The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

hose of us who have lived overseas are familiar with our nation’s enormous impact on other cultures, particularly as seen through the eyes of non-Americans concerned about losing their identity in the face of the Hollywood, Wal-Mart and CNN onslaught. Even those of us without this kind of daily, intimate contact have been made aware — through protests in Seattle, Venice, Davos, Cancun and elsewhere — of strong opposition to globalization’s economic impact on other countries. Now, along comes Samuel Huntington, who forces us to look at the other side of the coin: the effects of immigration — as one important facet of globalization — on our own identity. His article in the March/April 2004 issue of Foreign Policy , “The Hispanic Challenge,” as well as the book it is excerpted from, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity (Simon & Schuster, 2004), both describe the loss of the core American values at the foundation of our identity as a result of the current, historic wave of immigra- tion, principally Hispanic and largely Mexican in origin. He notes differences in this current wave that set it apart (in his view) from earlier immigration patterns, which moved quick- ly toward assimilation. The size, the illegality, the language, the proximity and the historic claims to U.S. territory involved all make Huntington worry more about this current wave of immigration than any previous ones. Many, especially in Mexico where I served as DCM until this summer, have dismissed Huntington as xenophobic or even racist, and perhaps a bit senile. However, three things should give us pause before we join in this blanket dismissal. First is the predictive ability and staying power of Huntington’s earlier works, such as The Clash of Civilizations (Simon & Schuster, 1996). He is an enormously thoughtful man whose concerns deserve to be taken seriously. Second, it is true that some of Huntington’s arguments date back more than a century, to a time when some political parties appealed openly to voters’ nativism and xenophobia. Yet many of the critics who call him racist for sounding an alarm about losing our identity have no objection when other countries protest our cultural onslaught on their identity. Finally, we need to acknowledge that Huntington is artic- ulating concerns that are sincere and commonly held throughout the United States. And those concerns must be dealt with on their merits, not by name-calling or knee-jerk dismissal. All that said, there is a lot to take issue with in Huntington’s latest screed. In fact, here are 10 areas of dis- agreement. Ten Errors 1. Most fundamentally, Huntington underestimates the strength of our own values, among which he lists: religious faith, rule of law, responsibilities of rulers, rights of individuals, work ethic, a belief that humans have the ability and the duty to try to create a heaven on earth, economic opportunity and political liberties. Does he really feel that so impressive a set of attributes, strengthened over the history of our nation, is so vulnerable to outside influence? I, for one, find it hard to believe that after all the challenges and ordeals we have gone through as a nation, we or our culture is vulnerable. 2. He incorrectly assumes that by their mere presence among us, the new arrivals are changing these values. In fact, like their predecessors, the new immigrants are coming to 64 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 C HALLENGING S AMUEL H UNTINGTON S AMUEL H UNTINGTON ’ S NEWEST BOOK EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT THE CURRENT WAVE OF H ISPANIC IMMIGRATION TO THE U.S. H IS WORRIES ARE SINCERE BUT EXAGGERATED . B Y J OHN D ICKSON T John Dickson, an FSO since 1984, has served in Lagos, Durban, Lima, Mexico City andWashington, D.C. He is now deputy chief of mission in Ottawa.