Nor does he focus on the economic costs of our welfare society and uncontrolled immigration. His focus is on the realities of past immigrations, that it was not all easy and simple in the past so we can't expect it to be easy and simple today, but that America has a great power to mainstream the second and third generation of immigrants. Let's home his positive attitude is correct. I found the actual history of American immigration to be fascinating and quite different than my notions of it were. For this alone, you should read this book.

Given the importance of immigration in our current national debate, if you want to be sure that you have the right information to understand the issues you need to read this book. I urge you to get a copy and read it from cover to cover. It is not hard to read. In fact, I found it to be a page turner and full of great information.

Strongly recommended!

Mike Barone's knowledge is encyclopedic and his writing style is breezy and accessible (although this book feels a bit under-edited, as if the publisher had a reason to rush it into production). Even for someone well-versed in the history of a particular group of immigrants -- say, the Jews or the Italians -- there will be numerous surprises and even a few "aha" moments; for those who know little or nothing about about past or present immigrants, this book is a treasure trove. However, much of the book's success as history is undermined by its failure as political science. Barone's preachy, right-wing point of view, especially in his chapter on African-Americans (where he excoriates the evils of affirmative action) and the chapter on Hispanic-Americans (where he lashes out at the evils of multi-lingualism). These faults aside, the book does a good job of substantiating its thesis that the American melting pot has worked before and has a decent chance of working again.

I understand more about the melting pot and why there is a great future for America. The new immigrants are bringing the same great characteristics the old immigrants did.

AND

If any of your ancestors immigrated to America and you wonder why your nationality is more or less successful than the others, this book will help you understand. I finally found out why most of the Italian immigrants never urged their children to stay in school. None of my aunts and uncles graduated high school.

America has long been known for racial diversity, yet as waves of immigrants continue to arrive, many wonder if that diversity has been overwhelmed by differences. Political historian Michael Barone says that the new Americans can be interwoven into American life as easily as they have in the past - and in New Americans he deftly outlines assimilation lessons of the past which can be applied to modern times.

Barone writes a good book with a simple thesis: that today's immigrants will assimilate into America as well as immigrants did a century and more ago. He compares and contrasts three pairs; Irish and Blacks - Latinos and Italians - and Jews and Asians. His treatment is a straight forward rendering where he describes the old country from whence they immigrated, the crisis that caused them to uproot and come here, there means of employment once here, their family life, their religious practices, their proclivity toward crime and social disruptiveness, their distinctive traits, their educational aspirations, their impact on sports and entertainment and their political associations. Barone does all this with a facile use of statistics and an economy of verbiage.

Because he's politically from the Right Barone sees the rule of law and private property rights as the magnet attracting those who would better the lives of they and their family. This is due to American exceptionalism and its system for diffusion of power that Balint Vazsonyi describes in his book, "America's 30 Years War: Who's Winning?". It's the chance to build wealth without having the local mafia chief steal it from you. Think Taliban.

These immigrants are often the best that a country has to offer up and the first wave or two are usually the most productive both for themselves and society. Barone's contention is that the differing "habits of mind (worldview)" these people bring with them is usually diffused after two or three generations into American idealism and its capacious opportunities.

Those who view the world through a lens of class struggle and minority grievances will find fault with Barone as he doesn't engage in the typical bleeding heart dogma of Left wing savants. He in fact excoriates those who claim the "Vision of the Anointed", the title of a book by Thomas Sowell depicting the Left in all its fatuousness. Wizened followers of this debate know that the curtain came down on 9-11-01 for the Blame America crowd as it signaled the end of the 1960's New Left, and its poisoness philosophy, as a viable movement.

Barone's book is very informative and a pleasure to read. Don't try to make more of it than what it is which is sufficient in and of itself.