Mexicans are Dumb and Will Destroy America?

[lightbringer]

He doesn't know how to drive?

Figures.... well one day he will learn that there are different vehicles for different needs...well at least until the world looks to him for all things needed, hope he doesn't hold his breath till then.

 

[annabenedetti]

I'm challenging Richwine's "big" numbers. It takes time to go through all of his references. Some of them are not publicly available or easily accessible. My major issue is the amount of weight he gives IQ test scores. I am a first generation Mexican-American. I have never taken an IQ given by the state or any major research organization. I don't know of anyone in my extended family that has. So where and when did these supposedly large groups of Mexican immigrants take an IQ test?



The problem is that Richwine's paper is unconvincing based on his misuse of statistics.

Good luck with that... I tried to get Trad to look at it early in the thread and wasn't too successful.

I'm not saying that it is. Being unskilled/uneducated is one thing. Having a lower IQ is another thing. According to the scholar, both hold true of many (if not most) Mexican immigrants.

Again, you may not like this. You may really, really want to disagree with this.

But on what grounds?

Do you have statistics/surveys which lead to opposite conclusions? Are you familiar with scholarly research that brings this into discredit?

And you may really, really want to agree with it, yes?

I haven't looked. Have you? Or do you accept this without question?

That's just it, though. Our personal predispositions/prejudices should be irrelevent.

I'm just saying: don't you think that it's screwed up that a scholar ended up having to resign over this? Not because of bad scholarship, but because of the personal opinions and feelings of the uneducated mob which is the American public.

The claim appeared in a Harvard dissertation. We can always start there.

Edit: In the event that you didn't know, writing a dissertation is kind of a big thing.

You're the one who brought it into the conversation.

He chose to resign. And why do you accept his scholarship unquestioningly? Could it be because it confirms your bias?

This has nothing to do with whether writing a dissertation is kind of a big thing.

In the face of overwhelmingly negative public reaction, he "chose" to resign.

I didn't write a dissertation on that stuff. It's not my field of study. If I'm not qualified one way or the other to know the answer, ceteris paribus, I assume that the guy who's educated in the field knows what he's talking about. This is why I also think that conservative Christians (who aren't scientists) are really dumb for disputing global warming. :idunno:

 

[The Berean]

i worked with children of bosnian immigrants who didn't speak english

they were a lot of fun and eager to learn

maybe you should volunteer at a local literacy program for non english speakers - i'll bet you could find one at your local library

Trad? :think:

 

[The Berean]

Trad, how is this possible? Two Mexican immigrants attending Ivy League schools? This is my hometown!


Immigrant brothers go from Watsonville to Ivy League


WATSONVILLE -- The Ivy League is a long way from Michoacan, Mexico, but brothers Edgar and Cesar Garcia Lopez charted the course.

Cesar, 17, graduated from Watsonville High School in June and just wrapped up his first semester at Yale. Edgar, 20, was Watsonville's valedictorian in 2012, and is in his junior year at Brown University.

"It's not about being smart," Edgar said. "It's about being driven. That's how I got where I am. That's how my brother got where he is."

The brothers are home in Watsonville on winter break, and, hoping to counter what Edgar described as a "lack of inspiration" among many young people in their town, shared their stories.

"Going to the fields and working, that's what's expected of us," Edgar said. "Watsonville's not just about violence and strawberries. It's about people going off and making it."

 

[resodko]

imagine what they could have achieved if they weren't dumb

 

[Traditio]

Trad, how is this possible? Two Mexican immigrants attending Ivy League schools? This is my hometown!

They're exceptional cases. For every such case, there are probably another five who are violent criminals.

 

[The Berean]

They're exceptional cases. For every such case, there are probably another five who are violent criminals.

Really? Do you have statistics to back this up? :idunno:

 

[Traditio]

Really? Do you have statistics to back this up? :idunno:

Not right off hand, but that's the nature of exceptional cases. I mean, just think about it. Let's abstract from a consideration of Mexicans, and think about any low-income, low socioeconomic status community.

Yes, there are going to be some exceptional cases of high-achieving individuals. Most, however, are probably going to do about as well as their parents, and a number equal to or greater than the exceptionally high achieving persons are going to be exceptionally bad. Note, of course, that this is all relative to the "average" of this low socioeconomic status community, where the rate of crime (and violent crime) is already going to be substantially higher than other communities.

In other words: that's just the nature of a bell curve. Most people are average relatively to the sample from which the average is being taken, and in the case that we're talking about, the bell curve is already shifted substantially to the left. Spoken differently, given the sample, I'm expecting more F's than A's, although I don't rule out the possibility of there being As. :idunno:

 

[The Barbarian]

Don't move to Texas, Trad. In my parish, half the mass is in English, and half is in Spanish.

A few decades ago, they just had one Spanish Mass. Once, at Easter, circumstances caused me to have to go to the Spanish mass. It was pretty cool. The celebration was upbeat and triumphant as Easter should be, and at the end of the Mass, they played an old English Hymn, "Jesus Christ Has Ris'n Today", which is often played in Episcopal Churches. (My wife was raised as an Episcopalian, so she loves that one). But it was played with guitar, accordian, and trumpet to a Latin beat. Interesting, and catchy.

My littlest one decided "this place rocks" and started dancing in the aisle, while her older sister kept elbowing me and whispering "stop her, dad." All the while, Father Publius is beaming over everything.

Yep. Different. Memorable. And the way worship should be. Y'all stay north of the Red River, hear?

 

[Traditio]

Ignore this post.

 

[The Barbarian]

Liturgy is what The Church says it is. I grew up as an altar boy who learned the Tridentine Mass, and loved the Latin and Greek therein. Still do.

But this was no less a mass for being Spanish. Remember Church Latin isn't the same as classical Latin, either.

 

[Traditio]

Liturgy is what The Church says it is. I grew up as an altar boy who learned the Tridentine Mass, and loved the Latin and Greek therein. Still do.

But this was no less a mass for being Spanish. Remember Church Latin isn't the same as classical Latin, either.

Not what I meant. :noid:

 

[The Berean]

Not right off hand, but that's the nature of exceptional cases. I mean, just think about it. Let's abstract from a consideration of Mexicans, and think about any low-income, low socioeconomic status community.

Yes, there are going to be some exceptional cases of high-achieving individuals. Most, however, are probably going to do about as well as their parents, and a number equal to or greater than the exceptionally high achieving persons are going to be exceptionally bad. Note, of course, that this is all relative to the "average" of this low socioeconomic status community, where the rate of crime (and violent crime) is already going to be substantially higher than other communities.

In other words: that's just the nature of a bell curve. Most people are average relatively to the sample from which the average is being taken, and in the case that we're talking about, the bell curve is already shifted substantially to the left. Spoken differently, given the sample, I'm expecting more F's than A's, although I don't rule out the possibility of there being As. :idunno:

How do you explain the fact that immigrants of previous generations (German, Irish, Italian, Scottish, English, Dutch, etc) came to America and their descendants improved their lot in life?

 

[Traditio]

How do you explain the fact that immigrants of previous generations (German, Irish, Italian, Scottish, English, Dutch, etc) came to America and their descendants improved their lot in life?

I don't believe that I denied this either as a reality or a possibility.

 

[The Berean]

I don't believe that I denied this either as a reality or a possibility.

So then it's possible that the descendants of Mexican immigrants can/will improve their lot in life above what their immigrant forefathers had?

 

[Morpheus]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't change the fact. All that you are saying is that the facts can be explained. But this is not in dispute.



As a matter of fact, this is what tends to happen. As the saying goes: "The apple does not fall far from the tree."

Are there exceptions? Yup.

Are these exceptions the rule? Nope.

Socioeconomic mobility, in practice, isn't nearly as great or as common as the so called "American Dream" would have us believe.

And look, ultimately, this thread isn't even about Mexicans immigrants. It's not to debate whether or not Mexican immigrants are dumb.

What's at issue is that an academic's career is over because he wrote this in his dissertation.

I know it's an old thread hat should have died under its own weight long ago, but it has Ben revived and, for so unknown reason, I was drawn to read this far.

You are tiring. Your presence sucks the air out of the virtual room. Yet your preoccupation with some self-important student's academic career dismiss the much larger issue. The intent of his dissertation was to diminish a people based on their race and class. No matter how he went about "proving" his assertion, it was his intent that drew the ire, and rightfully so. In the end his intent was to bring harm to others. Therefore, he deserves no honor for his work and there should be no place available to such a person in either public service or academia. I am sure that such think tanks as the Heritage Foundation and the American Heritage Foundation will miss the credentials he might have brought to their smear campaigns. His academic loss is society's gain. There is already enough manure floating on the cream.

 

[Morpheus]

So then it's possible that the descendants of Mexican immigrants can/will improve their lot in life about what their immigrant forefathers had?

By his assertions that the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, his father must have been a real rectum as well.

Then again, if acorns don't fall far from the tree, we also have to consider maples and cottenwoods with seeds that can travel quite some distance. And then there are those seeds that fall into water an travel miles, even to other continents. One other problem Trad ignores is that academics, politicians and the wealthy, like the royals, don't do much breeding outside their own. The signs of inbreeding show first in thought processing. You can tell them by their narrow minds.

 

[The Barbarian]

Where I teach, the demographics have shifted to about 50% Hispanic. These are mostly hard-working wage-earners, who moved here because the is affordable housing and a great school system.

And the AP classes are full of them; they are going to college, and they're moving up, just as the children of immigrants always have. No difference. I like them, always have. Not that they don't have creeps and bums. Every group has those.

Most of them are good people. They aren't afraid of work, and they want their kids to do better than they did.

 

[intojoy]

Strictly speaking, I don't think that his claim is racist. It sounds racist, but in the strictest sense, it's not racist. The claim isn't that all Mexicans are stupid and are likely to destroy America, or that Mexicans genetically are predisposed to be stupid and destroy America.

What he seems to be saying is that the vast majority of the Mexicans who are immigrating to America are stupid. This seems plausible: immigrants tend to be poor, and poor people tend to be stupid. Like tends to generate like. Poor, stupid parents tend to beget poor, stupid children.

So if you have an influx of poor, stupid, unskilled people (Mexican or otherwise) into the country, people who are likely to generate poor, stupid, unskilled children...how can this not have serious consequences for the country?

I think that his analysis is just spot on. He should have stood his ground.

Indians had to make room for whites, whites will have to make room for Hexicans. It's the way of the world man!

 

[The Barbarian]

A Heritage Foundation scholar has resigned after a firestorm erupted over his 2009 dissertation alleging Hispanics do not have 'IQ parity with whites' and that Hispanic immigrants to the United States will have 'low-IQ children and grandchildren'...Richwine’s Harvard University dissertation, written before his employment at Heritage, asserted that an influx of 'low-IQ' immigrants coming to the country would result in 'a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market.' 'No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against,' Richwine wrote.

In the 1800s, similar arguments were advanced against the Irish and the Jews. Guess how that turned out? Both groups are now better educated and of higher average income than the average American.