By Carlos Alberto Montaner*

The greatest irritant afflicting the First World is illegal immigration. Literally tens of millions of Africans, Asians and Latin Americans desperately attempt to reach the shores of countries like Spain, Italy, France and, of course, the United States. But the poor also weep. Sometimes, migratory pressure occurs between Third World countries. It's a gradation of horror. For example, the Dominicans must struggle with the waves of Haitians who, by the thousands, have crossed the border illegally since the death of dictator Trujillo in 1961. Nobody knows if one million or two million of them have settled in Santo Domingo or have hidden and are secretly being exploited in sugar plantations. The Costa Ricans have in their territory more than half-a-million Nicaraguans. If Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas again govern cruelly and stupidly, that figure will increase substantially in a short while.

In every country where immigrants abound, the dilemma is the same: on one hand, society usually detests them; on the other, it asks them to assimilate and criticizes them when they exhibit their differences. Being suspicious of whoever dresses, speaks, eats, prays or gesticulates in a different manner seems to be a cultural or genetically codified reaction in all societies. Our cousins, the charming chimpanzees, methodically disembowel any outsiders of their own species who approach their group. Sometimes the human animal displays a similar conduct. In Alcorcón, a neighborhood on the periphery of Madrid, even as I write these words, some Latin American and Spanish youth gangs go at each other with switchblades. They're not too far from the chimpanzees.

Obviously, the ideal outcome is for the foreigners to integrate and assimilate into the country to which they have emigrated, but the affair becomes complicated when society, far from encouraging that phenomenon of transculturization, places obstacles in its path. How? Simple; by denying adult immigrants the possibility of working and young immigrants the chance to study. The workplace -- including the armed forces, of course -- and the school are the two perfect places for foreigners to increase contact with the new land to which they have emigrated. Why be surprised when illegal immigrants form ghettoes where they perpetuate their customs and live on the margins of society if society itself closes the doors that lead to integration?

There is a case of successful assimilation that deserves to be studied with attention: that of Cubans in the United States. In four decades, Cubans in the U.S. have integrated remarkably in American society. Theirs is a minority that participates passionately in public life and has two senators and four representatives in the U.S. Congress, one Cabinet member, a dozen ambassadors -- active or retired -- and an extraordinary heft in the institutions of the state of Florida, whose Assembly is presided by a young member of that community.

Even more impressive is the degree of integration and assimilation in civilian society and the productive apparatus. According to the official census, the second generation of Cuban-Americans has a higher degree of education and income than the U.S. average, while the number of enterprises created or owned by this group is one of the highest among all the ethnic groups studied by demographers and sociologists who study this branch of econometrics.

Why has the assimilation of Cubans been so remarkable? Probably because in 1966 the U.S. Congress, faced with the presence in U.S. soil of several tens of thousands of illegal Cubans who couldn't be returned to Cuba, passed a wise measure called the "Adjustment Act" that allowed Cubans to swiftly gain residence, work, study, create businesses and integrate into U.S. society.

Experience and common sense indicate that that is the most sensible way to deal with this huge problem. The conflict disappears or is attenuated when illegal immigrants become legal, study, begin to pay taxes and benefit with their work the whole of the society where they live. Granted, that formula perhaps stimulates immigration, but that consequence is less evil than keeping millions of people on the margins of society. If we want to promote assimilation, we must build bridges, not dig moats.

January 28, 2007

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