Suro: Stranger Among Us Response Paper

PART A

Though Suro and Huntington are both concerned about the integration of Hispanics into America, they are by no means speaking on the same problem. They are two sides of the same coin. Huntington says that Hispanics need to be integrated, but it is in the sense that at the current moment they are creating their own culture within America instead of assimilating (Huntington 30). What Huntington is calling for should not even be called integration – it is more like the destruction of the Mexican American culture and the rebuilding of it with white ideals culture. Suro calls for a form of integration also, but it is of the political and economic kind. He wants Hispanics to have the same job and education opportunities as the rest of America. Huntington blames the lack of integration on Hispanics and them not wanting to become part of American culture while Suro blames it on the factors outside of individual control keeping Mexican immigrants in poor urban barrios. This is where I most agree with Suro – there are indeed outside causes unique to the Mexican immigrant that separate them from other minorities. Immigrants are very much victims of circumstance. Suro sees that their hard work is not getting them anywhere and calls for new roads of upward mobility to allow them to escape these barrios (Suro 415). This is the essence of the American dream – the potential for upward mobility and the idea that if you work hard you can succeed. The phrase ‘American Dream’ is just a moniker for an abstract idea that is trans-linguistic and trans-cultural and Suro wants to make it available to Mexican immigrants as they are. Huntington on the other hand claims there is no ‘Americano’ dream, and seeks to exclude Mexican immigrants from this potential for upward mobility unless they reject their roots and heritage (Huntington 45).

PART B

Despite this, there are aspects of Suro’s essay that show agreement to Huntington. Huntington advocates for the total assimilation of Mexicans into American culture for fear that otherwise their culture will come to dwarf true American ideals (32). In other words, he only wants Mexican immigrants in America if they leave their heritage behind completely and become true Americans. He bases this on the fact that Mexican traits and culture are inherently bad (44). Whether consciously or not, Suro ends up agreeing with these stereotypes. He opens his essay with the story of Imelda for the purpose of representing Mexicans (Suro 411). This kind of generalization is what causes stereotyping. Suro later says of parents in general consider themselves as being successful because they are better off than they would have been in their home country (414). This is despite the fact that they are living in poverty and lack an education. Suro’s example parents also don’t speak Spanish and tell their children not to talk to other non-Mexicans (412). These all directly correlate with the Mexican ‘traits’ – acceptance of poverty, lack of education and initiative to gain it, mistrust of those outside the family, and no desire to assimilate into American life – that Huntington fears will create a type of dual culture within America (Huntington 44). Though I don’t believe he does it purposely, Suro perpetrates these stereotypes.

PART C

Though I do agree with Suro on the fact that there are certain causes keeping Mexican immigrants in barrios, he spends a fair amount of time arguing that the Mexican immigration is different form other immigration and minority groups. Suro claims that “the latest wave of immigration has come to the United States only to find the ladder broken” (Suro 416). Unfortunately, the ladder’s been broken for a long time and Mexican immigrants are in no way the only ones to find the rungs so wobbly. Immigrants come to America poor and uneducated. They went to the places and people they knew and ended up amassing in specific areas. Poor areas mean poor schooling system that don’t have the money, the teachers, or the skills to actually help their students. Instead, Hispanic communities experience more drop outs and less people going to college which in turn breeds more poverty. There is nothing new about this cycle. Though not immigrants in the same way as Mexicans, the story of African Americans is almost an exact parallelism. Once slavery was abolished, blacks found themselves extremely poor and completely uneducated. This still effects black communities even today. We see the same thing there that we do in Hispanic communities – poor families in poor schooling districts with little hope of escape. The difference is, for African Americans this problem has origins from centuries ago while for the Hispanics their poverty is comparatively a new phenomenon, so it may take many more decades for them to see the improvement Suro describes in his essay.  This is just one example but we can see the same story in many immigrant groups throughout our history. How close by their home country is and how they get in does not change this. The Hispanic plight is nothing new in a country with deep roots in discrimination, exploitation, and xenophobia and is a far from unprecedented.

PART D

Suro tells us that one of the causes for the plight of the Mexican immigrant is a lack of action and effort in providing assistance on the part of the U.S. (Suro 418). A New York Time’s articles’ title accurately represents this: “Dwindling Hopes for Immigration Reform”. During his administration, Obama called for immigration reform but found himself unable to get bills through the House of Representatives. Instead Obama attempted to expand on his reform Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and issue the executive order telling Homeland Security to leave law-abiding immigrants alone. These attempts to help were unfortunately thwarted by anti-immigration individuals and Republicans. They caused Obamas attempts to stagnate in lower courts (“Dwindling Hopes”). From this article we can see it is not that the U.S. is apathetic towards the issue of immigration but rather that there are very strong opinions with contrary solutions on both sides. Either way, the fact remains that there are no reforms or laws being put into place to help Mexican immigrants. There is certainly no the civil rights movement that we saw in the 60s for African Americans. There are no clergy advocating for us to take care of our neighbor (Suro 416). There is not enough bipartisanship and too many different opinions with not enough support for either side for anything to really take hold and make a positive impact on the migrant population. We can see that Suro was right in saying that Mexican immigrants are not getting the same caliber assistance as other minorities and immigrants.

Works Cited

“Dwindling Hopes for Immigration Reform.” The New York Times. The New York Times. 30

Oct. 2015. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. 

Huntington, Samuel. “The Hispanic Challenge.” Foreign Policy. (2004): 30-45. JSTOR. Web. 31

Oct. 2015.

Suro, Roberto. “Strangers Among Us”. Web. 31 Oct. 2015.