The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (86 page)

LAMB: You have some statistics that you use in the book. In the 1960s, we had 3.3 million immigrants, 1980, 7 million immigrants—immigration—and in 1990s, 9 million. And you say that in the ‘60s, foreign-born . . .

HUNTINGTON: Yes. OK, go ahead.

LAMB: In the ‘60s, foreign-born were 5.3 percent of the population, and today—2002, roughly—11.5 percent.

HUNTINGTON: That‘s right. Yes.

LAMB: Good or bad for us?

HUNTINGTON: Well, I think, basically, immigration is good. It is essential, as I point out in the book, to the development of America, and immigrants have made tremendous contributions to our success economically, in science and technology and exploration and have greatly contributed to our playing a positive role in the world. In the past, however, immigration has always been accompanied by assimilation, and I think the problem now comes not from immigration per se, but to the extent that there is a problem, it comes from the extent to which recent immigrants, particularly Hispanics, do not seem to be assimilating in the same way in which immigrants have in the past. Now, maybe the process will just be slower. It certainly will be different.

But there are a whole variety of factors in American society that contribute to this difference, as well as the differences in the nature of the immigrants. Previous immigrants, in the 19th, early 20th centuries, had to make a real commitment to come here. It was tough. During the 19th century, in particular, there were great risks involved. Large numbers of—a good percentage of people died on the ships coming over to—to America. So that involved a very definite commitment. Now immigrants don‘t have to make that sort of commitment, and we have the phenomenon of what I call “ampersands,” people who have two nationalities, two homes in different countries, and increasingly, two citizenships. And it seems to me the whole question of dual citizenship, which we‘ve had some of in the past, but which, in theory, we‘re not supposed to have—but that has become a widespread phenomenon now. And so in a whole variety of ways, it seems to me this new immigration raises a—differences and potentially problems.

LAMB: There‘s a—and I should have gotten the title of it. As we were taping this, there‘s a movie out that suggests—I‘m not sure the exact premise, but it has something to do with taking Mexicans out of the California system for a day and see what happens. It‘s actually—the creator of it is, I think, a Mexican-American.

HUNTINGTON: Yes.

LAMB: Just to see that . . .

HUNTINGTON: Yes.

LAMB: . . . a lot of things that are done . . .

HUNTINGTON: Well, sure. Well, California would grind to a stop—I don‘t think there‘s any doubt about that—because Hispanics, who are mostly Mexicans in California, make up a huge proportion of the California population. And as I say, immigration, it seems to me, is essential. Now, there‘s a special problem with Mexican immigration because such a large proportion of it is illegal, and we‘ve never had that before. The common estimate of the number of illegal immigrants coming into this country each year ranges up to about 350,000 per year. We take in maybe 800,000 legal immigrants each year. And so we have a million new—more than a million new people coming into this country, and the—I think the problem of the illegal immigration is a very serious one. And the estimates now are we have 9 million or 10 million illegal immigrants in the country.

LAMB: So what should be done? I mean, the . . .

HUNTINGTON: Well, it‘s difficult, particularly difficult, obviously, in trying to control the illegal immigration from Mexico, which is the principal source of illegal immigration. And there have been various efforts to do this. We—Congress passed an immigration reform act in the mid-1980s which provided an amnesty and gave legal status to almost three million illegal immigrants who were here then. And that was accompanied by provisions for—to try to limit illegal immigration and cut—and provide penalties on employers who hired illegal immigrants, and a whole variety of other things.

But it didn‘t have that effect because those provisions weren‘t enforced, and the fact that Congress had voted in amnesty for illegal immigrants made illegal immigration that much more attractive to other potential immigrants. And so immigration—illegal immigration went up, it didn‘t go down.

And President Bush has just proposed legislation to try to deal with this. I give him credit for proposing the legislation, but I don‘t think his—it will pass, and I don‘t think it will really solve the problem because, essentially, it, too, is an amnesty. And as I say, the record shows that amnesties don‘t deter people, they encourages people to come.

LAMB: You suggested by some year in middle 2000s that this country—whites will be in the minority.

HUNTINGTON: Well, I don‘t suggest it. The census projections say that by the year 2050, non-Hispanic whites will be about 50 percent of the population.

LAMB: And is there anything wrong with that?

HUNTINGTON: No. I have nothing against the changing ratio makeup of the country. I have no concern about people‘s color. I do have concerns about their values and culture and commitment and those sorts of things. But whether they‘re black, brown, white or whatever, yellow, seems to me doesn‘t make any difference and shouldn‘t make any difference.

LAMB: You also write about the history of history being taught.

HUNTINGTON: Yes. Right.

LAMB: How long has it been taught in the country?

HUNTINGTON: Well, when you say the history of history, I‘m not quite sure what you‘re getting at.

LAMB: Well, you write about—you know, we haven‘t taught history forever to students in the country and that . . .

HUNTINGTON: We haven‘t taught American history.

LAMB: Yes.

HUNTINGTON: OK.

LAMB: And it varies over time, as far as how interested people are in it. I mean, is that . . .

(CROSSTALK)

LAMB: How interested are we today in American history?

HUNTINGTON: Well, I think what you have here is that the history of the United States and of America as a society and a country didn‘t really appear, in terms of books or courses in schools or colleges, until after the Civil War. With one major exception, the histories that were written before the Civil War were devoted to localities and states. There wasn‘t, in any real sense, a national history.

And before the Civil War, the issue as to whether we were a nation was up for grabs. It was debated. It wasn‘t clear that we were a nation. And it was the Civil War, as Emerson and various other people said, that really made us a nation. And after that, we began to have a national history and a focus on national history.

And the century from the 1860s to the 1960s was the century of American nationalism. That was when we became very—Americans became very nationalistic and identified with their country, and among other things, promoted national history and they glorified the Pilgrim fathers and the Founding Fathers and the whole panoply of heroes and wars that we had fought, and so forth and so on.

Then in the 1960s, with the rise of multi-culturalism and a variety of other developments, national history began to fade. And so increasingly, we have seen emphasis upon the histories of ethnic groups and racial groups and other subgroups, which had been certainly neglected during the period of nationalism. But now, I think, there‘s a fair amount of evidence that indicates, at least in a large number of schools, in particular, and some colleges, that national history is neglected. And it‘s given way to the history of particular groups in our society.

LAMB: Why has that happened?

HUNTINGTON: Well, it‘s a result of the—this intellectual movement that developed in the 1960s that reacted against the—what was at times, certainly, the overemphasis on nationalism. I think it was affected, of course, by the Vietnam war attitudes of people, and it was, in a way, a rather bizarre product of the Civil Rights movement. And the Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s was passed because the whole effort devoted to getting it passed was saying this is a tremendous violation, the situation of blacks in this country being discriminated against and segregated, and so forth. This violates the American creed, the principles of basic equality on which this country is founded. And as a result, we passed the Civil Rights Act and then the Voting Rights Act in the mid-1960s.

But as soon as they were passed, then the blacks and other groups began claiming special privileges for themselves as groups, not as individuals. And this let loose this whole series of efforts by a whole variety of racial groups, ethnic groups, women, of course, to—demanding more attention to themselves. I think that was the result of—that produced the result of this replacement of the national history that had been taught previously with the history of particular groups.

LAMB: If in our American creed we believe so much in equality, why did we let slavery happen?

HUNTINGTON: Well, that was the great anomaly, of course, and Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration, of course, was a slave runner, as well as most of the other people from the South in this country for—down until the Civil War, most of the leading people in the South. And this was degrading congruity. And the—I think slavery appeared, of course, in the 17th century, when we were—and in terms of harvesting tobacco and cotton or other crops, it was—and through the plantation system, this was an extremely efficient and profitable way of making money. And of course, slavery was prevalent throughout most of the world during that period of time, too.

And it‘s, as I say, a very great incongruity. And happily, we finally got rid of it, and now we have finally also got—after a century since the Civil War, pretty much gotten rid of discrimination based on race.

LAMB: Is there any chance that Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers really didn‘t believe in equality for everybody, believed in equality for white Anglo-Saxon Protestants?

HUNTINGTON: Well, that was certainly, in effect, what they did. And you have many people, of course, and the U.S. Supreme Court in one notable case, saying, you know, Blacks really aren‘t like us. And this is part of the racism that existed for—and was so important throughout much of our history. And of course, the racist ideology could be used and was used to justify the suppression of blacks. And then in the late 19th century, we moved on and began to exclude Asians, beginning in the 1880s. And the argument there was, Well, they‘re not like us, either. They can‘t assimilate into our culture and society. When they come here, they live off by themselves in their own Asian ghettos and don‘t really become Americans. And so, by World War I, we had legislation that pretty much excluded any immigration from Asia.

This was—we really defined ourselves as a white country. And that goes back to the first Naturalization Act, which was passed in 1790, which provided that only free white persons could be naturalized as American citizens.

LAMB: So is there any way you can convince the Hispanic that comes to this country, especially the Mexican that comes over the border, that it‘s worth learning our history, it‘s worth speaking English and it‘s worth being loyal to this country, or is it just going to, in your opinion, going to keep going in the wrong direction?

HUNTINGTON: Well, you know, I think the immigrants who come from Mexico, overwhelmingly loyal in some sense to the U.S. Most of them say they want to go back to Mexico. And as I said, given the fact that Mexico is contiguous, it is very easy for people to maintain connections and almost commute back and forth.

And I had one student a couple years ago who did a study on one particular plant in Nebraska, most of whose employees were from a single village in Mexico. And they were all part of one community and went back and forth and, it was—as I said, people just commute to Nebraska to work and go back home, and so forth. This is very different from what we had in the past. And I think it‘s not—it‘s something that isn‘t obviously limited to the United States. I think globalization and all the improvements in transportation and communication make it very possible to do that, and I doubt that that sort of thing can be stopped or that it should be stopped, but it‘s something we have to, it seems to me, take into consideration in thinking about what it means to be American.

LAMB: As you know, people that watch you from afar—journalists and others—see mixed signals coming, including the interview that you did recently in “The New York Times” magazine. And I brought along it to read it so I could ask you about this.

HUNTINGTON: OK.

LAMB: This is from Debra Solomon (ph).

HUNTINGTON: Yes.

LAMB: “What political party do you belong to?” You answered, “I‘m an old-fashioned Democrat. I was dead set against going into Iraq.

HUNTINGTON: Right.

LAMB: She asked, “Will you vote for Kerry, then?”

HUNTINGTON: Yes.

LAMB: “Oh, yes. I‘ve met him several times. He lives a few blocks away from me on Beacon Hill.” And she says, “How can you reconcile being a Democrat with your views on immigration and assimilation?” And you say, “Actually, both parties are divided on immigration, and as a scholar, I have a responsibility to study society and to try to call people‘s attention to things they might not welcome looking at.”

HUNTINGTON: Right. Well, in that final answer, over my vigorous objections, they deleted my first sentence, which was, “I am in favor of immigration, but it has to be immigration with assimilation.”

LAMB: Why would “The New York Times” do that to you?

HUNTINGTON: Well, you have to ask “The New York Times,” but . . .

LAMB: Did they let you see the interview before it ran?

HUNTINGTON: Well, I—no, I didn‘t see it, but I insisted that I have a chance to look at—to hear, at any rate. They wouldn‘t—said they couldn‘t send it to me. And when that—with that question, I said, Look, I want to make it clear I‘m not opposed to immigration per se. I‘m in favor of immigration. It‘s been important. I say it‘s more important earlier in the interview. But it has to be immigration with assimilation. And also, of course, as I point out, I‘m married to the daughter of an immigrant, an Armenian immigrant.