The Huntington Challenge: Why The Hispanic Challenge should be Discredited

Previously known for his controversial essay, “The Clash of Civilizations,’ Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington started off a wave of debate this past spring with his cover article in Foreign Policy, “The Hispanic Challenge.”¹ This time, instead of predicting a catastrophic conflict between ‘Western civilization’ and Islam, Huntington foresees a new threat to the United States: Latino immigrants. In “The Hispanic Challenge,” Huntington claims that “the single most serious challenge to America’s traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico.”

Huntington’s article is a classic example of how immigrant bashing and ethnic prejudice have become increasingly mainstreamed by the liberal press. Recently, a report by the conservative anti–immigrant think tank, the Center for Immigration Studies, made headlines in newspapers all over the country by alleging that illegal immigrants cost taxpayers $10 billion a year—despite the fact that its data and methodology are highly flawed.² These attacks on immigrants come at a critical time. Not only are they designed to influence the 2004 Presidential campaign, but they also have repercussions on state politics. In Arizona, for example, the ‘Project Arizona Now Initiative‘ (PAN), which is headed for the November ballot, would require voters and applicants for some state services to show proof of citizenship. Even harsher than California’s Proposition 187, PAN would punish those government workers who fail to report suspected illegal immigrants applying for benefits with up to four months in jail. Although the head of PAN’s national advisory group, Virginia Abernethy, is a well-known white supremacist, a recent poll indicated that 64% of Arizona voters are in favor of the initiative.³

Dressing hate in an academic and mainstream media disguise may make it seem more respectable, but the consequences are grave for immigrants’ lives and human rights. It is important to strip these arguments bare. Here are nine reasons why Huntington’s “The Hispanic Challenge” should be thoroughly discredited.

1. Start with the cover. The cover of the March/April 2004 edition of Foreign Policy shows an un–smiling Latino man looking out to the horizon. He is dressed in a business suit and his right hand is over his chest, lightly touching an American flag pinned to his lapel. Next to his head is large text that reads, “José, Can You See? Samuel Huntington on how Hispanic immigrants threaten America’s identity, values, and way of life.” Making a distasteful pun on the opening “Oh, say can you see” of America’s national anthem, this headline is pulled from an observation that Huntington makes in his essay. With an alarmist tinge, Huntington notes, “In 1998, ‘José’ replaced ‘Michael’ as the most popular name for newborn boys in both California and Texas.” Foreign Policy’s “José, Can You See?” crosses a line by implying that the cover–photo Latino (representing every Latino) literally can’t see. Another insinuation of this cover text is that Latinos will infiltrate underlying bastions of America’s ‘national identity’— not only ‘Hispanizing’ childrens’ names, but also changing our national anthem.

2. Huntington uses xenophobic language. Huntington relies on an ‘alien invasion’ threat narrative when he portrays his “Hispanic challenge” as a silently growing, persistent, and ignored takeover by immigrants. For instance, Huntington uses phrases like “the persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants,” “the contemporary flood of immigrants from Latin America,” and “the current wave [of immigration] shows no sign of ebbing.” This language conveys the image of Mexican immigrants literally inundating the United States with their overwhelming numbers.

Huntington’s use of ‘Anglo’ instead of ‘white’ is another good example of his strategic application of language. For example, he repeatedly insists that “Anglo–Protestant values [built] the American dream” and the central element of our national identity is “the distinct Anglo–Protestant culture of the founding settlers.” The United States’ ‘core Anglo–Protestant culture’ forms one side of the dichotomy that Huntington is trying to set up between native and immigrant, Anglo and Hispanic. Why then is Huntington’s use of the term ‘Anglo’ rather than ‘white’ important? According to John Tanton, the main founder and funder of today’s anti–immigrant movement, “[E]thnicity is a more acceptable term than race.”⁴ In other words, racist petitions are cloaked in the language of cultural difference.

3. Huntington lumps all ‘Hispanics’ together. Lumping Cubans, Mexicans, South Americans, Dominican Republicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Spanish–speaking groups under ‘Hispanic’ is itself contestable. Although 2/3 of ‘Hispanics’ or Latinos in the U.S. are of Mexican origin, the remaining third includes at least 20 other national origin groups. While sharing much in common, each group is distinct,⁵ and of course there are major differences within groups according to class, gender, immigration status, etc. Just as there is no such thing as a homogenous ‘Anglo’ population, so is there no homogenous ‘Hispanic’ one.

4. Huntington appeals to eugenic stereotypes about immigrant women’s fertility. Huntington repeats the ‘classic metaphor’ of immigrant superfertility.⁶ For example, he writes that “the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America’s traditional identity” comes from immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico, and “the fertility rates of these immigrants compared to black and white American natives” (emphasis added). To highlight this point, the article twice presents the same picture of a grim looking young Latina mother with an infant in her arms. Huntington’s delineation of ‘immigrants’ from ‘natives’ implies that the U.S. society of the past is being corrupted by the changing immigrant population of the present. The native is thus elevated onto a nostalgic, ‘pure’ pedestal, whereas the immigrant is construed as an invading contaminant. Finally, Huntington also makes the specious argument that as high Mexican birthrates produce more children, Mexicans are more likely to marry each other rather than cross ethnic lines, undermining their ability to assimilate.

5. Huntington makes faulty assumptions about ‘America’s Christian creed.’ A creed is defined as “a definite summary of what is believed, especially a summary of the articles of Christian faith,”⁷ and Huntington holds that the creed of U.S. national identity is “the product of the distinct Anglo–Protestant culture of the founding settlers.” Huntington neglects the fact that the United States was not founded on Protestantism. The U.S. Constitution is a wholly secular document and had “an official Christian nation been the goal of the founders, that concept would appear in the Constitution.”⁸ Huntington also ignores the culture, values, and spirituality of slaves and indentured servants from all over the world who profoundly influenced American culture, history and religion. His placement of ‘most Americans’ under the Protestant banner is biased against people of different faiths and has a distinct anti–Catholic tinge.

6. Huntington ignores the positive contributions immigrants make to the U.S. economy. Except for the reports of anti–immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies, most research on the economic impact of immigration points to a net benefit. For example, a 2003 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas⁹ shows that immigrants have been an essential part of U.S. job growth since 1990. Immigrants often take jobs in labor–scarce regions of the country and they fill job sectors that are generally unappealing to native workers—such as in the agriculture or service industries. In addition, since many immigrants are younger and have higher fertility rates than natives, their immigration slows the aging of the country’s population. This deceleration of aging ensures that the ratio of workers to retirees is balanced, which consequently maintains the financial solvency of federal pay–as–you–go programs like Social Security and Medicare.

7. Huntington’s attitudes toward Spanish and bilingual education are crude and prejudiced. In most countries around the world, people know more than one language. Furthermore, in today’s increasingly global economy of transnational trade, multilingualism should be seen as an asset rather than as a threat. Huntington’s fear that Spanish will overtake English in the United States is also exaggerated and insubstantial. English and Spanish do not have to be mutually exclusive languages that compete with each other; one language doesn’t necessarily have to dominate and exclude the other. In addition, most immigrant children in the U.S. successfully learn English in school¹⁰, so fearing for the survival of English is a moot point. Lastly, Huntington ends his essay with the ludicrous statement, “Mexican Americans will share in [the American] dream... only if they dream in English.” With this sentence, Huntington’s prejudice really shines through.

8. Money talks. Huntington is closely linked with conservative foundations. For example, Huntington’s primary donor is the John M. Olin Foundation,’ which grew out of a family manufacturing business (chemical and munitions), [and] funds right–wing think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace.”¹¹ Huntington is the Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. He also sits on the board of the conservative–leaning Smith Richardson foundation.

9. Old Boys’ Club. Huntington is the co–founder of Foreign Policy. The magazine’s decision to publish his offensive article—and give it added prominence by putting it on the front cover—says a lot about the structures of power within the media industry.

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