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32 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Demythologizing Immigration, December 17, 2007
This review is from: They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration (Paperback)
What a timely and important book. Aviva Chomsky takes on what she believes are the 21 most common misperceptions about immigrants. She looks at economic objections such as the claims that immigrants drain the economy, take away jobs and drive down wages; legal ones such as the claim that the U.S. already as a too-generous refugee policy; racial ones such as the claim that immigrants threaten our national identity and won't learn English; and security ones such as the claim that immigrants make us particularly susceptible to terrorist attacks.
The interesting thing about these misperceptions is that they all have a ring of plausibility, and it's to Chomsky's credit that she takes them seriously enough to examine them in detail. Moreover, her examination isn't a simplistic "no, that's wrong" kind of approach. One of the best qualities of her treatment is that she helps the reader to put claims about immigration into a broader context.
For example, Chomsky points out that while it's true that real wages for laborers are dropping in this country, it isn't because immigrants are driving them down. It's because of the last few years' general flow of wealth in the U.S. towards the top, which is leaving almost everyone except the very wealthiest in the lurch. Or what about the misperception that immigrants won't assimilate into our culture and hence are jeopardizing our national identity? Chomsky offers statistics that show that immigrants of color in fact do try to assimilate just as much as white ones, but that assimilation for them is complicated by the fact that it almost always means "downward mobility."
Chomsky's book is clearly written from a progressive viewpoint, and her conclusions, I'm sure, will anger many. But her book is valuable because it invites a more reflective dialogue about immigration than we've had in this country for a long time--and certain since 9/11. With presidential elections coming up, that dialogue is even more important.
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23 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An emotional issue... this adds to the debate, September 2, 2007
This review is from: They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration (Paperback)
Let me state upfront a couple of things: I am one of those immigrants, I have been a 20+ years green card holder, coming over from Belgium in the mid-80s (and working to become a US citizen in the near future); and I look at things from both a pro-business perspective, and a practical perspective.
In "Take Take Our Jobs! and 20 Other Myths about Immigration" (264 pages), author Aviva Chomsky (an outspoken advocate of immigrants' rights, primarily illegal immigrants) tackles an issue that has become an emotional issue and examines the past and today. Even though I disagree with a few of the basic premises the author has about America in general (such as it being a white Anglo-saxon society bent on imposing its will on other countries), I do agree with the author's premise that (i) immigration is a good thing for the country as a whole, even if it is "illegal" in certain aspects and (ii) immigration policy has been a mess. Let's be honest: we're not going to expell 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the country. For one, they do jobs nobody else wants to do, and for another, it's completely impractical, if not impossible. The other aspect is that we desperatly need more legal immigrants from places like India and China, filling gaps that we have in the business community, as there are simply not enough US college grads for the needs we have. Let's face it, we are not primarily a manufacturing society anymore, but a service soceity. The current quotas for such immigrants are woefully inadequate, and are hurting our economy.
Our congressional leaders, make that "leaders", in Washington have done a horrible job in addressing this issue. President Bush has tried to make some sense of it, and was shut down, primarily by his own party no less! Back to the book, the author brings a lot of interesting historical perspectives, and the last part of the book "The Debate At the Turn of the Millenium" is the best part of the book, even if I dont always agree with her. This is the type of book that should be required reading for HS juniors and seniors, and college students as well. This is an important issue, and this book provides a good addition to the debate, regardless whether one agrees 100% with the author's viewpoint.
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15 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
should be mandatory reading, September 16, 2007
This review is from: They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration (Paperback)
Aviva Chomsky's "They Take Our Jobs!" should be mandatory reading in high schools. Cleanly organized into 21 chapters - one for each myth, as well as an extra one in there at the end - the volume serves as a quick, crystal-clear introduction to immigration issues.
Chomsky makes it clear that the same imperialist, exploitative, racist, capitalistic policies that have plagued our immigration system's history are still very much alive today, albeit in somewhat modified, disguised - and perhaps more insidious - forms. And even more importantly, she puts immigration in perspective - not as a mysterious threat being perpetrated against "real Americans" by some destructive foreign menace, but as a dynamic, natural process, informed by history, and even demanded by our current economic practices.
With Chomsky's credentials (she's a professor of history and coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State College, with 25 years' experience in Latin American solidarity and immigrants' rights issues - and she happens to be Noam Chomsky's eldest daughter) and the book's reliance on statistical data and reputable studies, it's hard not to view her suggestions for reform as authoritative. If every American - not just high schoolers, but our elected officials - read this concise, well-documented primer, we just might find ourselves overhauling our system.
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