At The Free Press Olivia Reingold tells a story about a longterm immigrant to the United States who has worked hard and relied on no one. He feels like he’s being taken advantage of by the ongoing deluge of migrants:
“It’s the mindset of the piñata—somebody’s going to hit it, and everybody’s going to pick from it. And before, it was like, work, save, and enjoy your retirement with dignity. Not anymore.â€
He takes a deep breath. “It’s not fair.â€
The title of the piece is another quote from Mr. Marte, “This is not the America from when I came here”. If he thinks it’s different from thirty years ago he should consider the difference from when I was a kid. Then we had just 4% immigrants.. Now it’s more like 15%. In St. Louis back then you could literally hold all of the Mexican-American immigrants in town in a good-sized ballroom. They all knew each other. There was just one Mexican restaurant in town. And most if not all them wanted to be considered Americans.
By 1986 only a minority of the immigrants eligible sought citizenship. I wonder whether the more recent immigrants think of themselves as Americans.
