Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Assimilation Index

Well, I’ve read through that report from the Manhattan Institute about assimilation. (You’ll recall my recent blog about the different headlines generated by the same report.)

They took census data and came up with four indices for assimilation.
1) Economic assimilation– Earned income, unemployment, income-by occupation, educational attainment, and home ownership.
2) Cultural assimilation – Speaks English, intermarriage, number of children, and marital status.
3) Civic assimilation – Naturalized citizenship and military service.
4) Composite assimilation – All three above in a weighted formula.

So, what were the rankings? Here are the top 10 by composite assimilation:
Germany 87
Panama 80
Czechoslovakia 75
Austria 74
Italy 67
Scotland 67
Belgium 65
Hungary 63
England 63
Greece 60

And the bottom 10:
Somalia 18
Bulgaria 18
El Salvador 18
Yemen Arab Republic (North) 17
India 16
Cameroon 16
Honduras 15
Guatemala 14
Mexico 13
Nepal 8

The problem with Mexico being almost the worst is that Mexico accounts for 31% of our total foreign-born population (legal) and 56% of the illegal aliens running around.

The apologists say the study is unfair because it doesn’t really measure immigrants against time-in-country. I say our immigration model needs to be reworked to lower the quotas and re-align the countries of origin. We have obviously exceeded our ability to properly assimilate the huge numbers we are seeing.

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