Diversity, Social Capital, and Immigrant Integration

Introductory Remarks
I am very pleased to introduce this National Civic
Review issue on immigrant integration. For sure, we are fulfilling the adage attributed to Confucius, May you live in interesting times. Twenty years ago, I would not have guessed that by now wed elect an African American president and Republicans would be nationalizing U.S. banks. The mercurial landscape highlights Yogi Berras cautions to be wary of making predictions, especially about the future. That said, one quite safe prediction is that all advanced societies will be far more diverse a generation from now. Figure 1 charts recent immigration data for the United States and various European countries, but inexorable diversification in the future is equally true for Japan or New Zealand. In fact, even if the United States halted immigration tomorrow (which I cant fathom happening), the nation would continue to grow more diverse through a high birth rate among nonwhites and because the U.S. youth population is heavily nonwhite. As I made clear in my article E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century, immigration brings a host of benefits to the United States, far beyond introducing cultural and gustatory diversity. Among the benefits that U.S. immigrants bring: Greater creativity. Immigrants to the United States account for three to four times as many Nobel laureates, National Academy of Science members, Academy Award film directors, and winners of Kennedy Center awards in the performing arts as native-born Americans. Faster economic growth. Although there are important distributional effects to be considered

BY ROBERT D. PUTNAM

especially the impact of immigration on lowwage native workers in the United Statesthe weight of the evidence suggests that the net effect of immigration is to increase national income. An engine for economic development in the worlds South. Growth in the annual northward immigration by only three percentage points would likely produce net benefits greater than meeting our national targets for development assistance plus canceling all Third World debt plus abolishing all barriers to Third World trade. Given these manifest benefits, what is the impact of this diversity on social solidarity and cohesion in the short to medium run? I wont try to summarize complex social science in a few sentences here; I urge you to read the E Pluribus Unum article. Suffice it to say that retaining social cohesion in the context of increased ethnic diversity is one of the pressing issues of our time. As you will see when you read E Pluribus Unum, my intention is not to argue against diversity and immigration but to point out that if we do nothing, the reweaving of our communities may take half a century, judging from our past experience. By focusing concertedly on bolstering social solidarity in the decades ahead, we can dramatically shorten this period. In this task of reintegration, the United States should feel more confident than many other countries. Racial and ethnic lines of division are not drawn by God or written in our genes. They are socially constructed, and as social constructions we can also deconstruct them, as our own history demonstrates. Wave upon wave of ethnic immigrants arrived on Americas shores; we responded with policies based on our motto of e pluribus unum (from many one), not by bleaching the newcomers into some pale copy of earlier arrivals but by
2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) National Civic Review DOI: 10.1002/ncr.236 Spring 2009

Figure 1. Growth of Immigration in Selected OECD Countries, 19602005

developing a more multihued American identity. We gradually redrew racial boundaries that used to divide Poles from Italians from Irish, and that encouraged brutal ethnic vengeance. Over the twentieth century, we gradually erased religious boundaries that used to divide Catholic from Protestant from Jew. Clearly we still have work to do in deconstructing racial and ethnic cleavages and fostering social justice and social solidarity, but it now seems like a joke to describe the wedding of an Irish Catholic and an Italian Catholic as a mixed marriage, as it was described in the 1960s. As I wrote in E Pluribus Unum, the challenge is to foster a more encompassing sense of we. But describing ideals is easier than implementing solutions. To be sure, there are notable successes in forging a new we in the course of American history, from the Pledge of Allegiance to the Armys post-Vietnam racial integration to multiracial megachurches. But we have underinvested in understanding and replicating the innovative solutions across our country, whether it be novel ways to teach English to immigrants and simultaneously build cross-racial bonds, or to use the bonding

social capital in ethnic associations as a foundation from which to bridge to other ethnic and racial groups. I welcome this issue of the National Civic Review in publicizing examples of what the authors believe are successful models. I trust that this issue of NCR will spark a healthy dialogue if others think there are still more promising models. With our national attention and innovation, I hope to live to see the more cohesive societies we build from this diversity. It will never be easy, but it is critically important. Finally, the election of Barack Obama as the fortyfourth president of the United States puts winds in these sails. The 2008 elections demonstrate that Americans of all races can transcend our tragic history of racial injustice in the pursuit of our larger shared interests. Yes we can. Obama, son of an immigrant, is also an inspiring example that people of color can get to the mountaintop. Yes they can. Even more specifically, Obama understands the importance of building social cohesion. He participated in our Saguaro Seminar (19962000), which developed strategies for civic reengagement (www.

National Civic Review

DOI: 10.1002/ncr

Spring 2009

Despite our financial crisis, citizens are alive to new civic possibilities.

too, his election represents a hopeful new epoch in the long-term American adjustment to diversity. We live in interesting times. Let us learn from all that is interesting out there on issues of racial and ethnic solidarity, and chart a new course.

bettertogether.org). As a community organizer, he has lived with the challenges of civic disengagement, and his campaign united and energized Americans with a civic hope absent since the 1960s. Despite our financial crisis, citizens are alive to new civic possibilities. Obama has also lit the dry kindling of a more civically engaged young generation, attracting millions of young Americans to the ballot box, Americans far less likely than their parents to see the world through racial or ethnic lenses. In this sense,

Reference
Putnam, R. D. E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century. Scandinavian Political Studies, 2007, 30(2), 137174.

Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard.

National Civic Review

DOI: 10.1002/ncr

Spring 2009