Speech #1040206058

This trend toward Balkanization of America into ethnic enclaves is a slippage we need to take positive steps to curtail. The extreme result of Balkanization of course is the ethnic bloodshed we have witnessed in the former Yugoslavia. When we think of immigration in America. I believe most of us draw an image of America as a melting pot where ethnic differences are subordinated for the benefit of the greater whole. Recent evidence throws this imagery into some question. The process of assimilation into a common language and belief system. and shared values. is no longer occurring as it has in the past with the waves of new immigrants now washing into our country. Rather than melting into one people. we seem to fragment and separate in warring groups. The recent history of immigration into America shows that it is governed by. first. the laws which we write. and second. the implementation of those laws. Obviously when we write new law. we must then look to our own employment needs. to the effects on our welfare rolls. and to the impacts on the resources we dedicate to our schools and health system as we proceed. We obviously have an obligation to put our own people. their standard of living. and their opportunities for education. employment and health first. So we here in Congress must take responsibility for the effect of the immigration laws which we write on the continued health of our Nation. We cannot shirk or shift this responsibility. The American people tell us in convincing polls. some 70 percent. that they think we are taking in more immigrantslegal and illegalthan we can properly absorb and assimilate. The Immigration Act of 1965 apparently triggered huge increases In immigration. and not necessarily by design. Various estimates. including those of the INS. project an average of well over 1 million immigrants per year. both legal and illegal. will settle in the United States in the current decade. with no subsidence of that flood in sight unless we in the Congress take action to do something about it. To really get to the heart of the problem. we have to be willing to examine and debate the newly developing demographic dynamics among all cultural and ethnic groups including developing trends in regional and urban concentration. and our own national racial mix on a basis which is dispassionate. fair and not prejudicial. Perhaps this is difficult for many. but we cannot treat such practical analysis as taboo because a changing cultural mix in a locality. a city. a State or a region can have profound social. economic. and political consequences on us all which cannot be ignored. For instance. should we not be looking at the particular impacts of immigration in specific geographic concentrations and make an effort to reduce the possibilities of Balkanization and the creation of enclaves? There Is already some documentation of demographic movements of some ethnic groups away from. and in reaction to. such enclaves. We need to take steps to better understand the demographic shifts that are occurring in our country and the consequent economic and political results of those shifting tides.