Crucible and The New Colossus

Health care reform is law. Now can we talk about something else?

Next up on the policy-making agenda in DC is, hopefully, immigration reform. We've long advocated here at the Kauffman Foundation for something like a Startup Visa, a program that would grant citizenship to migrants who want to (and are able to) create new firms and jobs in America (but be sure to read this counterpoint).  I go one step further, and believe America would be wise to return to its roots as a more open society in general, not just with the high-skill immigrants.

As the "nation of immigrants" embarks on another policy discussion, it might help to keep our cultural heritage in mind.  I often hear the words of Emma Lazarus echo in my mind, for example.  The words of her poem, The New Colossus, inscribed on the plaque that has been mounted since 1903 on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And then there is the play, The Melting Pot, published in 1908.  In it, the protagonist proclaims,

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming... Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians - into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.

Comments

[Tom Church]

My criticism of the criticism is, how many Startup Visas would actually be offered? Are we expecting more than 5,000 people a year to meet the million dollar requirement? Are we expecting more than 1,000 people?

What kind of numbers are we looking at for demand?

[GHammer]

If those wanting reform were still talking about a melting pot, I think few would object.
Unfortunately, the objective seems to be multiculturism.

[KB]

I am a scientist working in the semiconductor industry. Anyone with my qualification can get a working visa in any industrialized country in the world. As a result my technically equally qualified colleague in Far East makes 80% by purchasing parity and at least 60% by exchange rate. Language and cultural barriers easily explain the difference. The US and EU still lead, so their culture and English set the standard.
The situation is different for less skilled jobs; e.g., the American farmer or unionized autoworker, which still makes a multiple of their counterpart in Far East. With increasing mobility of the world population pressure will increase to let foreign workers in, who work at a lower rate. Government policy may not allow workers in, but the result will be an illusion of being rich and competitive among (e.g.) farmers and autoworkers. Eventually there will be a break down.
To prevent a cataclysmic breakdown the US and any other country should open her borders to anyone, who can find a job at the local conditions. If Mexican fruit pickers are always legal, they can demand the legal minimum wage (covering taxes and social security etc.). The only way to compete will be harder work and better performance. Isn't that the American way?

[phlebotnum]

GHammer's melting pot is the one where everything ends up a sickly peach color. The melting pot of 1908 was a nice myth to make self-proclaimed "white" people feel better about ignoring the existence of a ruling class. Bootstraps and all that. But immigration reform in the 21st century necessitates the dreaded "multiculturalism" because the economic and social reality of America is moving away from the imagined "heritage" of those clinging to their Western European ancestry. Unless you're open the the very real possibility that the mix will be brown and probably not Protestant, don't pretend to yearn for that melting pot.

[Sidney Gendin]

Despite the Kauffman Foundation's noble aims, it is obvious that theirs is a lost cause. We have been a closed society since 1924 and nothing on the horizon looks like it will change that.

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