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"They Take Our Jobs!": and 20 Other Myths about Immigration
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Product Description
In exposing the myths that underlie today?s debate, Chomsky illustrates how the parameters and presumptions of the debate distort how we think?and have been thinking?about immigration. She observes that race, ethnicity, and gender were historically used as reasons to exclude portions of the population from access to rights. Today, Chomsky argues, the dividing line is citizenship. Although resentment against immigrants and attempts to further marginalize them are still apparent today, the notion that non-citizens, too, are created equal is virtually absent from the public sphere. Engaging and fresh, this book will challenge common assumptions about immigrants, immigration, and U.S. history.
?Chomsky?s book is an indispensable guide to the current debate on immigration. If you are at all uncertain about how to deal with anti-immigrant arguments, you will find Chomsky?s book a perfect response to those arguments. She makes her points with crystal-clear clarity, and unassailable evidence, while offering constructive solutions, both short-term and long-term.? ?Howard Zinn, author of You Can?t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
?Immigrants take away jobs from ?Americans.? Immigrants drive down wages. Immigrants don?t pay taxes and yet benefit from public services. You?ve heard it all before, probably from CNN?s Lou Dobbs. But as Avi Chomsky demonstrates, these are all myths, if not outright lies. She not only demolishes virtually every myth about immigrants and immigration to the U.S., she offers policy makers and activists solutions for tackling many of the issues created by globalization and an immigration policy grounded in falsehoods, and in so doing destroys the greatest myth of all: that nothing can be done.? ?Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
"Finally, a concise and comprehensive breakdown of the most prevalent misconceptions about immigration. Avi Chomsky provides not only practical ammunition for the pundit wars, but also real thinking about the intersection of migration with the history of race and rights in the U.S. It's the definitive field guide to today?s immigration debate." ?Tram Nguyen, executive editor of Colorlines magazine and author of We Are All Suspects Now
?Avi Chomsky?s new book, ?They Take Our Jobs!? is a welcome addition to the literature and tools needed to inform the current debate on immigration. In identifying more than 20 ?myths? about immigration, the author brings readers through an accessible discussion that includes history, politics, economics and social analysis to challenge these myths and more. At a time when we desperately need to shift the public discourse in the U.S. and elsewhere, to include a more humane and informed perspective on the process of immigration and the lives of migrants and their families, Chomsky?s book provides us all with a much-needed sense of history and justice?and injustice?that must be included as we struggle for fair and humane immigration policies.? ?Catherine Tactaquin, Executive Director, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
?If ever there was a need for a pithy primer on immigration, it?s now, and scholar-activist Aviva Chomsky has provided just that. She considers myths from the book?s title, ?immigrants don?t pay taxes? and then gracefully and in plain language delivers arguments with lessons on history, law and racism. In other words, this is the book to give your xenophobicc mother-in-law at the next family barbecue.? ?Daisy Hernandez, ColorLines Review
?Aviva Chomsky?s ?They Take Our Jobs!? should be mandatory reading in high schools. Cleanly organized into 21 chapters?one for each myth, as well as an extra one in there at the end?the volume serves as a quick, crystal-clear introduction to immigration issues . . . If every American?not just high schoolers, but our elected officials?read this concise, well-documented primer, we just might find ourselves overhauling our system.? ?FeministReview (blogspot)
?Chomsky reminds us that in the 19th century white workers in the South "clung to their status of legal and racial superiority, but the entrenched racial inequalities undermined the status of poor whites as well." Black job seekers per se did not hurt poor whites, but rather their disenfranchisement combined with racism prevented their organization into unions and political movements. Employers enjoyed aa pool of poor and easily exploitable workersssss with which to break strikes and undermine all working-class wages.? ?Bangor Daily News
Aviva Chomsky is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State College. The author of several books, Chomsky has been active in Latin American solidarity and immigrants? rights issues for over twenty-five years. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #96848 in Books
- Published on: 2007-07-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 236 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on immigration history and left-wing economic analysis, historian and immigrants' rights activist Chomsky (Profits of Extermination) aims to debunk the assumptions informing the current immigration debate in this well-researched if stiffly written account. She offers straightforward arguments against anti-immigrant perceptions such as the one in the book's title: the "number of jobs is not finite, it is elastic," Chomsky asserts, pointing out that in the "postindustrial economy," many manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low-paying service jobs. In response to the accusation that "immigrants don't pay taxes," Chomsky notes that textile jobs that were once a part of the "formal sector" are now informal (i.e., they do not offer benefits or collect taxes)—for which she blames the employers. As for immigrants' alleged reluctance to learn English, the author observes that as one generation becomes fluent, new Spanish speakers arrive; she defends non-English speakers by citing the waiting lists for ESL classes and explaining that immigrants with a history as a conquered people (e.g. Mexicans) more stubbornly retain their heritage. Though Chomsky presents an agile blend of the history of race and immigration in the U.S. with current events, the book's format of offering liberal polemics to anti-immigrant questions forces her into a defensive, didactic tone. (July)
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Review
Review Publishers Weekly - April 2, 2007
"Chomsky presents an agile blend of the history of race and immigration in the U.S. with current events."
Review Library Journal - June 15, 2007
"Solidly recommended for public library current events sections."
Review By: Daisy Hernandez, ColorLines - July 1, 2007
"If ever there was a need for a pithy primer on immigration, it's now, and scholar-activist Aviva Chomsky has provided just that. She considers myths from the book's title, "immigrants don't pay taxes" and then gracefully and in plain language delivers arguments with lessons on history, law and racism. In other words, this is the book to give your xenophobic mother-in-law at the next family barbecue."
Review FeministReview (blogspot) - September 14, 2007
"Aviva Chomsky's They Take Our Jobs! should be mandatory reading in high schools. Cleanly organized into 21 chapters - one for each myth, as well as an extra one in there at the end - the volume serves as a quick, crystal-clear introduction to immigration issues . . . If every American-not just high schoolers, but our elected officials-read this concise, well-documented primer, we just might find ourselves overhauling our system."
Review Bangor Daily News - October 30, 2007
"Chomsky reminds us that in the 19th century white workers in the South "clung to their status of legal and racial superiority, but the entrenched racial inequalities undermined the status of poor whites as well." Black job seekers per se did not hurt poor whites, but rather their disenfranchisement combined with racism prevented their organization into unions and political movements. Employers enjoyed a pool of poor and easily exploitable workers with which to break strikes and undermine all working-class wages."
Review
?Solidly recommended for public library current events sections.? Library Journal
Customer Reviews
Demythologizing Immigration
What a timely and important book. Aviva Chomsky takes on what she believes are the 21 most common misperceptions about immigrants. She looks at economic objections such as the claims that immigrants drain the economy, take away jobs and drive down wages; legal ones such as the claim that the U.S. already as a too-generous refugee policy; racial ones such as the claim that immigrants threaten our national identity and won't learn English; and security ones such as the claim that immigrants make us particularly susceptible to terrorist attacks.
The interesting thing about these misperceptions is that they all have a ring of plausibility, and it's to Chomsky's credit that she takes them seriously enough to examine them in detail. Moreover, her examination isn't a simplistic "no, that's wrong" kind of approach. One of the best qualities of her treatment is that she helps the reader to put claims about immigration into a broader context.
For example, Chomsky points out that while it's true that real wages for laborers are dropping in this country, it isn't because immigrants are driving them down. It's because of the last few years' general flow of wealth in the U.S. towards the top, which is leaving almost everyone except the very wealthiest in the lurch. Or what about the misperception that immigrants won't assimilate into our culture and hence are jeopardizing our national identity? Chomsky offers statistics that show that immigrants of color in fact do try to assimilate just as much as white ones, but that assimilation for them is complicated by the fact that it almost always means "downward mobility."
Chomsky's book is clearly written from a progressive viewpoint, and her conclusions, I'm sure, will anger many. But her book is valuable because it invites a more reflective dialogue about immigration than we've had in this country for a long time--and certain since 9/11. With presidential elections coming up, that dialogue is even more important.
should be mandatory reading
Aviva Chomsky's "They Take Our Jobs!" should be mandatory reading in high schools. Cleanly organized into 21 chapters - one for each myth, as well as an extra one in there at the end - the volume serves as a quick, crystal-clear introduction to immigration issues.
Chomsky makes it clear that the same imperialist, exploitative, racist, capitalistic policies that have plagued our immigration system's history are still very much alive today, albeit in somewhat modified, disguised - and perhaps more insidious - forms. And even more importantly, she puts immigration in perspective - not as a mysterious threat being perpetrated against "real Americans" by some destructive foreign menace, but as a dynamic, natural process, informed by history, and even demanded by our current economic practices.
With Chomsky's credentials (she's a professor of history and coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State College, with 25 years' experience in Latin American solidarity and immigrants' rights issues - and she happens to be Noam Chomsky's eldest daughter) and the book's reliance on statistical data and reputable studies, it's hard not to view her suggestions for reform as authoritative. If every American - not just high schoolers, but our elected officials - read this concise, well-documented primer, we just might find ourselves overhauling our system.
the truth about immigration
Thank God for Aviva Chompsky! This is one of the best books you can find on the issue of immigration. Aviva is clear and knowledgeable and should be a guest on every talk show. Serving at a detention center for undocumented youth and being a spiritual advocate for immigrants, I can truly see Chompsky knows what she is writing about. If anyone has questions about the myths of immigration, this book will help you understand what is happening in the U.S and in our world. God bless you Aviva!...as the saying goes...the truth will set you free...Aviva certainly sets us all free with the truth on immigration!
Rev. Mary Moreno Richardson
