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They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths about Immigration

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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.

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.

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.

So many times I have wished to challenge the position of those tight-fisted angry people who want 12 million immigrants deported immediately and a huge fence built along both our borders. However, I never had the arguments at my fingertips to counter their charges that immigrants use up our resources, take US jobs, and give nothing in return. This book makes it easy to understand how immigration improves our country and could contribute to our future if we only treated immigrants as potential contributors to our national wealth and power. Right now, businesses need poor immigrants one down in order to exploit them, but Chomsky points to a better world in which all workers, including Americans, could work for a fairer economic model here in the US.

There may well be myths regarding immigration, but Prof. Chomsky does a poor job identifying and addressing these myths. The book essentially argues that we should have no policies that limit immigration.
The first and deep rooted problem with Chomsky's analysis is that she redefines the problem from illegal immigrants to all immigrants. This allows her to confound issues and arguments and ignore the actual context to the current immigration issues. As the data she references (page 160) shows, Americans today have a generally positive attitude towards immigrants - but they are clearly negative about illegal immigrants. This confounding of issues undermines much of her analysis.
The second problem is that Prof Chomsky frames the entire issue as if her 21 myths exist only in the United States. There is little detailed comparative analysis. Does she really think Canada and Mexico have open borders? This lack of a detailed comparative analysis leads to the third problem - Prof Chomsky has real difficulties with the fact that nation states exist.
The analysis of the first myth and title of the book illustrates the weaknesses of Chomsky's style of analysis. Chomsky deconstructs the words in the supposed myth - Immigrants take American Jobs. She argues that there are two fallacies. Fallacy #1 there are no American jobs because "today's economy is so globally integrated that the idea of jobs having a national identity is practically useless." This is pure sophistry and is completely irrelevant to the concerns that ordinary people have about the ongoing flood of illegal immigrants. Fallacy #2: "The notion that immigration and immigrants reduce the number of jobs available to people already in the United States" is a fallacy because the supply of jobs is elastic wrt population growth and besides jobs are part of a global economy. That is the sum total of her argument. It simply neither frames the issue nor addresses it. It is clever so long as you do not ask the simple and direct question "Would Americans take the jobs that illegal immigrants actually hold?" But this is not Myth #1: It is framed as Myth #2 - yup, it is a bit confusing. It is even more confusing because Prof Chomsky after a meandering tour through the role of "legal" immigrants in low paying jobs in the American economy re-asks the question: "Do immigrants compete with low-skilled workers for low-paying jobs? Yes." Since this is largely Myth #1 as well, I infer that she is saying that both Myth #1 and Myth #2 are not in fact myths! Prof. Chomsky gets out of this bind by arguing that illegal immigrants and low-paid non-immigrant workers all suffer from the manipulation of the labor market by businesses aided and abetted by the government. Which may or may not be true, but it does not address the accuracy of the propositions she has framed as myths.
If we look at Myth #8 - The country is being overrun by illegal immigrants, the same pattern of not addressing the issue as plainly stated continues. Chomsky somehow believes that this myth is debunked because 11 million illegal or undocumented immigrants are only 11 million with some being married and some not being married. She does not even address the impact of this huge number of immigrants on the border states of California and Arizona.
Myth #21 hardly qualifies as a myth - "The problems this book raises are so huge that there's nothing we can do about them". Chomsky's diagnosis is that we have these immigration problems because of capitalism. She makes the plainly unsupported assertion that "in a more equal world, border issues would cease to hold the importance that they do." She argues that the European Union supports this contention. It is doubtful that Romanians who are being sent back to Romania from France and the French for that matter see the world exactly the same way that Prof. Chomsky does. She then argues that since people can flow between States in the United States then "it is entirely possible for open borders to coexist with orderly administration and a state of law." In short, Prof Chomsky's solution to the problem is to define it away by hypothesizing a world without nation states thereby removing the need for immigration policies. If this sounds a little over-simplified that is because it is. In my mind, doing something about the existence of nation states and capitalism is a pretty tall order. Again this seems more like reality than a myth.
Like most Marxists, Prof. Chomsky has a difficult time dealing with reality; she finesses the real issues of illegal immigration. Her "myths" remain the consequences of the failure to enforce reasonable controls on the flow of immigrants.
If she wanted to help those driven to risk everything to get to America, then she should use her intellect and energy to create jobs in Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia. I contend that she has a better chance of creating 11 million jobs than doing away with nation states.

I suppose we should be thankful for freedom of speech on the Interweb. Otherwise, how could someone write a review of a book that he admittedly skimmed and then cite obviously fabricated statistics about jobs and the stock market? Anyone who continues to support the current administration has either suffered a serious head injury or is so filled with hatred for anything resembling the truth that he should get into some sort of twelve-step program. What more can I say besides, "Read this book if you want to know something real about the issue of immigration--legal or illegal."

The wonderful title of this immigration book is revealing and enticing. Its argument and assumptions are also revealing and to me much less enticing.
The technique of starting with the "myths" about immigration, or any topic, and then exposing that the myths are not grounded in facts is a very good way of writing a persuasive book. The myths that Chomsky chooses to debunk are the ones that are most often heard.
* Immigrants drive down wages
* Immigrants don't pay taxes
* We are being overrun by immigrants
* The US has always welcomed immigrants
* And seventeen more.
Some of the books arguments are very convincingly constructed. She takes the idea "I am not opposed to immigration I'm opposed to illegal immigration." Shows that before 1924 there were no illegal immigrants from Europe because the laws making it illegal hadn't been written yet. She then draws a parallel to the civil right struggle and shows that immigration laws discriminate against brown people. History she concludes will honor people who don't obey discriminatory laws.
Her other methods of debunking the myths however will not convince many of the people who now oppose immigration and immigrants. She often fails to put things in historic or relative perspective. For instance she claims that late 19th century US immigration policy regarding Asians was racist but doesn't use any perspective by comparing it to other settler nations policies. But the most important thing to know about "Twenty Myths is that Chomsky sees the world through a Marxist lens. She sees the producers as exploiters, the business organizer as evil and the labor organizer as good. Her book is full of assumptions about the evil intents of business. She writes "In many industries, employers seek to reduce costs by employing the poorest most vulnerable people." The same facts could be written: "In many industries, employers seek to reduce costs by hiring new workers at low wages so that they can offer their customers the low cost goods they demand."
Chomsky writes in her conclusion that "High levels of migration are a symptom of a global system that privileges the few at the expense of the many." Would be more accurate if written. For the many high levels of migration are a solution to a global system that privileges the few. Because if migration is allowed people to vote with their feet and go to the places where they feel they can maximize their opportunities.

At the same time that I agreed with Chomsky's conclusions I was steaming mad at many of her arguments and interpretations. "They take our Jobs" is a worthwhile read because it presents the arguments from the left in favor of a more humane immigration policy cogently and concisely.

Thank God for Aviva Chompsky! This is one of the best books you can find on the issue of immigration. Aviva is clear and knowledgeable and should be a guest on every talk show. Serving at a detention center for undocumented youth and being a spiritual advocate for immigrants, I can truly see Chompsky knows what she is writing about. If anyone has questions about the myths of immigration, this book will help you understand what is happening in the U.S and in our world. God bless you Aviva!...as the saying goes...the truth will set you free...Aviva certainly sets us all free with the truth on immigration!
Rev. Mary Moreno Richardson

Aviva Chomsky does a great job skewering fourteen of the twenty myths she strives to debunk - and a so-so job of the last six. This book was assigned for a class, and was a useful adjunct to the main text.

In a quasi-FAQ manner, the book addresses each myth in turn, rapidly debunking many of the regular pablums of the anti-immigrant crowd. Dr. Chomsky provides a lot of data to back up her statements, which is great.

The main failing comes at the end of the book, where the text starts to take a less balanced view of globalization, Westernization, and modernization. The peasant farmer lifestyle is held up in a variation of the "noble savage" fallacy, and there are several cases in the last six where the logic is a little shakier (e.g.: "Reducing American military expeditions will reduce terrorism" instead of "reducing global conflicts will, in turn, reduce terrorism, which is a conflict, proportionately"). But even these are problems with wording, not with content.

The book is better than most texts, though, and addresses the often-expressed concerns of real people instead of some ivory-tower theory.

THIS IS A BOOK THAT EVERYONE SHOULD READ. ESPECIALLY HOSE WHO FORGET THAT THEY AND THEIR ANCESTORS OF EUROPEAN DESCENT WERE AND STILL ARE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO THESE SHORES. THIS BOOK SHOULD REMINED THOSE OF THE NARROWMINEDED AND RACIST PERSUASION THAT WE ARE ALL IN SAME BOAT,AND THAT BIG BUSINESS IS THE REAL ENEMY.
gREAT BOOK.