Why Your Country Needs Immigrants according to Phillip Legrain
No issue is as contentious to national identity as immigration. This was true then and it remains true now, especially now that the world is becoming increasingly unstable, ever-precarious and more and more people are moving to another country out of necessity. Think Syria, Ukraine and Burma. These are just the countries from the top of my mind which would supply us multitudes of refugees to come.
But the book is not merely about asylum seekers. Legrain explores every crevice of the immigration question, from illegal migration, low-skilled migration and the arrival of high-skilled workers, to the impact on culture and the national identity. It is a comprehensive but not exhaustive book on the divisive subject, and one which offers suggestions, some which would make sense but some which may be considered extreme.
Take in mind that the book was written in 2006, when the world was fresh and recovering from 9/11 attacks, and the London bombing occurred during the time of writing. The author is a caucasian male, three generations down from his French grandfather, but he is impartial to the idea of migration. As the book argues in the title: Your country needs them. You, meaning the reader who I can assume is sitting comfortably in the sofa in a developed country.
The perennial question of where to draw the line?
Legrain argues that migration is necessary, within limits. But it is difficult to draw the line to how many, whom and how. Some of the models explored here include the Australian way, which is attune to micromanaging the shit out of the demand and supply of the labour market (at least on a best effort basis); or the American way, which blocks most everybody out and has a stringent border control, which barely stems the flow of illegal immigration.
Legrain argued that similar migrants will also be an impediment to the natives instead of complementing the needs of the host nation. This is where low skill migration can supplement the demands of high-skilled workers. Having a nanny, for example, would allow working parents to focus on their careers and be a stronger contributor to the economy. Until robots take over this vacuum, low-skilled migration is still the best answer. Legrain also proposed the idea of making the migrant visa short-term and within fixed dates. Most migrants will still want to return home in any case. This relationship will also be beneficial for the countries providing the labour, as they gain an extra source of revenues from remittance.
The Australian and American ways are barely two sides of the spectrum, and more like different approaches to the same question. Legrain argued that the American neighbours up north (yes, Canada) perhaps provided the best model at the time— reviewing the coming applicants based on the skill set and letting them find their own way once they’ve come in. There are no right answers, but so far the Canadian system has proven that it is possible for the new residents to adopt a new identity as Canadian, while being true to their roots.
Uprooted or planting new roots?
But the question of roots is also a canvas for conflict between the natives, of which the culture that they were born with are increasingly being encroached, and the new migrants, who are forced to adopt to the new ways. Legrain also addressed the arguments of a polarising book on this subject: Samuel Huntington’s Who Are We? Which, personally speaking has been the most xenophobic book I’ve ever read (and also one of the worst).
Huntington argues that the illegal immigration of Mexicans from the south of the border have slowly changed the cultural landscape to the point that the Hispanics have affected the Anglo-Protestant cultural heritage of Americans. A game of soccer between Americans and Mexicans would result in a hullabaloo of boos to the home team, Spanish is becoming a vital language for those near the border to communicate with each other. But yes, Huntington sounds like that racist crazy uncle you really don’t want to talk to in your Christmas dinner.
Yet, the battle lines of culture is not as simple as that. In Australia, where immigration has driven a plethora of new cultures and ethnicities to the humble island, more than a quarter of Australians residents were born overseas and almost half have parents from other countries. When we wind down the history books to early United States, the Irish and Scandinavian migrants arrived to the country and affected the culture some also, bringing with them new names, cuisines and perspectives. Culture is fluid and it is inevitable that overtime, the national identity changes with the coming of new migrants and vice versa.
I would know, as I’m a first generation migrant to Australia before now migrating to Malaysia. My identity is a battleground between new Australian ideals of hard yakka, sports and reckless drinking and the Indonesian roots of respect for elders and authority figures, being studious and seeing any form of drugs as a taboo. In some ways, these things are still at odds, but I am proud to wear my two identities equally — as an Australian and an Indonesian.
I imagine most migrants would have to balance the two and find a compromise, lest they wallow in misery or extremism. And for most, these process will take years. The recent phenomenon of migrant literature in the United Kingdom is reflective of this landscape, as first and second generation writers and writers of mixed backgrounds such as Elif Shafak, Monica Ali, Zadie Smith and a plethora of others have contributed to the voices for these experiences.
There is the question of radicalism, especially among Islamist fundamentals and it is still a difficult question to answer, even to this day. Legrain used plenty of grey rhetoric (for may of his arguments I find) that in all religions, there are pockets of extremism which might affect the rest. Of course, these are the tiny minorities who has a loud bite and bark in the sea of the peaceful majority. Legrain was free to admit that there are lines that need to be drawn, for example, being tolerant to the homosexual community.
The issue I have with the book is not the message, most of which is logical conclusions to the immigration problem, but the style which at times seem to me like a list of facts and numbers. It is hard to follow these numbers and their significance as you would staring at an Excel sheet. As I mentioned, Legrain also used plenty of grey rhetoric to make the arguments fuzzy. While some of this argument is legitimate (yes, Americans were mainly migrants from England before), it only weakens the whole question and leave everybody at loss.
And that’s where we are today. Nations must still battle the question of balancing the numbers of labours for the demands for them. Yet, as Australia is quickly finding out now, the new migrants also need homes. Have you read about the housing crisis in Australia? We still have not answered the problems of immigration and at this point, I doubt that we ever will. But it is always a process of give and take, and if we’re not open to the idea of migration, then at least we should be comfortable enough to talk about it.
