not try their luck in immigrant-flooded labor markets, notnonly because of artificially depressed wages and a lack ofnaffordable housing, but because Spanish — so sizable is thenimmigrant work force — has replaced English as the workplacenlanguage in a growing number of industries in thensecondary labor market.nThe Hispanic Policy Development Project’s perceptionnof the issue is both curious and curiously stated. The issue isnnot about Hispanics, per se, displacing “other Americans,”nbut rather about the adverse impact of Hispanic immigrantsnon all citizens in certain labor markets — including citizensnof Hispanic descent. Recenfly arrived immigrants andnespecially illegal aliens are not, by definition, “Americans,”nif by the term is meant citizens of the United States. Bynfailing to distinguish between Hispanic immigrants and U.S.ncitizens of Hispanic descent, the Project engages in a verbalnsleight of hand, lumping both groups together. In consequence,nthe claims of Hispanic citizens about being adverselynaffected on the job market by legal or illegal Hispanicnaliens are exorcised from the debate, if not from reality.nWhen the proponents of massive immigration are ready tonconcede that adverse impact does occur, they cavalierlynexplain it away by noting that, after all, the only real impactnis in Hispanic neighborhoods anyway. The message of thisnexplanation and of the general tendency to exalt ethnicitynover citizenship is that Hispanic-Americans are not “real”nAmericans. To such tangled webs do arguments of thenHispanic leadership too often lead.nThe savings resulting from employing a Mexican lettucenpicker or a Salvadoran busboy are, at least in part, passed onnto consumers in the form of lower prices. But other relatedncosts are borne by citizen taxpayers and low-income citizennminority workers and their families. These include: socialnservices, both in terms of non-reimbursed publicly fundednservices extended to immigrants, and heightened competitionnfor poor citizens seeking those services; depressed wagesnand working conditions for citizen workers; and the intensificationnof the shortage in low-cost housing. Not paid forndirectly, as to the cashier in a checkout line, these costs arenhidden. They represent a de facto labor market subsidy tonemployers, who have come to view private gain off publicndomain as a God-given right.nThe cost of educating immigrant schoolchildren has beennoverwhelming in the states of California, Texas, and Florida,nwhere fully 65 percent of the nation’s Hispanic childrennreside. Researchers have found that of the 613,222 Englishdeficientnstudents in California in the spring of 1987, onlyn10 percent were born in the United States. Of the totalnnumber of students not fluent in English, no fewer than 73npercent were Spanish-speaking. At a hme when manynCalifornia schools are on a year-round schedule and massiventeacher reductions are necessitated by budget constraints, it’snonly natural to ask why our nation’s immigration policyncontinues to be blind to the educational resource limitationsnof its largest state. This is not to imply that immigrantnschoolchildren already here should not be educated, butnrather that they should be educated better by makingnavailable to them the resources that will otherwise have to bendiluted among ever-growing numbers of new arrivals in thenfuture.nAn increasing number of students come from familiesn26/CHRONICLESnnnlacking adequate housing. Some may double or triple up innapartments meant for one family. A truly egregious examplenof the Hispanic housing crisis evolved in Los Angeles in then1980’s with the phenomenon of the “garage people” —nsome 200,000 or more low-income, largely Hispanic individuals,nincluding families, who reside in garages featuringnno running water and only makeshift electrical connections.nWhile fewer low-rent housing units in the housing stocknhave intensified the shortage of affordable housing sincen1978, an increase in the number of poor families hasnlikewise been a factor. In Hispanic-American communities,nrecent immigration is responsible for a very large portion ofnthat increase in poor families. Borjas’ observation that a 10npercent increase in the immigrant flow doubles the immigrantnpopulation in those few cities in which the newcomersnsettle has implications for the housing crisis of Hispanic-nAmericans that even Messrs. Wattenberg and Simon mightnbe able to comprehend — that is, if they were to abandonntheir air of studied unreality.nUnlike a labor surplus, which results in the reduction innwages offered, a surplus of housing seekers results in annincrease in rents demanded — not just for the immigrants, ofncourse, but for everyone seeking housing in the neighborhoodsnin which they settle. According to the Center onnBudget and Policy Priorities, which analyzed federal datanreleased in 1989, some 40 percent of poor Hispanicnhouseholds paid at least 70 percent of their income fornhousing costs in 1985. Impoverished Hispanic-Americansnseeking federally funded housing were particulariy harmednwhen Jack Kemp, secretary of Housing and Urban Development,nrecently defended the idea that illegal aliens haventhe same right to public housing as U.S. citizens.nPolitical power plays leveraged by massive increases innimmigration have, in general, boomeranged on Hispanic-nAmericans, undermining the socioeconomic assimilationnthat has traditionally fostered true political power in thenUnited States. Normally such political acculturation hasnevolved from individual attainments that may in turn helpnthe individual to recognize class interest that transcendsnethnicity, as opposed to succumbing to sheer tribalistnpolitics. The real story of Hispanic politics in the last twondecades is how little a skyrocketing population has contributednto Hispanic political clout. Hispanics today comprise onlyn1 percent of the nation’s elected oflncials because a disproportionatenlack of citizenship and a disproportionate numbernof under-voting-age youth render many Hispanics ineligiblento vote, even as poverty distracts many who are eligible fromnexercising their right.nThe impact of chronic massive immigration has reinforcednthe feeling among some disadvantaged Hispanic-Americansnthat they are without a country, that they arenneither of the United States nor of the Latin Americannnations they or their forefathers left; that they are neithernfish nor fowl. Even when, as is more often the case,nHispanic-Americans cling to their citizenship, exhibitingnpatriotism at every turn, they are increasingly victimized bynthe growing tendency of their own government and fellowncitizens not of Hispanic descent to blur the distinctionnbetween Hispanic aliens and Hispanic citizens. To ask thesenparticular Americans to stifle their concerns about massiven