![Anti-Immigrant Sentiment: Race, Rule of Law, and Religion California Council for the Social Studies annual conference Saturday, March 5, 2011; Sacramento, CA Session J4, 1:15-2:15 p.m., Salon 3 David L. Moguel, Associate Professor of Secondary Education, CSU Northridge, Eisner College of Education [email_address]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/anti-immigrantsentimentccsso2011-110305132025-phpapp02/85/Anti-immigrant-sentiment-CCSSO-2011-1-320.jpg)
Anti-immigrant sentiment CCSSO 2011
- 1. Anti-Immigrant Sentiment: Race, Rule of Law, and Religion California Council for the Social Studies annual conference Saturday, March 5, 2011; Sacramento, CA Session J4, 1:15-2:15 p.m., Salon 3 David L. Moguel, Associate Professor of Secondary Education, CSU Northridge, Eisner College of Education [email_address]
- 2. Guiding Questions What are the most significant and fundamental differences between other Americans and most Latinos -- Mexicans in particular? Why has Mexico, and much of the rest of Latin America, failed to produce democratic institutions as strong, lasting and effective as those of the United States?
- 3. Fundamental differences For Paz, the most significant difference between the U.S. and Mexico is that the former is a Christian Protestant nation with no significant indigenous identity, while the latter is a Catholic nation centered on an indigenous history and identity. Paz argued that Mexican Catholicism, derived from a combination of Spanish and indigenous traditions, has different approaches than European Protestantism toward government and democracy, freedom of thought, and relating to other people.
- 4. What exactly did Paz write? “ In those small colonial communities, a fusion had taken place among religious convictions, the embryonic national consciousness, the political institutions. So harmony, not contradiction, existed between the North Americans’ religious convictions and their democratic institutions; whereas in Mexico Catholicism was identified with the vice-regal regime, and was its orthodoxy.”
- 5. Religion and democracy Disunity, discord and “faction” on the ship leads to the Mayflower Compact in November 1620. “… having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”
- 6. The rule of law and religion Is this where emphasis on the “rule of law” in the opposition to undocumented immigration comes from? Mexicans seem to have a different relationship to the law: resignation over bribery and corruption, “el que no transa no avanza,” “la ley se acata pero no se cumple” On the other hand: were slavery and Manifest Destiny legal?
- 7. Paz on intellectual freedom “ A no less profound difference was the opposition between Catholic orthodoxy and Protestant reformism. In Mexico, Catholic orthodoxy had … a mode of thought more apologetic than critical, and defensive in the face of the emerging modernity. Orthodoxy prevented examination and criticism. In New England, the communities were often made up of religious dissidents or, at least, of people who believed that the Scriptures should be read freely …bo th societies were religious, but their religious attitudes were irreconcilable.”
- 8. Opinions on Catholicism from a Mexican Catholic Catechism and Sunday mass are about official representatives and instructors telling the congregation what the Bible says, and interpreting it for them. There is little to no opportunity for deliberation and discussion. The history and practice of Protestant Christianity originated in protest and dissent, leading to traditions of deliberation and discussion more conducive to the development of strong democratic institutions. Over time this has an effect on the development of reading and verbal skills at home and school (compare to Jewish traditions).
- 9. The Douay-Rheims Holy Catholic Bible, A.D. 1609 A LIST OF PRINCIPAL COMMENTATORS This list of over 200 names includes, among others, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Chrysostom, E. Erasmus, St. Ignatius, M., and St. Thomas Aquinas. The list also contains a little over 60 names with a cross preceding their names, including: Calvin, Luther, Maimonides, Pliny the Elder, Philo the Jew, J. J. Rousseau, Spencer, and Voltaire Note: “T h ose who have a Cross prefixed to their Names, have been perhaps Men of Learning, but they have erred from the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints, and can therefore be consulted only as Critics, or to be refuted.”
- 10. Paz on human relations “ If the different attitudes of Hispanic Catholicism and English Protestantism could be summed up in two words, I would say that the Spanish attitude is inclusive and the English exclusive. In the former, the notions of conquest and domination are bound up with ideas of conversion and assimilation; in the latter, conquest and domination imply not the conversion of the conquered but their segregation…An exclusive society is bound to cut itself off from the natives, either by physical exclusion or by extermination; at the same time, since each community of pure-minded men is isolated from other communities, it tends to treat its members as equals and to assure the autonomy and freedom of each group of believers.”
- 11. One interpretation of Paz The Puritans came to this country to be left alone to worship as they pleased, so they had a disposition against integrating with almost everyone else, especially non-Protestants. Is it possible that throughout our nation’s history, anti-immigrant sentiment is better understood as religious intolerance, ignorance and misunderstanding rather than racism?
- 12. Selective history of immigration Protestant reaction against Catholic Irish immigration, 1840s and 50s National Origins Acts of 1921 and 1924 provided for larger immigrant quotas from predominantly Protestant Northern Europe and smaller quotas from largely Catholic Southern and Eastern Europe, and imposed restrictions on Asian immigration – mostly Buddhist. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Immigration Act of 1907 limits numbers of non-Christian Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Immigration Act of 1965 abolishes the national origins quota system. Source: Constitutional Rights Foundation. (2006). Current Issues of Immigration, 2006 . http://www.crf-usa.org/immigration/issues_of_immigration_2006.htm
- 13. What can music teach us? One “White” teacher’s comment: those Latino kids sure love to party Puritan/early American Protestant shuns music and dancing and religious festivity, “some fearing that refined musical performance led devilishly to secularized worship.” (Scherer, 2005, p. 13) Spanish, colonial, Catholic Mexico syncretizes with indigenous music and culture - and much like African culture, music and dancing are tied to spirituality and religion
- 14. Want to know more? Paz, Octavio (1979 ). “ Mexico and the United States ,” translated by Rachel Phillips Belash. The New Yorker , 136-153, 55/31, 17 79, September 17. Sima, R. and Moguel, D.L. (2011). Teach me, I dare you: Taking up the challenge of teaching social studies . Culver City, CA: Social Studies School Service.