Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> Quantitatively, immigrants' impact on U.S. politics is probably
> smaller today than early in the twentieth century, in that back then
> the ratio of the foreign-born to the native-born was higher than now.
You're right about the ratios, but other factors give them a different and maybe greater impact:
1. Electronic communications and mass literacy make contact back and
forth between home and here much easier.
2. These same things make it easier for newcomers to learn English
rapidly. So too the greater participation of women in employed work.
3. Air travel makes it possible to go back and forth quickly and
easily.
4. Many of the newcomers are from nearby countries which are culturally
close to large indigenous US populations, that is, hispanics. A few
others are actually anglophone.
By contrast, I remember, forty or so years ago, meeting older European Jewish immigrants who spoke no real English after decades here. Mostly it was the women who didn't. By contrast, most hispanic immigrants seem to get some English after a few years.
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema