More on Mex-Ams: You'd think I made it up. I'm interested in ethnic differences and am concerned about too-rapid Mexican immigration. For a long time, I've long suspected that Mex-Ams are not quite the angels immigration enthusiasts claim they are. Browsing General Social Survey (GSS) questions just now, I wondered about two personality traits that many Americans seem to value: optimism and unselfishness. It turns out that these traits are least frequent among Mex-Ams. Look:


Percent pessimistic

Mexicans 38.0
Blacks 24.5
Italians 23.5
Germans 22.9
American Indians 22.8
Irish 19.4
England/Welsh 13.0
Scots 12.7


Percent selfish

Mexicans 19.5
Germans 17.2
English/Welsh 13.0
Blacks 12.2
Italians 9.8
Irish 9.1
Scots 6.4
American Indians 6.2

These image-breaking stats keep popping up. Mex-Ams are thought to exemplify conservative values--familism and industriousness, for example--but the GSS and other surveys have revealed that this group has many comparatively undesirable characteristics: criminality; gang proliferation; indifference to education; big government and pro-censorship values; indifference to the environment; lack of cleanliness; marital and relationship instability; female infidelity; "race" consciousness and ethnocentrism; school misbehavior--need I continue?

Like an oily used car salesman, the open borders crowd has sold us a lemon. At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, the hustle might continue to dupe, but readers of this blog at least know their getting screwed. I don't know about you, but I don't like to sleep through a good screwing.