Poor Mexico, Poor America: One More Time
by Thomas Fleming
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I am reposting the conclusion to my article in the hopes that some of the people attacking us in the blogosphere will take the time to read what I have written. It should be clear that anyone who says that we do not oppose illegal immigration and mass immigration is a liar. Anyone who says that I am arguing that assimilation of mass-immigrants is a liar. And, I should add, that anyone who believes that, in reaching out to conservatives in Spain and Latin America, we are selling out the country to Third World indians needs to look at a map and find out where Spain is located. And anyone who says we hate America or have given up on our country should look in the mirror and ask: “How can we respect a country that gives the right to vote to imbeciles like this face in the mirror?”
Some years ago, when I began speaking and writing on the immigration question, I ran into trouble very quickly. So long as I was content to quote George Borjas’ and Donald Huddle’s statistics on the economic impact of immigration, my arguments were treated politely by advocates on both sides, but when I made the mistake of raising the question of culture, of the kind of country that America would be turned into by mass immigration, I was informed by opponents of unrestricted immigration that anyone who raised the cultural question would be accused of bigotry. How convenient, I thought. Anyone who goes to the root of the immigration question is a bigot, just as anyone who points out the shaky moral and legal foundations of affirmative action is a racist, and anyone who argues for moral order is a fascist, and anyone who criticizes a reckless decision to go to war is unpatriotic or even a traitor.
The future of American culture is the heart of the immigration question, and if the cultural question remains taboo, the doom of America is fixed, even if the means and the will were found to seal the border and repatriate large numbers of illegal Mexican immigrants. Economic analysis of immigration, important as it is, does not touch this most fundamental issue, which is the kind of country we are leaving our children and grandchildren. Economics is a blind science that cannot tell the difference between citizens and foreigners, friends and enemies. We are told, for example, that the soundest criterion for legal immigrants is their educational level and potential earnings. This may be, but if 400 million hardworking and intelligent Chinese immigrants were admitted, our economy would boom, but our grandchildren would be Chinese, not American. Chicano activists understand this reality, which is why they talk about Reconquista and dream of rebuilding the Aztec world of Aztlan. Professional critics of immigration policy who pretend this question does not exist are like the coward who hears burglars invading his home and pulls the covers up over his head.
America’s weakness and self-hatred were not forced upon the American people at the point of a bayonet. We accepted the propaganda and paid for the soft-core Marxists who shoved it down the throats of our schoolchildren. In the decades following World War II, American culture was transformed. Our historical and cultural roots were torn up, and, to the extent we have an historical imagination, it is of ourselves as the descendants of oppressors, exploiters, and murderers. Now in our weakness and self-contempt, we fear high Mexican birth rates, because Anglo-Americans refuse to have children, and we cannot stanch the hemorrhaging border for precisely the same reason that we insist on teaching our children to hate the people and habits that made their country. The fault, my dear American Brutuses, is not in the stars–nor in demographic forces or tectonic shifts of geopolitical power–but in ourselves that we are underlings.
The first step toward addressing and resolving the cultural problems presented by mass immigration is to quit denying their existence. The second is to give up the glib and futile language of assimilation and recognize the fact that immigrants will affect us as much as we affect them. The third is to recognize that the larger part of the problem is of our own devising: American mass culture, including the schools that purvey mass education, are breeding grounds for anti-American resentment and American self-hatred.
To halt and reverse this process, Americans must be willing to take several boldly conservative steps. Quite apart from whatever is done to control legal and illegal immigration, we have to transform the teaching of humanities, in elementary and high schools as much as in universities. The conservative defense of the “traditional” curriculum has been, up till now, predicated on liberal and leftist concepts like “freedom of expression” and “respect for diversity.” Western culture is not valued as something good in itself or as our precious heritage but only as the foundation for an “open society” that encourages toleration of opposing points of view. It is time to dispense with such fantasies, which have little to do with the flesh and blood people who created and defended the West, and to revive the older understanding, that the purpose of a nation’s educational system is to form the character and historical imagination of the nation’s citizens. In our case, this would mean that European and American history must be taught from a Western and American point of view; that, beginning in the lower grades, the classics of English and American literature are required reading, and that the Greek and Latin classics, which, along with the teaching of Latin, were the foundation of our civilization for over two thousand years, be given once again their honored place in the curriculum.
The celebration of American history and the revival of our civilization should not be made at the expense of the rich cultural heritage that Mexicans and other Latinos bring with them. Although many, if not most recent immigrants have been poorly educated, there is no reason why they and their children cannot be encouraged to learn real Spanish and to imbibe the literary and cultural traditions of Spain and Latin America. Study of their authentic history and culture would replace the narcissistic and inflammatory Chicano Studies programs that indoctrinate Latinos into a culture of victimology that can only retard their social and economic progress.
The theory of assimilation encouraged educationists to think they could impose a uniform culture on this vast continental empire of diverse regions and states. The result was the sterile ideology taught in civics classes and expounded every four years at the two parties’ national conventions. Instinctively, students turned away from the lies and embraced either the culture of revolution or the mass commercial culture of self-gratification. True diversity would mean a revival of regional and ethnic identities within the context of a broad Anglo-American paradigm. Just as individual states and counties are beginning to control illegal immigration, they might be allowed to develop their own variations on the European American civilization that is our heritage so long as the traditional core is strengthened. Yankees and Southerners alike respect Thomas Jefferson; Polish and Italian Americans love Shakespeare. We all, as American citizens, revere the rule of law and the British liberties preserved in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
If American citizens prove themselves incapable of taking control of their future, by controlling immigration and restoring the institutions of their civilization, they will not so much be losing their country as acknowledging that it is already lost. In 476, when a German immigrant soldier sent the last Western Emperor into early retirement, he only made the fall of Rome official. Roman Italy had collapsed even before the Gothic sack of Rome that tipped of St. Augustine in 410. In failing to solve its immigration problem, Italy became the battleground for alien invaders for nearly 1500 years. The Eastern Empire was more fortunate: The emperors wrested control from the barbarian immigrants and embarked upon a cultural revival that made Constantinople the most glorious city in the world. Their empire, which endured the shock of Islamic terrorism and barbarian invasions, was far from perfect, but it lasted for a millennium. Which course America will follow is in the hands of the American people.
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1 Comment by pablo H on 8 August 2008:
Excellent response Dr. Fleming. Will the American “Booboisie” ever stop sleepwalking and stop believing the circle can squared? Will they ever understand the poison their children are imbibing through pop culture and public education? Will they awake before its too late?
My reading of history makes me a pessimist.
2 Comment by Allen Wilson on 8 August 2008:
If yall had decided on French instead of Spanish, yall would have aroused the ire of the evil Francophobe neocons and their pseudo-patriot flunkies. German or Afrikaans would have brought accusations of Nazism from neocons and and the rest of the left alike. Russian or Chinese would have enraged the neocons. Arabic would have brought accusations of pro-terrorism and eventually might have brought you before a secret tribunal.
My use of ‘yall’ supra may arouse the bigotry of some Yankees and worthless Southern sellouts, and my use of ’supra’ supra may rouse some to suspect that I’m either an effeminate elitist or am trying to put on the show of being better than average hoi polloi – and there’s another word that will do the same thing!
So you chose Spanish and look what happened. Have these people forgotten Franco – oh, wait, he was evil wasn’t he? No, he wasn’t! Then what about Pinochet, who despite slanders from the left, was a great hero of Western civilisation.
The necessity of making common cause with Latin American conservatives should be as obvious as the case for doing so with European conservatives. Now, let’s throw in South African, exiled Rhodesian, Australian, New Zealand and Russian conservatives, and if we can find them, culturally conservative Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan, and traditionalist Indians.
The neo-pagan, liberal paradigm is a worldwide problem with enemies worldwide. Learning from them, and teaching them in return, will benefit us all. This is not globalism, it’s anti-globalism.
My only complaint is that Castilian Spanish as used in Spain itself should be used, but that’s really a minor concern since the Latin American variety is quite good.
3 Comment by Mike Ezzo on 9 August 2008:
When I first started reading the attacks on Dr. Fleming, apart from being appalled, I asked myself if ours is the only country in the world where men look with suspicion (and/or hatred) upon those who study what the other people in the world have done.
I have concluded that, to be fair, there is probably a contingent of men like that in all countries. The difference, however, is that America was virtually made by “other people” — Europeans. To look to Europe, thus, as Chronicles is doing, is by nature a CONSERVATIVE act. It is an act of PRESERVATION, and probably the best strategy available to us if we hope to keep any light of Western civilization alive. The criticism of Chronicles on this topic would be understandable coming from a North Korean communist; not from an American. It is unworthy of a conservative.
(And by the way, the Celts settled in Spain too; not just in the British Isles and Bretagne).
4 Comment by Bruce on 9 August 2008:
I think it’s inevitable that there was going to be some pushback given the article was in Spanish and given the sensitivities at the grassroots level to the barrio-ization of our communities. I’m not endorsing this reaction, but it’s understandable.
I’ve given up gnashing my teeth over this issue. All I can do is try to put my life and that of my family in good order, and continue to vote the bums out of office every other year. The former involves Church, finding like-minded individuals, and teaching my children to love their people and civilization. The latter’s much easier to do and needn’t command a lot of my attention.
I’d prefer the Latinos enjoy their rich culture heritage on the continent and a half they already have (all of South America, most of the Carribean and a sizable part of the habitable portion of North Ameria) but given that we don’t have the will to do what you suggest we could, I suppose it’s better than noxious Chicano studies.
5 Comment by Man from Hellas on 9 August 2008:
Dear Sir,
“The celebration of American history and the revival of our civilization should not be made at the expense of the rich cultural heritage that Mexicans and other Latinos bring with them. Although many, if not most recent immigrants have been poorly educated, there is no reason why they and their children cannot be encouraged to learn real Spanish and to imbibe the literary and cultural traditions of Spain and Latin America.”
Most of your points are valid sir, but you acquiesce. Do not expect the indios of america or other third-worlders to imbibe western thought or pattern. It is not possible. Say what is in your heart. You do not want ‘them’ here. It is an honest statement, do not fear to make it.
6 Comment by Bruce on 9 August 2008:
Correction to 2nd paragraph above. The latter’s much SIMPLER as in requiring less thought. This is even more true as our choices become more and more wretched.
7 Comment by R. Oliver on 9 August 2008:
Thank you for posting this series. It’s the best and most honest treatment of the immigration problem I’ve read. Thank you for simplifying the issue–that immigration from Mexico and certain points south should be opposed because we are us and they are them. No complicated arguments about whether immigrants are an economic boon or drain or whether immigrants commit more crime. No shrieking about how they are illegal and so must go home (which gives half the argument to the amnesty supporters).
And thank you for pointing out that as our cultural identity weakens, we will become more like those who are here and are continuing to come here who have a strong cultural identity. The problem is compounded by the weakening in opposition to migration that corresponds with a loss of cultural identity.
As much as I support all of these “solutions”–the wall, deportation, stiff employer penalties, denying immigrants “benefits”–they are all band-aids to a much larger problem, which you have aptly identified and explained.
8 Comment by TJF on 9 August 2008:
There is nothing wrong–quite the contrary–with economic analysis of immigration and short-term political remedies, so long as they are combined with a deeper and honest look at how we got ourselves in this mess. If you scan the table of contents of our book, advertised on this site, you will see there are excellent pieces running the numbers on crime and welfare and education costs, written by Ed Rubenstein, George Borjas, and others–including a small-scale analysis of the impact on Texas. There is also an excellent piece by Roger McGrath on what states and municipalities are doing locally to fight illegal immigration. I was asked specifically to focus on the cultural question, which I did. Because I have always been pretty hard on Mexico and the Mexicans, I thought the only fair thing was to bone up on Mexican history and literature and to make a few trips south of the border. I was agreeably surprised by the courtesy of most Mexicans, rich and poor, as surprised as I was appalled by the government’s lax law enforcement. Even the Mexican piety toward the Aztecs becomes more explicable once you have spent some time. I find the country and its people sometimes charming, sometimes, terrifying, sometimes bewildering. I have no wish to be overrun by them, but I do not see the need to engage in Orwellian hate sessions that degrade us without accomplishing anything. Of course, hate, because it is a substitute for the hard work required for understanding, will always be preferred by the sad marginalized males of the 21st century.
9 Comment by R. Oliver on 9 August 2008:
Certainly, I didn’t mean to marginalize too much the value of studies of immigration’s effect on the economy and crime. They are of course valuable. The problem is that they are easily countered, whether sufficiently (and honestly) or not, by the other side. Statistics are manipulated and to the extent people do not have time to study them closely, they will simply pick the side’s statistics that most appeals to them.
The cultural argument strikes right at the heart of the matter and is almost self-evident, and probably would be if not for the brain-washing most of us have gone through in public schools and listening to various liberal elites (both on the left and right). You were able to crystallize the issue without denigrating the Mexican culture. I’ll need to pick up the book.
10 Comment by TJF on 9 August 2008:
I agree entirely with R. Oliver in distinguishing between the useful and superficial on the one hand and the deeper level of understanding. Most conservative approaches to every problem begin by accepting the Left’s basic premises and then arguing for a more pragmatic and cost-effective method.
11 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 9 August 2008:
The peculiar problem of uncontrolled Mexican immigration can be summed up, in no particular order of significance, as:
1. Numbers.
2. Proximity of the mother country.
3. Irredentism.
4. Lack of education and possibly, capacity for same.
5. Cultural distinctiveness.
6. The demoralizing effects of winking at massive illegality.
It’s the combination that’s so dangerous.
12 Comment by Ronduck on 9 August 2008:
And anyone who says we hate America or have given up on our country should look in the mirror and ask: “How can we respect a country that gives the right to vote to imbeciles like this face in the mirror?”
One of the problems besetting America is that every political party bases its actions on hatred of the American people. The Libertarian party is a good example of this, they find out what the far left believes and then try to justify it in free-market terms. If the people don’t agree with them and only give them 1% of the vote, then in the eyes of the Libertarians that proves that the people are incapable of voting. The Republicans also make this mistake by constantly harping on the theme of moral decay. These rightists mention ultra high illegitimacy and crime rates without mentioning stats by race or showing how it started among Blacks, thus demeaning their White base.
Now with the above comment you seem to be joining them.
13 Comment by Bruce on 10 August 2008:
“The Republicans also make this mistake by constantly harping on the theme of moral decay.”
Huh? You must be thinking of a different Republican party than I am.
14 Comment by TJF on 10 August 2008:
Ronduck’s comment is one more bit of evidence–as if we needed any–that self-described conservatives and nationalists have lost all regard for truth, to say nothing of manners. In the past 30 years I have repeatedly discussed the crime and welfare rates of different ethnic groups and nothing in this article could be taken out of context by an honest person to construe it as a rejection of my long-held and frankly described position. On the other hand, it is simply not true that white Americans are the pillars of virtue that white nationalists celebrate. We do not have to go into statistics on drug use and divorce and abortion, it is enough to live in the world and observe how degraded our people have become in the past several decades. Indeed, one has only to read Ronduck to realize the American education has taught its victims to despise logic and evidence and to blurt out the first feeling that passes through their glands. If Ronduck wishes to take part in further discussions, he should understand that decent people simply not not make up ideas and attribute them to others. There appears to be something in the white nationalist creed that stupifies the intelligence and moral responsibility of the believers.
15 Comment by Frank on 10 August 2008:
Dr. Fleming,
this is a good response, and I think it shows character that you refrained from attacking one of your recent critics who’s perhaps vulnerable himself, I’m not referring to a racialist.
It seems counterproductive for people who have many common interests to attack each other. Cui bono?
16 Comment by Frank on 10 August 2008:
However, one point is that some of the criticism, such as that from Ronduck, is nothing more than a misunderstanding. Perhaps you could win them over in friendlier way. Or, perhaps you should focus on the issues and let people do as they will – either way, I appreciate your continued writing.
17 Comment by TJF on 10 August 2008:
I wonder. Let us suppose this were a real rather than a virtual conversation. Person A says he advocates something–let us say, monarchy or pacifism or vegetarianism. Person B says, “but I think, without bothering to ask or look into it, that I can read into what you say some meaning that is entirely foreign to your point of view and actually contradicts what you claim to be saying.” Let us further say that this takes place in a barroom on Saturday night about 11:45 either in Dublin or Dothan, Alabama. Person A, breaking the whiskey bottle off on the bar as jagged as he can make it, asks, “Are you calling me a liar?” Perhaps Frank the Celt recalls an attempt of Braxton Bragg, after proving himself either incompetent or cowardly, to give Bedford Forrest an order: “General, if you ever presume to give me an order, I shall slap your jaw and force you to resent it.” <br?
There is a limited amount of time at our disposal to have these conversations. My view is to encourage those who can be encouraged and to expel those who cannot. I have nothing whatsoever against people who disagree with me or condemn my opinions. What I refuse to tolerate are those who either from malice or insanity persist in misrepresenting what I have said and want to force me to defend opinions I have never held. It would be far better to shut down writebacks than to extend carte blanche to time-wasters.
On the point at issue, I have argued time after time that, for example, the European American rate of violent crime, once abstracted out of the statistics–harder and harder to do seeing that the government jiggers figures by including “Hispanics” as white when it suits their purposes–is comparable to some of the frisker countries of Northern Europe, Scotland and Norway, for example, while crime rates in Mexican cities are several times higher than those even in the worst US cities, but even Mexico pales in comparison to what is reported of South Africa, to say nothing of what really happens in that truly terrifying country. How many weeks ago was it that I defended Ian Smith? One does not have to be a race-idealist–that is one who raises racial questions to the pinnacle of human interest–to understand the racial dimension of what is going on. I have said over and over that while I think that racialists exaggerate the importance of race, I have nothing against them per se but only against the dishonesty, irrationality, and boorishness of some but by no means all of them. I would say the same thing about capitalists and Marxists and feminists and environmentalists and all the other “ists” who make the world a one or two dimensional place.
This site is open to anyone who wants to grapple honestly with the truth in a civil manner, but among the rules of civility is that one man, in a polite conversation, is never permitted to accuse another man of lying and to deny–in the face of all evidence–that a man means what he says is no different from calling him a liar. When I call these people liars, I mean one of two things. Either they say what they know to be false or they recklessly make statements and charges as if they had knowledge when in fact they have none. Of the latter, Johnson would say, “He lies,” and of the former, “Sir, he lies and knows he lies.” Our condition in this country is so desperate that we cannot afford even polite lies much less lies that contradict the rules of civility.
18 Comment by Frank on 11 August 2008:
Haha, Forrest threatened to take Bragg’s life too if Bragg got in his way again, though that was war.
Ah, I see what you meant by liar now.
19 Comment by Bill Wilder on 11 August 2008:
Dr. Fleming,
I’m afraid the situation may be even more dire than you present, as your critics seem incapable of reading, leaving aside logic and honesty. Illiteracy would seem to be an insurmountable hurdle!
20 Comment by MAP on 11 August 2008:
Mr. Wilder @18. It has been my experience with almost everyone I meet that they enter into a discussion on almost any topic armed with nothing more than TV ‘facts’. Most people, I’ve found, are wholly incapable of considering that what they see on TV may not be true. They can even become angry about it. I’m at an utter loss to uderstand this. To have such faith in the Bible is one thing, but TV…? Is it any wonder that everything is so messed up?
21 Comment by Red Phillips on 11 August 2008:
It is risky to intrude on a conversation where the emotions are clearly running high, but here goes.
Lawrence Auster, who I am sure is one of the bloggers being referred to, has serious issues. He is a pathological grievance collector and grudge holder. He has had something against Dr. Fleming, Chronicles, and paleoconservatism for some time. The reason he misrepresents things, either consciously or not, is because he is as much interested in sticking it to his perceived enemies as he is in advancing his cause. So every little perceived misstep is magnified and is taken as more evidence to support his already formed opinions. And more ammo for running down his enemies.
It is hard to take anything Auster says about preserving America seriously when he can’t even get Lincoln right. What does Auster know about preserving America when he sides with one of the people primarily responsible for wrecking it?
Auster is a nationalist. Like all nationalists he invests more emotion into the nation-state than is warranted. Hence he can not objectively analyze any serious criticism of America. It is like you just called his mother a bad name.
That said, I don’t think it was helpful to use the word xenophobia to describe the reaction to the article for the same reason that conservatives should not use the word racist. It plays into the hands of the PC thought police.
I also think some of the reaction to this was predictable. I think Mr. Richert was correct. When I first saw the articles my immediate thought was, “this isn’t going to go over very well.” But I didn’t follow the thread, so I wasn’t aware of all this until someone directed me to the Auster comments. There is, I think, a difference between not capitulating to the ignorance of the masses, and not inflaming them. We ultimately need a lot of those monoglot xenophobes. Maybe if some articles had been translated into Italian first, for example, then it would have been easier to later post Spanish ones.
22 Comment by TJF on 11 August 2008:
There are some strange birds out there who are sticking pins in dolls the names of Chronicles editors on them. I generally don’t read their stuff, but occasionally someone sends me an email with one or another squib. Some are Larouchies who claim I was hooked up with the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, and Conrad Black; another is a homosexualist who has dreamed up a neoconfederate conspiracy that I am supposed to be a leader of, while still another used to threat to sue people like Peter Brimelow and Chilton Williamson and Sam Francis for “stealing” his ideas on immigration, though the three in question (like myself) were writing on this question long before this strange person hove into view. I don’t think much can be gained, at least not by a serious magazine, by seeking the help of such people or those who are silly enough to believe them. Those who are building a mass movement have to put up with anyone willing to follow them–votes and activists are like money, entirely fungible, but here we have no use for them. Quite the contrary. I believe in reasoning with people, then remonstrating, then, if they persist in their error, treat them as Our Lord told us to treat even brothers who would not repent of his sins against us. If Dr. Red would like details, I would be happy to discuss them privately.
23 Comment by Red Phillips on 11 August 2008:
Just to clarify, after reading through most of the posts and replies that are being referred to, I see that the Spanish translations were posted because someone offered to translate them into Spanish and not Italian, Russian, etc. That explanation should be enough for rational people. My comment was intended to explain the disproportionate reaction of some.
24 Comment by TJF on 11 August 2008:
The same friend who has been translating back and forth between English and Spanish is trying to arrange some Italian. But, as someone observed, if we started with French, it would mean we were traitors; if we did Serbian, we would be on the side of mass-murderers who set up rape camps, etc. I think when people believe they are somehow on the same side, they should give the benefit of the doubt. The other day, I left out a “not” in a sentence and the result suggested that I was saying that early Christians were not opposed to sodomy. No one thought that was what I meant and several, including (I believe) Red, wrote in to warn me of the mistake. What we have all to often, however, are people looking everywhere for the grindstone on which they can grind their ax.
25 Comment by Frank on 11 August 2008:
You couldn’t go wrong with Gaelic.
26 Comment by Allen Wilson on 11 August 2008:
Frank @24: You’re quite wrong, for Dr Fleming is a Scot, and if he chose Erse instead of Scots, he might be accused of taking the wrong side in Ulster! Where will the madness end?
I guess it’s a good thing they didn’t choose Hebrew.
I think what we have seen here is proof that the world is more complex than our perceptions can be at times. Spanish is being pushed on us by treasonous scum in the name of cultural Marxism, but that doesn’t change the fact that Spanish is a great European language, any more than it changes the fact that Spanish culture has had a positive influence on America, or at least the South, since the beginning. This Spanish influence has no real connection with the current invasion or the ‘multicultural’ Latinisation now going on. Paradoxically, it can be said that our Spanish heritage is unique in it’s effects on our culture and, since it is part of our own native culture, is one of the things we must defend from the invaders.
27 Comment by Frank on 11 August 2008:
Regarding Ulster, haha, well that’s true, especially since Fleming is currently Catholic, though I’m sure he’ll come to his senses soon enough.
That’s very interesting. Y’know, I’m aware of Spaniards fighting for the Confederacy, but I dunno of any Charleston Spaniards or Low Country Spaniards.
Spanish culture is sure tied to Irish culture though, and I’d be interested in reading more about Spanish influence on the South, especially in the Carolinas.
28 Comment by Frank on 11 August 2008:
Most recently, Spain’s Mondragón Cooperative has provided a potential solution to modernism and Italy’s retained enough masculinity to resist colonisation, so yea currently the peoples of both states are in the lead in Europe.
But I’m sure the rest of the European nations will soon catch up. The South as one of the most traditional Presbyterian areas is likely to make its own contribution, perhaps putting all these pieces together.
And any who follow the BNP know it leans distributist.
29 Comment by TJF on 12 August 2008:
An autobiographical note: I have both Scottish and Irish ancestors, though the Irish may have been refugees from the ‘45. My Scottish Calvinist great grandmother, however, converted when she married a Catholic. I was brought up as an anti-Christian atheist, though by my early teens we occasionally, for reasons of propriety, attended the Episcopal Church, which I joined formally in my early 20’s. When my father died, some 25 years ago, I began to think of returning to his family’s tradition, which is the tradition of the West, whether one likes it or not.
One aspect of Spanish influence on the Low Country can be seen in the architecture and cuisine that English colonists brought by way of Barbados, where some of the more important families had been established before moving to Carolina. There are a few Spanish surnames in the state, including Gonzalez, a famous newspaper editor 100 years ago, but I don’t know whence or when they came. Louisiana, however, has a great deal of Spanish blood, and not just form the Canary Islands, though it has mostly merged with the French. Ironically, I have never taken much interest in Spain or the Spanish language, not out of any hostility, but one gets caught up in other things. The best thing we could do for the Mexican immigrants is to teach them real Spanish, but, as I pointed out in my article, the Mexican national myth hates Spain, despite the transparent fact that the ruling class is predominantly Spanish and light Mestizo.
30 Comment by Allen Wilson on 12 August 2008:
Arkansas has a small Spanish influence centered mainly in Hot Springs, which is alleged to have been discovered by Hernando De Soto. This story is more or less the founding myth of the state. It is for this reason that the old bath houses on Bath House Row are mostly done in a Spanish colonial style. When De Soto left the hot springs, heading North and eventually to Oklahoma, he passed through the area where I am right now, and the path he likely took can still be traced in areas, but without any real certainty.
I believe that De Soto financed that expedition with his share of looted Inca gold.
There are legends of lost Spanish silver mines in this area, and when I was a teenager, my neighbour pointed one out to me, located off a dirt road way back in the woods, under a hole of water. The story was that after the Spaniards left, the creek eventually changed course and covered the old mine. He claimed to have swam down into the mine when he was a teenager. There apparently was a hole under the creek, but whether it really was an old Spanish mine is another question.
Mexicans who come here dont seem to care about the Spanish part of local history, and so far, it hasn’t been warped into a multicultural Mexican-appeasing propaganda campaign, but give them time.
31 Comment by TJF on 12 August 2008:
One thing I cannot figure out is how many Mexicans actually care about the propaganda. The ones I run into, apart from middle class college kids of the 2nd and 3rd generations, seem more interested in getting a job or dealing drugs. They do bring with them an anti-European ideology but most have been too poor and ignorant to have much of any ideology. Don’t worry, though, our public schools and media and ethnic wardheelers will do their best.
32 Comment by Frank on 12 August 2008:
Dr. Fleming,
since the poor tend to be more nationalistic, I suspect the Mexicans find the idea of reconquest comforting.
Also, I find even left wing foreigners will become nostalgic for their homeland when in America.
However, the Mexicans I’ve met haven’t ever mentioned reconquest…
33 Comment by Frank on 12 August 2008:
An example of how relatively normal Spain is: Spanish basketball team poses for offensive picture (and continues to deny that it’s offensive. It’s only offensive in loony societies like America.)
34 Comment by Sean Scallon on 12 August 2008:
It makes sense to at least try an recreat something like the culture of 100 years ago where immigrants could assimilate into a broader Anglo-Celtic-American culture of its founding either in school, work or in the voting booth while maintaining the local language and writing close to home.
You don’t think the WASPs of yesteryear were just as alarmed at all the Eastern European Jews and the socialist ideas some of them had pouring into New York? And yet, because of the broader culture of that time, there was no Bolshevik Revolution in the U.S. Today we have even more exotic immigrant groups coming to the U.S. and the WASPs can only ponder whether or not abhorring femal genital multilation is cultural bigotry or not.
Recreating this culture is the best of a bad situation and may very well liberate European Amnewricans from their self-hate and self-absement. Not doing so could very well lead to a bilingualism similar to that of Canada enshrined in the Constitution, a serious Chicano separatist movement in the Southwest similar to that in Quebec and a political correctness with the force of law, as we also see in Canada and Europe.
35 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 13 August 2008:
Dr. Fleming, The Gonzales brothers of Carolina were Cubans whose sister or aunt married into the distinguished Low Country Elliott family in the antebellum period. (William Elliott, author of a marvellous, outstanding piece of American literature, CAROLINA SPORTS BY LAND AND WATER.) There was considerable interchange and sympathy between Charleston and Havana in that period. Both Cubans and Carolinians living between a black population and a nasty imperial power (Spain and Yankees). Just opposite the capitol in Columbia is a monument to Nathan Gonzales, who was killed on that spot by a brother of Governor Pitchford Ben Tillman for a newspaper editorial he had written.
36 Comment by TJF on 14 August 2008:
I thank Dr. Wilson for reminding this senile old man of what he has told me more than once about the Gonzalez family of SC. I would say, in defense of Spain, that compared with the Yankee empire that fought them in Cuba, the Spanish imperialists by the end of the 19th century were fairly benign. Even in their heyday in Mexico, the Spanish–greedy, corrupt, and inefficient as they were–were better rulers than the Mexican elites have proved to be.
37 Comment by mark on 16 August 2008:
I don’t care if Mexicans learn Virgil or not. Why should anyone? They’re Aztecs, for god’s sakes. Whether they do or don’t learn of their rich cultural heritage is of no concern to me. Frankly they are not going to go away and by sheer willpower they will inherit California, it appears. What we are fretting about here is a psychological problem not amenable to education, classical or otherwise. The Mexicans want their land back and we don’t know how to oppose them because the American citizenry doesn’t know how to conceptually deal with the anxieties of holding on to the territory one has been bequeathed. We have never been invaded before, in short. Give us some time. Sooner or later these anxieties will work themselves through the political system. Perhaps a new party dedicated purely to land concerns of the type we are experiencing will form, and we will dispense with the stupid and worn-out concepts of “Right” and “Left” and other idiocies.
38 Comment by Don Guillermo on 19 August 2008:
Dr. Fleming’s words are prophetic. Realistically, however, there is nothing we can do to reverse these trends short of coercion, and that would be immoral. So, I’ve resigned myself to the decline of Western culture and civilization, and see my own role and that of kindred spirits like Dr. Fleming, as “a candle in the night.” I don’t expect to reverse the night, but I hope to “keep the fire burning” through the night. The West is already falling, and it deserves to fall because it has rebelled against God, and God is just. There is a Judgment Day, when God will put all aright, and the predators whom we have had to suffer will receive their recompense, as we will ours. The West will fall, but God will never allow Christianity to perish. As long as we resist the evil, we are not defeated. It is because of our candles in the night and God’s abundant grace that Christianity will endure in the post-Western era. Naturally, we must salvage the best of our Western heritage and preserve it for future generations, but we must do so knowing that we are the antiquarians of a great civilization that is already dead. Our mourning is our resistance. Yet, we know how the Story ends, we know that our side, God’s side, wins, and that is our hope.