Penn law professor Amy Wax is under predictable PC fire for her remarks at last week’s National Conservatism Conference to the effect that immigration will succeed to the extent that immigrants share our cultural values, which means we ought to have more immigration from Europe. (The way current immigration law works, it is quite difficult to immigrate to the U.S. from Europe compared to people from Latin America and Asia. Does this make any sense?)
As David Marcus explains at The Federalist, the charge of racism and “white supremacy” against Wax is pure defamation:
What the transcript makes clear is that Wax is not basing her argument for admitting more foreign citizens from Western and first world countries on race at all, but on culture. Her belief is that immigrants who share some cultural norms and values with native-born Americans are better for the country than those who do not.
But perhaps a better place to gain perspective on this wider issue is . . . The New York Times. No, that’s not a misprint. The July 11 edition of the NYT carried a long feature article that reports on a point we have made here on Power Line previously—that the Nordic “socialist” countries beloved of America’s left are rapidly turning away from the “diversity is our strength” ideology that is also beloved of the American left.
The title of the article is bracing: “The Nordic Model May Be the Best Cushion Against Capitalism; Can It Survive Immigration?”
Some samples:
FILIPSTAD, Sweden — At first, local leaders were inclined to see the refugees as an opportunity. The iron ore mines had shut down. So had a factory that made machinery for the logging industry. The town had been abandoned, its population cut in half. A shot at replenishment appeared at hand. . .
But four years after the influx, growing numbers of native-born Swedes have come to see the refugees as a drain on public finances. Some decry an assault on “Swedish heritage,” or “Swedish culture,” or other words that mean white, Christian and familiar. Antipathy for immigrants now threatens to erode support for Sweden’s social welfare state. . .
“People are quite open to showing solidarity for people who are like themselves,” says Carl Melin, policy director at Futurion, a research institution in Stockholm. “They don’t show solidarity for people who are different.”
Now cue Mitt Romney and “self-deportation”:
“These immigrants don’t speak the same language,” complains Mr. Pettersson, a Sweden Democrat, over coffee in a downtown cafe specializing in Swedish pastries. “They have different religions, different ways of life. If there are too many differences, it’s harder to get along. It’s interesting to meet someone from another country for maybe half an hour, but if you’re going to live together, it’s tough.”
He favors sending refugees back to their home countries through “voluntary repatriation,” he says, rather than squandering public money on doomed efforts to integrate them.
Turns out that much of the opposition to continued immigration into Sweden comes from the trade unions and working class Swedes like bus drivers, etc.
If even the New York Times can make out this problem, maybe some Democrats could figure out out.
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