By: Samuel P. Huntington
Why I got the Book: Basically I enjoyed his classic book Clash of Civilizations even though that book does have some major issues and certain parts have not aged well, So I came across this very interesting book by Huntington a couple of years ago on US migratory policy that I just had to get, because it is in a field I specialize in immigration.
What I liked :
• Huntington explores how American constructs its identity and how it has evolved from its early colonial days up until the early 2000s.
• The author dives deep into the fact that Americans historically are traditionally religious, something that most none American find surprising.
• The book takes great effort in trying to explain how the idea that the United States is a country that was and is a country of immigrants at it had its doors open to them, is a relatively modern concept.
Central Thymes:
• Is the influx of Spanish speaking migrants, subvert or modify United States national identity and will it become a bilingual and bicultural country?
• Identity is the feeling of self of an individual within a Grupo. A product of the self-conscious of itself and poses qualities that differentiates itself from others.
• One Individual may have more than one identity depending on how many group or ciphers they are a part of, these can adscriptive ( age, sex, ethnic, race...), territorial, economic, cultural, political, social and national. But the identity itself is an imaginary personality, of what we think we are and what we want to be. Identity is also defined by the interaction with other.
• Individuals need the other, but do they need an enemy? The creation of the enemy actually helps and consoles individuals, it brings cohesion to the group and comparison of what one is not is gratifying, help create differentiation. With groups, the enemy reinforces all of its qualities. The need for self-esteem leads to groups feeling that they are better than the rest, and the group's ego pushes the notion that they are better than the rest.
• The book gets into the idea that the United States is a nation of immigrants is a pretty modern concept. The Country was not founded by immigrants but by colonist leaving their land of origin to create something new collectively. There is a strong sense of community and there is an explicit or implicit pact among its members. Immigrants do not create a new society, they move from one to another.
• In the case of the original colonist of the United States, they were not representative of their population of their country of origin, they were from parts that had been marginalized.
• 66 million migrants arrived to the United States from 1820 to 2000, but the principle make up the US population was descendants of the colonist, immigrants, slaves, native Americans and other conquered groups like Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians and descendants of Mexicans from Texas.
• The American creed is a principal part of their civic identity and the idea of the exceptionality of their country, American think that their core values are universal. Another aspect of its identity like it anglo, protestant and racial nature, comes a goes if taken into account for identity, but territory has never played as a major factor.
• Race used to be a bigger factor in US identity, in 1790 for citizenship was only for free white people, even though 20% population of Black. With this logic, the United State did not make Philipines or Puerto Rico into States. In 1875 prohibited the immigration of prostitutes and delinquents. In 1882 the prohibition of Chinese immigrants became law, Irish and Polish immigration were looked down on. The idea of a multiracial and Ethnic America is a modern concept born during and after the second world war.
• For a large portion of US history Catholics were considered the other, this a big part of their British heritage that had a strong anti-catholic policy. In the colonies, Catholics were viewed as possible traitors when Britain had gone to war against Spain and France. The colonial British authority allowed Jewish people to become citizens but not Catholics, execute in Maryland and later in Quebec. Around 1815 with a large influx of migrants from Irland and Germany that were Catholic attitude towards them slowly started to change but also got worse in certain sectors provoking a political backlash they were considered a danger to democracy, because they considered their church autocratic and authoritarian, therefore their followers are the same.
• The US has a civil religion a profound love for institutions and for patriotism, Americans think they are a chosen people that are exceptional, the new Israel. Many public ceremonies have religious influences and iconography, even certain none religious holidays have a strong religious undertone like memorial day or Thanks Giving.
• Subnational identities can be based on race, ethnicity, culture, gender, religion...
• Multiculturalism went up against the concept of the melting pot and assimilation, diversity is more important than the unity of the community, this produced the deconstruction of the American identity.
• The author cites George Stewart that instead of using the term melting pot the concept of transmutation pot.
• The lack of an other /enemy up until 2001, the growth in the number of democracies up until that moment across the world, the denationalization of elites y the growth of migrant diasporas of lead to blurring the frontier between national identities and transnational identities.
• The practical disappearance of ethnicity as a basis for national identity, slow dilution of racial differences and lesser importance of racial identities, the growth of Hispanic culture and the amount of bilingual and bicultural people and less importance of national identity for the countries elites.
What I didn't like or Debatable Stuff:
• The greatest threat to modern countries social cohesion is immigration, and basically States have three options: first try to reduce it to zero or near zero, have immigration without assimilation or have immigration with assimilation, at least for me this is a terrible oversimplification of the phenomena of immigration.
• The author establishes that true assimilation for migrant happens in the second and third generation, but this varies a lot from one immigrant group to another and sometimes second and third generation migrants push back from this assimilation.
• Book has a lot of filler.
Overall: