Greenspan - ‘Major’ Increase in Immigration Could Aid Economy
El Norte Digest
New California Media, News Digest, Compiled and Edited by Marcelo Ballve, Posted: Feb 20, 2003
“El Norte” is a weekly report on news and views from the Latino press and communities.
Traducción en Español
- Greenspan - ‘Major’ Increase in Immigration Could Aid Economy
- Latino Divorce Rates on the Upswing, Changing Values Cited
- Pollster - Island Leader Spurs Surge In Puerto Rican Voting Power
- Argentine Immigrants Import European-Style Bathroom Plumbing
Greenspan - ‘Major’ Increase in Immigration Could Aid Economy
After U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Allan Greenspan appeared before the Congress, most reports highlighted his blunt criticism of the administration’s plans for new tax cuts. But publications focusing on immigration are highlighting his unexpected statements implying that more immigration could fuel economic growth and help close the budget deficit.
The immigration issues portal ILW.com, in its Immigration Daily newsletter, on Feb. 12 quoted from Greenspan’s semiannual report on monetary policy, which criticized White House plans for almost $700 billion in tax cuts. Greenspan said the policy was risky, and that any growth it spurred may not close the budget deficit.
"Short of a major increase in immigration, economic growth cannot be safely counted upon to eliminate deficits and the difficult choices that will be required to restore fiscal discipline,” said Greenspan’s report, submitted Feb. 11.
Immigration Daily wrote that Greenspan’s statements are “common sense, but will surely startle some.” According to the newsletter, many on both sides of the immigration debate still erroneously view immigrants “as liabilities instead of assets.”
In an interview with El Norte Digest, Randall Caudle, chair of the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, agreed that immigrants energize the economy, and said he believed that economic pressure could eventually lead the Republican-controlled administration and Congress into some kind of easing on restrictions, such as an expanded guest worker program for Mexican workers or a limited amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Latino Divorce Rates on the Upswing, Changing Values Cited
Divorce rates among Latinos almost doubled during the last 30 years, reports Fresno bilingual paper Vida en el Valle. The paper said assimilation to U.S. family values that accept divorce as a fact of life was the most likely explanation for the trend.
Vida en el Valle noted that in many Latin American countries, which are predominantly Catholic, divorce is often taboo, and couples cannot split up without straining their ties with their community, friends, and even families.
The paper interviewed over 100 university students and several Latino social scientists over the climbing divorce rates. The paper found that many Latinos, especially those in the second and third-generation, now did not hesitate as much in severing ties with their partner if there was a problematic marriage.
The report also quoted Ruby García, who teaches courses on the family at Fresno’s California State University, saying that Latinas were also increasingly likely to be economically independent, meaning that they did not stay in bad marriages in order to ensure the welfare of their children.
Between 1970 and 2000, the divorce rate among Latinos almost doubled to 7.1 percent from 3.9 percent, according to U.S. Census figures cited by the newspaper. The figures refer to the percentage of people, of either sex, above the age of 15 who are divorced. Among the general population, the rate of divorce in 2000 was 9.3 percent.
Leticia Reyna, assistant director for alumni at Fresno’s California State University, was quoted as saying: “In the first generation of Hispanics no one is divorced and no one wants to be the first. But for the second and third generation, divorce is common.”
Pollster - Island Leader Spurs Surge In Puerto Rican Voting Power
Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen, one of the nation’s leading Latino pollsters, said that Puerto Rico’s governor has recently helped spur a large increase in voter registration and participation among the millions of Puerto Ricans living in the United States.
Gov. Sila Calderon, who assumed office in 2001, has spent millions in a grass-roots voter mobilization effort.
The governor’s strategy is to raise the political profile of Puerto Ricans in the United States so that the island issues are addressed in U.S. elections. In Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, islanders have automatically received U.S. citizenship at birth since 1917, but cannot vote for U.S. presidents and have no voting representatives in the U.S. Congress.
“Her approach generally was to strengthen the Puerto Rican political presence in the United States … something that Cuban Americans and Jewish Americans have done very well,” Bendixen told El Norte Digest in a Feb. 18 interview.
An estimated 75,000 first-time Puerto Rican voters participated nationwide in the November 2002 elections, according to the exit poll conducted by Bendixen and Associates for Puerto Rico’s government.
This is significant since Puerto Ricans, once concentrated in a few U.S. cities, are spreading to other regions. Puerto Ricans form an increasingly crucial political constituency in Florida, especially in Orlando, where they are seen as crucial in the mayoral elections, slated for Feb. 25, according to El Sentinel, a Spanish-language weekly. Florida added 240,000 Puerto Ricans to its population in the 1990s, by far the largest increase of any state, according to the U.S. Census.
Overall Puerto Rican voter turnout levels have been high, despite mostly declines or flat showings for Hispanics recently, said Bendixen.
However, Puerto Ricans who move to or live in the United States can easily establish residence and register to vote in local, state and national elections.
Argentine Immigrants Import European-Style Bathroom Plumbing
Entrepreneurs in every U.S. immigrant community import traditional items from their home countries: food, clothing and crafts always have been top-sellers. Plumbing add-ons—more specifically bidets, or hygienic irrigators—may be the latest trend.
One California import firm has responded to the personal hygiene customs of Argentina, seeking a niche by marketing a device that simulates the European-style bidets that are widely used in the South American country, according to an article in El Suplemento, a Reseda, Calif.-based monthly Argentine magazine
Many bathrooms in Argentina, along with the usual equipment of a toilet, bathtub and sink, also feature a porcelain bidet, a device most commonly used in parts of Europe that looks like a squat toilet, but actually squirts streams of water, which some use in lieu of toilet paper. While bidets are seen in parts of Latin America and Asia, they are most common in Argentina, where European influence and immigration had the strongest cultural influence.
Bidets are not commonly featured in U.S. homes, and importing the heavy appliances would be too expensive, so the Los Angeles-based import firm R&L Trading is marketing the bidetmatic, a stainless steel contraption made up of various hoses and pipes that cling to toilet seats and simulates the cleansing action of the traditional bidet, a “healthy and hygienic Argentine custom,” according to El Suplemento.
While Argentines have never been among the most numerous immigrant groups, their numbers are rising as an economic crisis shrinks the traditionally strong middle-class in Argentina. The country’s consulate reports that some 100,000 Argentines live in California.
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