Edited

http://www.amren.com/h/h.html


The Myth of
Hispanic Family Values

By no measure do Hispanics have
'strong family values.'

by Taylor Scott

American Renaissance, March 2004

In January 2004, President Bush proposed a "guest worker" program that would, in effect, grant amnesty to the eight to 14 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Of this number, an estimated 90 percent are Hispanic, and nearly 80 percent of these are Mexican. They are said to be a wonderful addition to America because they not only offer cheap labor, they have "strong family values."

Hispanics themselves promote this idea, and President Bush endorses it. As Pedro Celis, Washington state chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly says, "President Bush shares with the Hispanic community a strong sense of family values." During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush announced that "family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande River." Two years later, promoting amnesty for Mexican illegals whose relatives are here legally, Mr. Bush said, "I want to show our friends, the Mexicans, that we are compassionate. . . . We believe in family values."

To praise Hispanic "family values" is to imply that the social and moral character of Hispanics is superior to that of other Americans. Presumably this means Hispanics are particularly likely to marry, have children within wedlock, support their families, care for their children, and set a good example for them. In fact, none of this is true. By virtually every significant social measure, Hispanics rank below whites and even, on occasion, below blacks. Strong Hispanic "family values" are a myth.

Probably the single best indicator of the strength of "family values" in any community is the illegitimacy rate. As the graph to the left shows, fully 42 percent of Hispanic women who gave birth in 1999 were unmarried. The black rate of 69 percent was even worse, and the white rate of 22 percent is hardly admirable, but Hispanics were still nearly twice as likely as whites to have illegitimate children.

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