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Cuban Émigrés and the American Dream

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2006

Susan Eckstein
Affiliation:
Boston University ([email protected])

Extract

According to Samuel Huntington, Latin Americans are eroding our country's core Anglo-Protestant values. The values, says he, made America great, unified the country, and allowed immigrant upward mobility through assimilation and acculturation. Huntington expresses concern that immigrants from Latin America, now our main newcomers, along with their U.S.-born progeny, are creating another America, culturally and socially distinct. The reason for this, he claims, is that they settle in close proximity to one another; they retain use of their mother tongue, Spanish; and they remain, in the main, committed Catholics. These conditions purportedly are bad both for America and for the immigrants. They impede new immigrant ability to live the American Dream and, by implication, America's continued global economic preeminence.Susan Eckstein is Professor of Sociology at Boston University ([email protected]). Thanks to the Radcliffe Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundations for financial support for the project on which this article draws, and to Richard Alba and Jorge Domínguez for comments on an earlier version of this essay. The author is also appreciative of the hundreds of Cuban Americans with whom she spoke who have deepened her understanding of Cuban American experiences. She has spoken with ordinary Cuban Americans who emigrated at different points in time, as well as with businessmen, politicians, clergy, leaders of diverse groups and organizations, scholars, and journalists.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Copyright
© 2006 American Political Science Association

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