38 percent of Latinos have less than arnninth grade education. Should Texasrncontinue to receive a large number ofrnI lispanics, whether legal or illegal aliens,rnhow will the state cope with a growingrnpopulation characterized by limited educationrnand poor proficiency in English?rnEmployers already report that 70 to 80rnpercent of applicants for entry-level clericalrnand technical positions lack basicrnEnglish and math skills. The demographicrnshifts of the 1970’s and 1980’srnhave affected virtually every segment ofrnTexan society. But as the authors emphasize,rn”Texans can do somethingrnabout these demographic changes ifrnthey really want to.”rnIn one of the more quixotic gesturesrnof a dismal presidency, George Bushrnsigned into law the 1990 ImmigrationrnAct, which increased legal immigrationrnby 40 percent. Whisked throughrnCongress with little discussion, legislatorsrnlet the public understand that thernUnited States faces a looming laborrnshortage, thus justifying the act, whilernBen Wattenberg went so far as to claimrnthat the chronic federal budget deficitrncould be eliminated if more immigrantsrnwere admitted.rnImmigration 2000: The Century of thernNew American Sweatshop contains 25rnstudies and articles by some of our leadingrneconomists and immigration scholars.rnThese provide an iron-clad refutationrnof the myths about the economicrnbenefits of the immigration policies promotedrnby Simon, Wattenberg et al.rnThe thrust of their work is that currentrnpolicies are contributing to a decline inrnAmerican economic competitiveness,rnwhile undermining the job opportunities,rnwages, and workiirg conditions ofrnAmerican workers.rnHow immigration policy relates tornother political, economic, social, andrncultural issues facing this country is therntopic of former Minnesota Senator EugenernMcCarthy’s book, A Colony of thernWorld: The United States Today. McCarthyrnpoints out in his introductionrnthat, historically, colonialism is characterizedrnby political, military, economic,rndemographic, and cultural control of therncolonial territory by outside directingrnpowers. It is his thesis that the UnitedrnStates has, for all practical purposes, descendedrnto the status of a colony, onerndominated not by any single foreignrncountry but rather by a combination ofrnoutside forces (some political, some economic,rnsome ideological), which are aidedrnand abetted by special interests within.rn”A mark of a country’s colonialrndependence,” he notes, “is lack of controlrnover its own borders . . . [and] lackrnof control over who or what crossesrnthose borders.” After reviewing thern1965 Immigration Act, which openedrnour country to large-scale immigrationrnfrom the Third Worid, McCarthy bluntlyrnstates, “If one thinks of the classic definitionrnof colonialism—the arrival ofrnlarge numbers of people who imposerntheir cultural values and language onrnthe preexisting society—it is hard notrnto define the current wave of immigrationrnas a colonizing force on thernUnited States. What distinguishes thernUnited States from other colonized societiesrnis that we have the power to preventrnit, and choose not to use it. . . .We haverncome to question whether the culturernthat built a society that has the worldrnbeating a path to our doors is evenrnworth trying to preserve” [emphasisrnadded].rnEven people who are familiar with therninformation contained in the books reviewedrnhere, and who privately agreernthat “something must be done,” arernloath to “come out of the closet,” tornborrow a phrase used by another “community.”rnGarrett Hardin has dismissedrnthese worthies as “a passel of poltroonsrnwho quail at the word ‘minority.'” Butrnif we fail to act at this turning point inrnour demographic history, the probablernoutcome of the process of social, cultural,rnand political disintegration tornwhich our immigration policies are arnmajor contributor will be what AndrewrnHacker suggested in The End of thernAmerican Era, published in 1971; “ThernUnited States is about to join other nationsrnof the world which were once prepossessingrnand are now little more thanrnplots of bounded terrain. Like them,rnthe United States will continue to be inhabitedrnby human life; however, Americansrnwill no longer possess that spiritrnwhich transforms a people into a citizenryrnand turns territory into a nation.”rnLIBERAL ARTSrnPOLITICAL ETHICS, ETHICAL POLITICSrn”The ancients who wished clearly to manifest illustrious virtue throughout the world would first govern their own states well.rnWishing to govern their states well, they would first regulate their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they would firstrncultivate their own persons. Wishing to cultivate their own persons, they would first rectify their hearts. Wishing to rectify theirrnhearts, they would first seek sincerity in their thoughts. Wishing for sincerity in their thoughts, they would first extend theirrnknowledge. The extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.rn”Only when many things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; onlyrnwhen thoughts are sincere are hearts rectified; only when hearts are rectified are our persons cultivated; only when our personsrnare cultivated are our families regulated; only when our families are regulated are states well governed; only when states are wellrngoverned can the world be at peace.”rn—from the Confucian classic Ta hsiieh.rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn