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Blaming Immigrants
 Blaming Immigrants
Nationalism and the Economics of
Global Movement

NEERAJ KAUSHAL

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York
 Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu

Copyright © 2019 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-54360-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kaushal, Neeraj, author.
Title: Blaming immigrants : nationalism and the economics of global movement / Neeraj
Kaushal.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018026577 | ISBN 9780231181440 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9780231181457 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Emigration and immigration—Economic aspects. | Emigration and
immigration—Political aspects. | Emigration and immigration—Government policy. |
Nationalism.
Classification: LCC JV6217 .K38 2018 | DDC 325/.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026577

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
ebook@columbia.edu.
 Contents

1
Introduction: It’s Not a Crisis

2
Causes of Discontent

3
The Costs and Benefits of Restricting Immigration

4
Is America’s Immigration System Broken?

5
From Global to Local: Toward Integration or Exclusion?

6
The Balance Sheet: Economic Costs and Benefits of Immigration

7
Refugees and Discontent

8
Crime, Terrorism, and Immigration

9
Addressing the Discontent
Notes

Index
 1
Introduction
It’s Not a Crisis

We think of international immigration in grandiose phrases. It is a

“problem” in need of a solution, a “crisis” crying out for attention, a
“surge” demanding containment.1 Images of overladen boats, trucks,
and trains crammed with immigrants are all over the media, lending
credibility to these exaggerations and distorting the reality of
immigration. In proportion to world population, the number of global
immigrants—people living outside their country of birth—is a modest
3 percent. Not a deluge, not a surge, not a flood, not even a stream,
but a trickle.
The increase in immigration globally over the past quarter century
is largely in line with the growth in world population. The number of
immigrants as a proportion of world population has not budged for
over a century. It was 3 percent in 1900. Ninety years later, in 1990,
and another quarter century further on, in 2015, it remained 3
percent.2
Yet immigration is one of the most divisive issues of our times. It is
a source of cheap labor, talent, and entrepreneurial ingenuity. It is
also a source of economic, social, and political discontents within
native-born populations, arising from fears that immigrants will take
the jobs of local workers and bring foreign cultures and identities that
threaten the social fabric of host societies, destroy national identities,
and expose host countries to international terrorism and crime. In
countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, these fears have
brought back the “acrid odor of the 1920s,” to use the words of
historian John Higham, threatening the return of an era that severely
restricted immigration.3

The Global Immigration Scene

From Austria, Britain, Denmark, and France all the way to Malaysia,
South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States,
immigration is shaking electoral politics. In some countries,
ultraconservatives are articulating public fears of immigration. In
others, they are simply taking advantage of public anxiety to
advance their exclusionist agenda.4 The radical right has won a few
elections here and there, but in most countries (e.g., the United
Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, and Italy), it is effectively pushing the
centrist right parties to turn extreme on immigration, and in some
(like Germany and the United Kingdom), it is weakening the resolve
of liberal pro-immigration parties to welcome immigrants.
Since 2010 most of Europe has seen the rise of far-right, anti-
immigration, ultranationalist political parties. In France, it is the
National Front; in Italy, the Lega Nord (Northern League), Forza
Italia, and the Five Star Movement; in Austria, the Freedom Party; in
Denmark, the Danish People’s Party; in the Netherlands, the
Freedom Party; in Greece, Golden Dawn; in Germany, Alternative for
Deutschland; in Hungary, Fidesz Party and Jobbik Party; and in the
United Kingdom, the Independence Party.5 On the other side of the
Atlantic, Donald Trump, a real estate developer and TV entertainer,
won the American presidential election in 2016 after calling
immigrants from Mexico rapists and criminals and promising that if
elected he would ban entry of Muslims, deport the eleven million or
so immigrants living in the United States without legal documents,
build a wall on the Mexican border, and make Mexico pay for it.6
In 2015 and 2016 the far-right parties in Germany, Denmark,
Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece made
significant gains in state, regional, or national elections. But the
pendulum swung back in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron defeated
the far-right Marine Le Pen in France and Angela Merkel won her
fourth term as German chancellor (even though Alternative for
Germany, the anti-immigration party, improved its position and
entered the German parliament). In the United Kingdom, the
conservatives lost their majority. Elsewhere, the anti-immigration
brigade continues to make progress. In Austria, Sebastian Kurz of
the Austrian People’s Party has changed the party’s agenda to
match that of the far-right Freedom Party. In the 2018 general
elections in Italy, two right-wing anti-immigration parties were
winners; the Five Star Movement won the most votes and the
central-right alliance led by Lega Nord the most seats in the Senate
and the Chamber of Deputies. Overall, in the second decade of the
twenty-first century, immigration remains a burning political issue in
all Europe.
Hostility toward immigrants is not confined to Western
democracies. India’s Bharatiya Janata Party has promised to seal
the India-Bangladesh border so that “not even birds can fly across.”7
In Singapore, voters are demanding a Singapore for Singaporeans.8
In the summer of 2015 Thailand and Malaysia turned away
boatloads of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants, leaving more than
six thousand refugees abandoned in the Andaman Sea.9 The
Pakistani government wants to expel hundreds of thousands of
Afghani immigrants who have been living in the country for decades.
The Malaysian government’s granting of entry to 1.5 million low-
skilled Bangladeshi workers caused large-scale protests from labor
unions. In many African countries, too, there are protests against
immigrants.10 Brazil is building a virtual wall monitored by drones and
satellites to restrict immigration.11 Saudi Arabia has built walls around
five of its borders to restrict immigration from neighboring
countries.12
A hundred years ago similar discontent pushed countries in the
New World to close their doors to immigration from Europe, Asia,
and Africa. Will history repeat itself? The rising popularity of right-
wing political parties suggests that the process may have already
begun. Many countries have responded to the growing public and
political discontent toward immigrants with restrictive immigration
policies, stronger enforcement, increased electronic and human
cross-border surveillance, and construction of walls and fences.
In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, there were sixteen cross-border
fences around the world. By 2016 the number had risen to sixty-
five.13 In the same year seven Schengen countries—Austria,
Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden—
introduced temporary border controls in previously border-free
Europe. The Syrian refugee crisis created deep fissures in Europe’s
Common Asylum Policy. The European Union has signed
agreements with many sending and transition countries aimed at
restricting immigration and refugee flows. The governments of the
Netherlands and Denmark have resorted to advertisements in
Lebanon’s newspapers in Arabic and English listing reasons why
their countries would be unwelcome destinations for refugees. These
attempts to repel refugees have worked. In 2015 one million
refugees crossed the Mediterranean to arrive in Europe; in 2016 the
number fell to around 364,000.14

Immigration—An Untapped Dimension of Globalization

The rising discontent hides the fact that immigration is by far the
slowest-moving and relatively untapped dimension of globalization.15
Just compare it with the others. Global exports (in proportion to
global output) increased fivefold between 1870 and 2016.16 Foreign
direct investment (FDI) increased almost two hundredfold between
1971 and 2015.17 Despite the Great Recession and the growing
cacophony of deglobalization, the average annual FDI flow between
2010 and 2017 was double the flow a decade earlier.
At 3 percent of global population, immigration appears
unimpressive given that the three primary costs—travel expense,
time, and postmigration cost of long-distance communications with
family and friends back home—have plummeted over the past
century. For those with internet access, the cost of long-distance
communication is close to zero; travel cost has fallen to less than a
tenth, and long-distance travel time to less than a hundredth, and in
some cases, a thousandth, of what they were a hundred years ago.18
What is impressive is not the volume of immigration but its
paucity. This is even more impressive given the existing global
economic inequalities and demographic disparities. Some hope that
immigration will rise to reduce these disparities.19 But so far there is
little evidence of that happening. Consider Africa and Europe, two
continents with dramatically different demographics and economies.
Europe is aging and shrinking; Africa is young and growing. Europe
is rich; Africa is poor. In 1900 a quarter of the world population lived
in Europe and only one-twelfth in Africa. By 2050 the two continents
will exchange places on the global demographic map: a quarter of
the world population will be in Africa, and less than a fourteenth in
Europe. For immigration to make a dent in these proportions, it will
have to be many times the current or past levels, which appears
unlikely given the public intolerance and political response.
Despite global disparities that should propel immigration, and
despite growing protests against immigration that will discourage it,
the future of immigration will not be very different from its recent
past. It will rise in some countries and decline in others. But globally,
the proportion of immigration in world population is unlikely to
change dramatically. The fact is, most people live and die in the
country, and often the district, village, or city, of their birth.
Immigration is not easy. Older, unhealthy, and risk-averse people do
not migrate to foreign countries.

Causes of Immigration

Not only is immigration modest compared to the rest of globalization,

it is, for the most part, not triggered by any major economic or
political crises. Nor, as I will document in this book, has it caused
any. The vast majority of immigrants do not enter host countries in
boats risking their lives or sneak in hidden inside a truck or by
jumping walls or fences.
Immigration has risen over the past half century not because
sending countries face bigger political and economic crises than
before pushing residents to emigrate. On the contrary, immigration
has increased because sending countries like China and India have
replicated the Western model of economic success. Economic
growth in sending countries has created a sizable middle class that
can afford the initial costs of emigration. Immigration is rising
because travel and communication costs have dropped dramatically,
making international travel affordable, and—surprise, surprise—
because host countries, including Germany, Canada, the United
States, and even China, have liberalized their immigration policies.
Policies toward international travel have been liberalized globally,
which creates the impetus and opportunities for immigration. U.S.
citizens can get short-term, visa-free entry or visa-at-entry in 116
countries; the United States, in turn, allows visa-free entry to citizens
of thirty-eight countries. Twenty-six European countries with a
combined population of over four hundred million in the Schengen
area20 allow passport-free travel; foreigners need only one visa for
the entire area. Travel within many Latin American countries, among
many African countries, and among three South Asian countries
(Nepal, Bhutan, and India) is visa-free. Many countries (such as
Turkey, India, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Vietnam) allow tourists to obtain
visas online or on arrival; many others (the United States, India, the
United Kingdom, and China) provide long-term (for example, ten-
year) multiple-entry visas to citizens of many countries.
It is neither crisis nor chaos. Most immigration takes place through
legal channels: immigrants carrying legal entry permits from host
country consulate offices. Immigration through these legal channels
is structured and highly regulated. To receive an immigration visa,
prospective immigrants must produce reams of documents that
justify the cause of immigration and certify their earnings, wealth,
and health to ensure that on arrival they will not become a public
charge. They must also produce documents to certify even the
income and wealth of their sponsors, who are expected to pay for
medical or other emergency expenses if the immigrants cannot.21

Is Immigration the Primary Cause of Discontent?

The short answer to the question of whether immigration is the main

cause of discontent is no. What is incubating disaffection is neither
the volume nor pace of immigration but the appetite of nations to
accept and absorb new immigrants and their political and
administrative ability to manage immigration. Consider this:
immigration was the most cited cause for Britain’s vote to exit the
European Union. But UK jurisdictions with a high proportion of
immigrants voted against Brexit, and those with a low proportion, for
it.22 Poland and Hungary, countries with the lowest levels immigration
in Europe, are the most clamorous. Less than 2 percent of Poland’s
population is foreign-born. Even so, it has categorically refused
settlement of a single Syrian refugee within its borders while the
Polish diaspora continues to grow across Europe and North America.
The foreign-born in Hungary are less than 6 percent of its population,
which is half the average for Europe.23 But Hungary’s nationals have
much less tolerance for outsiders than most of Europe. The
government of Hungary built a 280-mile-long wall to seal itself and
northern Europe off from immigrant and refugee flows from southern
Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
There is no simple formula that explains why some nations
welcome immigrants and others want to expel them. Some countries
with large and rising populations of immigrants—Canada, New
Zealand, Australia—welcome immigrants. Others with somewhat
lower levels of immigrants, such as Austria, Italy, France, Poland,
and Britain, do not. Even within Europe, some countries (such as
Spain24 and Ireland) that have experienced dramatic growth in
immigration over the past decade are more tolerant, while others
with relatively modest immigration are not.25
A similar paradox prevails within nations. In the United States,
states with the most immigrants, such as New York and California,
are among the most welcoming. Those with the fewest, such as
Alabama, Arkansas, Montana, and North Dakota, fear immigrants
the most, discourage their entry, and even pass laws to expel them.
Cities with the largest number of immigrants, such as New York, Los
Angeles, and Chicago, have been “sanctuary” cities providing
protection to the undocumented. Politicians across Europe and the
United States have been more successful in selling their anti-
immigration agenda in rural areas where there are few immigrants
than in big cities like London, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Chicago,
Los Angeles, and Berlin, where most immigrants live.
The UK Election Commission data on Brexit documents the same
paradox: in the top ten districts with the fewest votes to leave the
European Union (where fewer than 30 percent of the population
voted to leave), between 28 percent and 45 percent of the population
was foreign-born, while in the top ten districts that voted for Brexit
(more than 70 percent voted to leave), only 2.9 percent to 15 percent
of the population was born abroad.26 In Europe, intolerance toward
immigrants has increased in countries with modest, but sharply
rising, immigration. Intolerance has also increased in countries with
modest and stagnant immigration—sometimes in response to the
changing demography in neighboring countries with rising
immigration. Irrespective of immigration levels, anger over
immigration is high among populations affected by other economic
changes, including rising unemployment, inequality, and wage and
income stagnation.27 It could be that they consider immigration the
cause of their economic problems, or perhaps immigrants are simply
a scapegoat for the problems that cannot be easily addressed.
Election results in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 revealed
that the counties most affected by Mexican immigration voted for
Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. The United States has twenty-two
counties bordering Mexico, spread across four states (the heavily
Democratic states of California and New Mexico and the majority
Republican states of Arizona and Texas). These counties are the
most affected by immigration from Mexico and Central America. In
2016 fourteen of these bordering counties voted for Clinton and only
eight for Trump. Even so, clearly the minority opposing immigration
was vocal and powerful enough to change electoral politics in the
country.
The effect of immigration on electoral outcomes differs by country.
Research based on Italian municipalities suggests that migration
flows induced voters to support right-wing parties with a more
conservative agenda on migration.28 Studies based on Germany,
Greece, and Denmark also found that a rise in the number of
immigrants and asylum seekers increased support for parties with
anti-immigration agendas.29 But in Austria, one study found, the
inflows of Syrian refugees weakened the political support for the far-
right movement. In Turkey, research shows, while an influx of three
million refugees had a modestly negative effect on affiliation to the
ruling party, a majority has continued to vote for it to ensure political
stability and national security.30
These studies suggest there is more to the rising discontent
among residents in industrialized countries than immigration trends
and policies can explain.31 Anti-immigrant sentiment has been
growing in countries with negligible to modest immigrant populations,
like Poland and Hungary, and in countries with high but somewhat
stagnant foreign-born populations like France and the Netherlands,
but also in countries with high and growing foreign-born populations,
such as Austria, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Singapore, and Switzerland,
and in countries with falling shares of foreign-born populations such
as Greece. Discontent is high in countries devastated by the
financial crises of 2008—such as Italy, France, and Greece—but not
altogether lacking among Germans, who have “never had it so
good,” to use the words of Chancellor Angela Merkel.32 In 2016 there
were 3,500 instances of violence against refugees and asylum
seekers reported in Germany.33
The rising political discontent in the United States too is not very
clearly related to economic trends and immigration. At the peak of
the financial crisis of 2008, Barack Obama was elected president
despite his promise to provide a path to citizenship to eleven million
undocumented immigrants. Four years later, when the economy had
still not fully recovered from the Great Recession, he won the
presidency again after providing protection from deportation to young
undocumented immigrants with an executive order. But in 2016
Donald Trump was elected president on an anti-immigration platform
when immigration flows had in fact slowed, undocumented
immigration was falling, and immigration from Mexico had stagnated.
Immigration, economic trends, and the interaction between the
two do not appear to explain the growing disaffection toward
immigrants. Countries and cities that have a larger share of
immigrants are more tolerant of them, and those that have fewer
immigrants are less tolerant. This could be because immigrants
settle in cities and countries where they are more welcome but also
because countries or regions with more homogenous populations
are more afraid of foreigners whereas those with more
heterogeneous populations are more comfortable with diversity and
welcome it. In chapter 2 I discuss the fundamental causes of rising
discontent in Western industrialized countries, and in chapter 3 I look
at the costs and benefits of immigration restrictions.

We Also Love Our Immigrants

The growing political discontent toward immigration, discussed

above, presents one side of the story of immigration in the twenty-
first century. There is also the other side, which is welcoming of
immigrants. In the words of New York–based African American artist
Aman Mojadidi, “Globally, any sort of major city is built on
immigration rather than destroyed by it.”34 In these major cities,
public attitude toward immigrants reflects more tolerance than
hatred. Mayors of major cities—New York, London, Chicago, Toronto
—work to attract and integrate immigrants. Most immigration over
the past quarter century has gone to these large cities without
triggering any major crisis.
Consider New York, a quintessential immigrant city. In 1990 a
quarter of its residents were foreign-born; a quarter century later the
proportion increased to 36 percent. By global standards, this is a
large increase over a substantial base. But it did not cause political,
economic, or social crises in the Big Apple; in fact, the city has
absorbed new immigrants with remarkable ease and continues to
work toward the integration of not just legal but even undocumented
immigrants. In 2014 the city government launched IDNYC to provide
identity cards to the undocumented—a de facto “legalization” of the
undocumented within NYC. To ensure that IDNYC does not become
a card to identify, stigmatize, and hound the undocumented, the city
offers incentives to all New York residents to obtain IDNYC by linking
a range of benefits, including discounts for Broadway shows,
museum tickets, restaurants, and Metrocards, to the IDNYC card.35
Public universities in New York provide tuition subsidies to
undocumented students, as do universities in twenty-two other
states in the country. New York State also provides health insurance
to undocumented children, as do five other states and the District of
Columbia.36 Under the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, the
New York City mayor’s office allocates legal aid funds ($16 million in
2016) that can be used to appoint lawyers for immigrants involved in
removal proceedings. A number of other cities have similar
provisions. Nongovernment organizations across New York City,
many of whom receive state funding, have responded to the growing
fears of deportation under President Trump by organizing “know your
rights” sessions with undocumented immigrants in which hundreds of
human rights lawyers have provided pro-bono advice.
New York is not an exception. Toronto, Los Angeles, Montreal,
Chicago, London, Miami, Dubai, and other large immigrant cities
have absorbed flows of foreigners without any major sign of a crisis
that needs containment. The number and proportion of the foreign-
born in these cities rise, changing their demography and making
them ethnically and culturally diverse, and demographically distinct
from what they were even a quarter century ago. With half its
population foreign-born, Miami had the world’s highest proportion of
foreign-born residents in 2000; the proportion further increased to 60
percent in the following decade. The city has witnessed no
immigration crises to write about. The reason lies in the link between
immigration and the economy.

Immigration and the Economy

Immigrants go where economic tides take them. To see how the

economy influences immigration, consider a country like Argentina,
which has for most of its history (up to the early twentieth century)
followed a relatively open immigration policy.37 A sparsely inhabited
nation of two million in 1870, Argentina received seven million
immigrants, largely from Spain and Italy, in the following six decades.
In this time, Argentina’s population increased sixfold. It was the
second most attractive destination for immigrants, next to the United
States.38 By 1910 Argentina was the seventh richest country in the
world, with four times the per capita income of Italy or Spain. It lost
its charm for immigrants as its economy went downhill, economic
opportunities improved elsewhere, and other countries lowered their
immigration restrictions. In the following decades half the immigrants
left Argentina for Spain, Italy, and the United States. This large
outflow was followed by emigration of native-born Argentines to
Europe and the United States. Close to 700,000 Argentinians, mostly
college-educated professionals, emigrated to other countries
between 1960 and the mid-1990s, which was a time of deep
economic and political turmoil in this South American country. In
1930, 30 percent of the people living in Argentina were foreign-born;
by 2001 the proportion had fallen to 4 percent. Argentina, like many
other countries, has now become a country of immigration and
emigration. It attracts medium- and low-skilled workers from other
Latin American countries. Many highly skilled Argentinians, on the
other hand, move to countries where their skills fetch higher
earnings.
Argentina is not the only country with a tumultuous history of
immigration. Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, the four major
immigrant-origin countries at the start of the twentieth century,
witnessed an unprecedented immigrant influx in the final quarter of
the twentieth century as their economies prospered. Following a
period of steady economic growth that started in the early to mid-
1990s, the foreign-born population in Spain shot up from less than
half a million in 1995 (just 0.5 percent of the nation’s population) to
5.6 million (12 percent of the population) in 2008. This huge
immigrant influx ended with the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great
Recession that crippled Spain’s economy, and net immigration fell
from an inflow of 700,000 in 2007 to an outflow of 55,000 in 2014.39
With youth unemployment rising to 50 percent during 2012–2015,
there was a net outflow of native Spanish youths to Germany and
other European countries. Ireland, Italy, and Portugal have
experienced similar immigration and emigration trends.40 Like
Argentina, these countries have become emigration and immigration
countries. They receive low- and medium-skilled immigrants from
North Africa and Latin America, and their high-skilled workers flock to
Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States for better
opportunities.
Starting in the early 1960s, low-skilled workers emigrated from
rural Turkey to Germany to escape economic struggles at home and
to benefit from Germany’s post–World War II economic miracle. In
the early decades of the twenty-first century, even as Germany
struggled to integrate its three million Turkish immigrants and their
children, economic prosperity in Turkey lured expatriates and new
immigrants. Turkey has become a destination and transition country
for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa,
and more recently from Syria. In April 2014 the Turkish parliament
passed its first immigration bill.
A somewhat similar story is unfolding in Mexico. With 10 percent
of its population living in the United States, 70 percent of them
having migrated over the past three decades, Mexico also has its
own migration to deal with: one million documented foreigners and
perhaps a much larger number of irregular immigrants, mostly from
Central America, live in Mexico. Meanwhile, economic stability and a
decline in fertility have lowered Mexican emigration to the United
States.
On the other side of the globe, in the face of labor shortages,
China is an emerging new destination for migrant workers from
Southeast Asia. In June 2012 Hu Jintao, president of the People’s
Republic of China, announced the Exit and Entry Administration Law
—China’s first policy to regulate immigration. The world’s most
populous country, which until a few decades ago struggled to keep
its population in control and implemented policies to restrict entry of
foreigners and exit of its own nationals, is now designing policies and
programs to attract foreign talent to keep its economy globally
competitive.
Immigration is not immune to the vagaries of economic forces
even in the United States, which is by design a nation of immigrants.
During the Great Recession, the so-called historic fourth wave of
immigration to the United States almost trickled to a halt. From 2000
to 2007 the foreign-born population (net inflow based on U.S.
Census data) rose from thirty-one million to thirty-eight million—
about a million net inflow annually. In the following seven years, from
2008 to 2014, the overall inflow was less than half, and inflows of the
undocumented had turned negative.

This Book
Whence the growing global discontent about immigration? Is
immigration its true source? Can countries restrict immigration, or
are the forces of the global economy and political disorder that cause
immigration and refugee flows so strong that they overwhelm the
ability of nation states to control it? These questions matter because
if immigration is not the primary cause of discontent, immigration
restrictions will not calm the passions of the distraught and
disgruntled native-born. Likewise, if globalization has limited how
well nations can restrict or monitor immigration, even if immigration
were the cause of this discontent, restrictive policies would not be
able to address it.
This book investigates the validity of populist critiques of
immigration globally to answer these questions. Chapter 2
investigates what I consider the seven core drivers of anxiety in
industrialized countries. Much of the rising political and economic
discontent, I find, is due to a series of core problems ailing these
countries. It is neither the volume nor pace of immigration but the
appetite of nations to accept and absorb new immigrants that is
creating this disaffection. Immigration has become a common
scapegoat, and this commonality is taken as evidence of its
culpability.
Chapter 3 examines the costs and benefits of immigration
restrictions and the success and failure of specific restrictive policies
across the United States and Europe in reducing immigration, to
answer whether restrictive policies have worked.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on populist critiques of immigration in the
United States. Chapter 4 challenges the widely held view that the
U.S. immigration system is broken. Using a global perspective, I
arrive at a more nuanced picture: there are facets of U.S.
immigration that make it the envy of the rich and emerging
economies, there are facets that countries with diverse backgrounds
and experiences such as Canada, China, Germany, and the United
Kingdom have adopted, and there are facets that need mending. By
calling it a broken system, politicians and immigration activists feed
into the notion that “foreigners” are the cause of all problems. I argue
that such attitudes create two main problems: they deflect policy
focus from fundamental issues and direct public anger toward
foreigners.
Chapter 5 reviews the rise of local legislative initiatives in the
United States that have led to a de facto devolution of U.S.
immigration policy to local bodies. I argue that this devolution, to
some extent, has worked in accommodating the wide variety of
attitudes toward immigration across the country.
Chapter 6 reviews the large literature on the economic costs and
benefits of immigration to study whether and how immigration is
associated with rising economic anxiety in host countries. I find that
globally, immigration debates in host countries are caught in the
whirlwind of capital and culture. There is consensus among
economists that economic benefits from a relatively open
immigration policy outweigh its economic costs.41 But immigration
does not affect all residents equally—many benefit from it and some
are hurt. Benefits are mostly diffused throughout the economy, but
the costs are often borne by certain groups or geographic regions.
Even so, the primary opposition to immigration is not rooted in
economic insecurity but in issues of nativism and cultural identity and
in the ability of host countries to accept and absorb foreigners.
Chapter 7 studies the growing refugee movement globally, and
public and political response toward it. Chapter 8 investigates
whether immigration is the cause of rising international terrorism.
Finally, chapter 9 looks into a set of policy prescriptions that
countries have adopted to answer the question of what can be done
to pacify public hostility toward immigrants.
In the twenty-first century, more than ever before, human mobility
is critical to economic growth. Immigration is a tiny sliver of the
overall cross-border human mobility for business, employment,
education, and tourism. By conservative estimates, cross-border
travel for these purposes together is close to eighty times the annual
immigration inflow.42 Without restricting this cross-border travel, it is
virtually impossible to effectively restrict immigration. Even if a tiny 1
percent of these short-term migrants and travelers decide to
overstay their visa restrictions, that would leave irregular immigration
inflow close to what it is now.43 Closing down legal routes to cross-
border mobility and immigration will increase flows through illegal
and dangerous routes. The economic cost of restricting cross-border
flows is very high, and the efficacy of militarized borders in
containing immigration is questionable and often counterproductive.
It seems that despite the growing discontent toward immigrants
and the rising popularity of right-wing leaders around the world,
many countries will hesitate to shut their doors on immigrants
because of the economic and demographic repercussions. (The
post-Brexit United Kingdom is an example of this ambivalence
toward immigration.) Further, despite the unprecedented
demographic and economic pressures that most industrialized
countries face today that can be somewhat eased with immigration,
these economies will hesitate to open the door wider to ease these
pressures owing to nativist political forces that oppose immigration
and blame it for most of what ails their economies.
 2
Causes of Discontent

Rama Shetty is an immigrant businessman from India settled in

London who voted for Brexit.1 I met Shetty six months after the Brexit
referendum, in Chile, where he was vacationing. In the course of our
conversation, he laid out a range of reasons why immigrants are a
problem in the United Kingdom. He started by expressing concerns
about the UK capacity to absorb more immigrants. Britain has more
immigrants per capita and per square mile than any other European
country, he said. Shetty’s numbers, it is fair to say, were factually
incorrect. Thirteen EU countries have higher per capita foreign-born
populations,2 and Switzerland and Germany have higher immigrant
densities than the United Kingdom.
Immigration from the European Union imposes a fiscal burden on
British citizens and Brexit will reduce this burden by restricting entry
of low-skilled immigrants from Europe, he continued.
“Why low-skilled immigrants, in particular?” I asked.
“Low-skilled immigrants from Europe have as much access to
public services, schools, and hospitals as UK citizens. But they
contribute little in taxes,” he patiently explained. Because of
immigration, UK citizens must wait for months to get essential
medical services, he added.
Studies of the fiscal effects of immigration in Britain show
otherwise, I countered. These studies document that immigrants are
net contributors to the UK exchequer.3
 My interaction with Shetty is typical of the discussions I have had
with people who oppose immigration—they’re passionate about their
concerns, even if they don’t square up with the reality. What is the
real cause of their anxiety?
Demetrios Papademetriou, founding director of the Migration
Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, and member of the
Transatlantic Migration Council, does not share Shetty’s view on the
causes of public anxiety about immigrants. “Immigration is not
necessarily the only, or even the most prominent driver of anxiety,”
Papademetriou wrote in 2012.4 But that raises the question: if
immigration is not the root cause, why is there such widespread
political and public angst about it? What’s behind the rise of Marine
Le Pen, Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Geert Wilders, and other right-
wing politicians across Europe and the United States? Are
immigrants simply convenient scapegoats—an escape from
addressing certain deeper demographic, economic, and social
issues that ail immigrant-receiving countries? Or are they the root
cause of these deeper problems?
To answer these questions, I examine seven primary drivers of
public anxiety and investigate to what extent each of them is related
to the volume and pace of immigration.5 The drivers of anxiety that I
discuss are culture and identity, economic slowdown in industrialized
countries, rising economic inequality in industrialized countries,
demographic and social change, loss of confidence in governments
and liberal elites, increase in refugee movements, and the rise in
international terrorism.

Culture and Identity

The fear that immigrants bring with them alien cultures that threaten
to disrupt the identity of host nations is high among local populations.
It does not require a large wave of immigration to trigger crises of
identity and culture among native populations. Indeed, discontent is
less severe in states with more diversity. Muslims are perceived a
threat in Hungary and Poland even though they constitute a tiny
proportion (less than 0.1 percent) of their populations.6 In a survey of
Polish citizens, more than half the respondents said that they would
welcome Americans, Czechs, and Germans—but not Arabs and
Turks. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia also want to shut
out Muslim immigrants; they have a Christians-only policy for
accepting asylum seekers from Syria.7 This is said to be not because
they have too many Muslim immigrants but because they do not
have any. “We don’t have any mosques in Slovakia so how can
Muslims be integrated?” said a government spokesman.8
Immigrants do not always have to look different or practice a
different religion to be perceived as a cultural threat. The threat of
foreigners in the Brexit vote in 2016, for instance, did not come from
dark-skinned South Asians or Africans or Muslims from the Middle
East but from fair-complexioned fellow Europeans from Poland and
Romania.
Changing demography from immigration is not the only threat to
cultural identity. Political scientist Samuel Huntington argued in his
book Who Are We? that the rise of nationalism in the United States
was a response to national elites developing international identities
and national corporations representing global interests.9 It is not just
the volume of new and existing immigration but the fear of
immigrants’ presence in the near or distant future that is triggering
identity and cultural conflicts in some countries. “We don’t want to
end up like Germany!” said Andrej Babis, prime minister of the
Czech Republic, in opposing EU migrant/refugee quotas.10
The prevalence of distinctly diverse public attitudes toward Syrian
refugees across the Middle East and Europe documents how cultural
dissonance influences attitudes toward immigrants and refugees.
Between 2011 and 2016 Turkey received close to 2.7 million Syrian
refugees, which is 3.5 percent of its population. Europe received a
little over one million Syrian refugees in this period, which is a mere
0.2 percent of Europe’s population. Both in percentage and in
absolute terms, the refugee inflow has been much larger in Turkey
than in the European Union, but anxiety over refugees is far greater
in EU countries than in Turkey. Despite a growing incidence of
terrorism on Turkish soil arising from the civil war in neighboring
Syria, public and governmental sympathy for Syrian refugees
remains high in Turkey, whereas the refugee influx has strengthened
anti-immigration political parties throughout the European Union.
A survey of Turkish citizens conducted in 2016, at the peak of the
Syrian refugee crisis, found that 73 percent of respondents believed
accepting and supporting refugees is a humanitarian mission; 58
percent considered it to be Turkey’s historical and geographical
responsibility to support Syrian refugees, and 77 percent supported
refugee integration.11 Such sympathetic views of refugees are not so
common in Europe or the United States. One possible explanation is
religious affinity and a sense of common history with Syrians among
Turkish people.
Economist Onur Altindag and I studied the Syrian refugee influx
and found that it had a modestly negative effect on voter attitude
toward President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP),
the architect of the open-door refugee policy in Turkey. The small
proportion of voters who decided not to vote for the AKP in the
presidential elections in response to the refugee influx did not join
parties that opposed refugees but simply did not vote.12 Similar
studies in many European countries, on the other hand, document
the strengthening of far-right political parties in response to
immigrant influx.13
Historically, anti-immigrant sentiments in traditional immigrant
destinations such as the United States weakened as residents got
acclimated to the presence of immigrants and the flows abated. In
the long run, immigrants tend to adopt host-country cultures. Host
communities also get used to migrant cultures and begin to
appreciate and enjoy ethnic foods, music, and arts. A hundred years
ago, racism toward the then ethnic minorities—Italian, Jewish, and
Chinese people—in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other
large cities was comparable to what Mexicans experience in
Alabama, Arizona, and North Carolina in the early twenty-first
century. Italian, Irish, Jewish, and many other ethnicities now
constitute the multiple identities of large cities in the United States. In
the long run, the key to pacifying discontents lies in how well the
current flows of immigrants integrate with host country cultures and
how they contribute to host societies. When Syrian refugees in
Germany become economically successful and begin to contribute
toward its economy and tax system, the anxiety around them will
likely dissipate. But that may take years, even decades.

Economic Slowdown in Industrialized Countries

The recent rise of the far-right political parties and public
dissatisfaction with the establishment parties in most of Europe and
the United States have coincided with the economic slowdown in
industrialized countries and the strengthening of emerging
economies. In 1990 only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies were
from emerging economies; in 2016 the number had risen to 26
percent. In the early 2000s outsourcing to developing countries was
largely of low-quality routine jobs. In the 2010s Google, IBM, Apple,
Facebook, and many other multinational corporations have moved
their cutting-edge operations to emerging economies as well,
creating economic uncertainty for workers in rich countries. In the
1990s and 2000s emerging economies primarily assembled the
high-tech products designed in the industrialized West. The 2010s
saw the springing up of world-class tech giants in emerging
economies. In March 2018 the Economist warned, “America’s
technological hegemony is under threat from China.”14
Globally, labor’s share in total income has been declining.
Between 2000 and 2014 in nine OECD countries, real wages
increased by less than 5 percent, a third of the increase in labor
productivity.15 In the United States, the wage share in income fell
from 64 percent to 57 percent between 2000 and 2017.16 The decline
is of comparable magnitude in many European countries.17
 “Americans can no longer expect to be twice as well off as their
parents,” says economist Robert Gordon, who has studied trends in
economic growth and productivity in the United States. Public
aspirations, however, have not adjusted to the new reality. Gordon
describes headwinds in six areas that he predicts will keep per
capita growth in GDP in the United States to nearly stagnant levels
in the future. These areas are demography, education, inequality,
globalization, energy and the environment, and consumer and
government debt. Even if innovations were to continue into the future
at the same rate as they did in the two decades preceding 2007,
Gordon argues, economic growth would fall to less than half of its
long-term trend on account of these headwinds.18 That’s the most
optimistic of Gordon’s various growth scenarios. He is quite skeptical
that future innovations will continue at the same pace as in the past.
In the most likely scenario, he argues, per capita economic growth in
the United States will be down to 0.2 percent—meaning nearly
stagnant living standards.19
Economic predictions for European economies are as dismal. For
one, Europe faces worse headwinds than the United States on
account of demographic factors. The working-age population in
many European countries has been stagnant or even shrinking for
some time. The Great Recession hit Europe harder, and its
economies had a slower recovery compared with the United States.
In 2018 the real GDP of EU economies was lower than it was in
2008; in 2018 the unemployment rate in EU countries was 2
percentage points higher than it was in 2007, resulting in several
million missing jobs. Wages fell in the worst affected countries—
Greece, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, and Spain—and remained
stagnant or experienced negligible growth in many others.20
How does immigration affect economic growth in industrialized
countries? Far from being a cause of productivity decline and low
economic growth, Robert Gordon says that immigration could be a
solution. His argument: the retirement of baby boomers has lowered
working hours per capita, which has reduced per capita income
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 One day I sent her to Tiffany’s, the jewellers. She added only a
mere little trinket to my order, a locket with her monogram set in
diamonds. I received the bill in due course, but she had left me.
Previously she had gone with me to Nice, and had remained there
while I was on the road in the United States. When I returned I
learned that during my absence she had lived at the hotel where I
left her and that her bill, charged to my account, amounted to nearly
6,000 francs.
Presently other invoices arrived from dyers and cleaners, glove
makers, shoemakers, costumiers, modistes, furriers, linendrapers
and finally the bill from Tiffany’s.
But the limit was reached when a student from the Beaux Arts
asked me if I could not return him sixty-six francs which he had lent
me two years before through the medium of my pretty secretary.
Next there came a gentleman from London, one whom I held in too
great esteem to go into details, who asked me for ten pounds
sterling which he had loaned me, again through the medium of my
clever and well-dressed secretary.
But in speaking of my troubles I am liable to forget my lunch with
the Clareties.
As we were about to sit down Mme. Claretie brought in an elderly
woman of very pleasant appearance. I have rarely seen motions
easier, more simple or more harmonious. Leaning against each other
they made a delightful picture. Mme. Claretie presented me to her
mother. I asked how she was.
“Oh, I am very well,” she replied, “my eyes are my only trouble. I
cannot read without glasses, and the glasses annoy me a great
deal.”
She had always been very fond of reading, and could not bring
herself to the idea of reading no more. I sympathised with her and
told her so. Then suddenly it occurred to me to ask her how old she
was.
“Ninety-five years,” she replied.
 And she was complaining of not being able to read any longer
without glasses!
We spoke of her grandchildren and her great grandchildren. I
asked her if the happiness of being surrounded by so many
affectionate people did not bring large compensation for the
infirmities of age.
She replied:
“I love my children and my grandchildren, and I live in them. But
that does not restore to me my eyesight. It is terrible not to be able to
see.”
And she was right. Love gave her strength to bear her
misfortune, but she feared that the prison of darkness would claim
her as its prey. Before going to the dining-room she had taken her
daughter’s arm. She had no assistance on the other hand in eating.
Her good humour was unvarying.
She took some knitting from a work-basket, and said in a firm
voice:
“I must work. I can no longer see well enough to be sure that my
knitting is well done, but I have to keep busy, nevertheless.”
Mme. Claretie asked me if I was acquainted with Alexandre
Dumas.
I told her how I had chanced to meet him. Then M. Claretie asked
me numerous questions, which I tried to evade in order not to seem
to talk about myself all the time. Imagine my astonishment when next
morning I read in the Temps an article, a column and a half long,
devoted entirely to our visit at M. Claretie’s and signed by the
gentleman himself.
“Mme. Hanako,” he wrote, “is in town, a little person, delightfully
odd and charming. In her blue or green robes, embroidered with
flowers of many colours, she is like a costly doll, or a prettily
animated idol, which should have a bird’s voice. The sculptor Rodin
may possibly show us her refined features and keen eyes at the next
Salon, for he is occupied just now with a study of her, and I believe a
statue of the comedienne. He has never had a better model. These
Japanese, who are so energetic, leaping into the fray like the ants
upon a tree trunk, are likewise capable of the most complete
immobility and the greatest patience. These divergent qualities
constitute the strength of their race.
“Mme. Hanako, whom I saw and applauded in ‘The Martyr’ at the
Opera, came to see me, through the kindness of Miss Loie Fuller,
who discovered Sada Yacco for us some years ago. It is delightful to
see at close hand and in so attractive a guise this little creature, who
looks so frightful when, with convulsed eyes, she mimics the death
agony. There is a pretty smile on the lips which at the theatre are
curled under the pain of hara-kiri. She made me think of Orestes
exhibiting the funeral urn to Electra: ‘As you see, we bring the little
remnants in a little urn.’
“Loie Fuller, who was a soubrette before being the goddess of
light, an enchantress of strange visions, has become enamoured of
this dramatic Japanese art and has popularised it everywhere,
through Sada Yacco and then through Mme. Hanako. I have always
observed that Loie Fuller has a very keen intelligence. I am not
surprised that Alexandre Dumas said to me: ‘She ought to write out
her impressions and her memories.’ I should like to hear from her
how she first conceived these radiant dances, of which the public
has never grown tired, and which she has just begun again at the
Hippodrome. She is, however, more ready to talk philosophy than
the stage. Gaily, with her blue eye and her faun-like smile, she
replied to my question: ‘It’s just chance. The light came to me. I
didn’t have to go to it.’”
I apologize for reproducing these eulogistic words. I have even
suppressed certain passages, for M. Claretie was very
complimentary. It was, however, absolutely necessary that I should
make this citation, since out of it grew the present book.
M. Claretie had quoted Dumas’ opinion. He returned to the
charge.
Soon after, in fact, I received a letter from M. Claretie urging me
to begin my “memoirs.” Perhaps he was right, but I hardly dared
undertake such a terrible task all alone. It looked so formidable to
write a book, and a book about myself!
One afternoon I called on Mme. Claretie. A number of pleasant
people were there and, after Mme. Claretie had mentioned this
notion of “memoirs” which her husband, following Dumas’ lead, had
favoured, they all began to ask me questions about myself, my art
and the steps by which I had created it. Everyone tried to encourage
me to undertake the work.
A short time after this Mme. Claretie sent me tickets for her box
at the Théâtre-Français. I went there with several friends. There
were twelve of us, among whom was Mrs. Mason, wife of the
American Consul-General, who is the most remarkable statesman I
have ever known, and the best diplomatist of the service.
In return for the Clareties’ kindness I invited them to be present at
one of my rehearsals of ‘Salome.’ They were good enough to accept
my invitation and one evening they arrived at the Théâtre des Arts
while I was at work. Later I came forward to join them. We stood in
the gloom of a dimly lighted hall. The orchestra was rehearsing. All
at once a dispute arose between the musical composer and the
orchestra leader. The composer said:
“They don’t do it that way at the Opera.”
Thereupon the young orchestra leader replied:
“Don’t speak to me of subsidised theatres. There’s nothing more
imbecile anywhere.”
He laid great stress on the words “subsidised” and “imbecile.”
M. Claretie asked me who this young man was. I had not heard
exactly what he said. Nevertheless, as I knew something
embarrassing had occurred, I tried to excuse him, alleging that he
had been rehearsing all day, that half his musicians had deserted to
take positions at the Opera and that they had left him only the
understudies.
M. Claretie, whose good nature is proverbial, paid no attention to
the incident. Several days later, indeed, on November 5, 1907, he
wrote for the Temps a long article, which is more eulogistic than I
deserve, but which I cite because it gives an impression of my work
at a rehearsal.
“The other evening,” he wrote, “I had, as it were, a vision of a
theatre of the future, something of the nature of a feministic theatre.
“Women are more and more taking men’s places. They are
steadily supplanting the so-called stronger sex. The court-house
swarms with women lawyers. The literature of imagination and
observation will soon belong to women of letters. In spite of man’s
declaration that there shall be no woman doctor for him the female
physician continues to pass her examinations and brilliantly. Just
watch and you will see woman growing in influence and power; and
if, as in Gladstone’s phrase, the nineteenth century was the working-
man’s century, the twentieth will be the women’s century.
“I have been at the Théâtre des Arts, Boulevard des Batignolles,
at a private rehearsal, which Miss Loie Fuller invited me to attend.
She is about to present there to-morrow a ‘mute drama’—we used to
call it a pantomime—the Tragedie de Salome, by M. Robert
d’Humières, who has rivalled Rudyard Kipling in translating it. Loie
Fuller will show several new dances there: the dance of pearls, in
which she entwines herself in strings of pearls taken from the coffin
of Herodias; the snake dance, which she performs in the midst of a
wild incantation; the dance of steel, the dance of silver, and the
dance of fright, which causes her to flee, panic-stricken, from the
sight of John’s decapitated head persistently following her and
surveying her with martyred eyes.
THE DANCE OF FEAR FROM “SALOME”
 “Loie Fuller has made studies in a special laboratory of all the
effects of light that transform the stage, with the Dead Sea, seen
from a height, and the terraces of Herod’s palace. She has
succeeded, by means of various projections, in giving the actual
appearance of the storm, a glimpse of the moonbeams cast upon the
waves, of the horror of a sea of blood. Of Mount Nebo, where
Moses, dying, hailed the promised land, and the hills of Moab which
border the horizon, fade into each other where night envelops them.
The light in a weird way changes the appearance of the picturesque
country. Clouds traverse the sky. Waves break or become smooth as
a surface of mother-of-pearl. The electric apparatus is so arranged
that a signal effects magical changes.
“We shall view miracles of light ere long at the theatre. When M.
Fortuny, son of the distinguished Spanish artist, has realised ‘his
theatre’ we shall have glorious visions. Little by little the scenery
encroaches upon the stage, and perhaps beautiful verses, well
pronounced, will be worthy of all these marvels.
“It is certain that new capacities are developing in theatrical art,
and that Miss Loie Fuller will have been responsible for an important
contribution. I should not venture to say how she has created her
light effects. She has actually been turned out by her landlord
because of an explosion in her apparatus. Had she not been so well
known she would have been taken for an anarchist. At this theatre,
Rue des Batignolles, where I once witnessed the direst of
melodramas that ever made popular audiences shiver, at this
theatre, which has become elegant and sumptuous with its
handsome, modernised decorations, at the Théâtre des Arts, she
has installed her footlights, her electric lamps, all this visual fairyland
which she has invented and perfected, which has made of her a
unique personality, an independent creator, a revolutionist in art.
“There, on that evening when I saw her rehearse Salome in
everyday clothes, without costume, her glasses over her eyes,
measuring her steps, outlining in her dark robe the seductive and
suggestive movements, which she will produce to-morrow in her
brilliant costume, I seemed to be watching a wonderful impresaria,
manager of her troupe as well as mistress of the audience, giving
her directions to the orchestra, to the mechanicians, with an
exquisite politeness, smiling in face of the inevitable nerve-racking
circumstances, always good-natured and making herself obeyed, as
all real leaders do, by giving orders in a tone that sounds like asking
a favour.
“‘Will you be good enough to give us a little more light? Yes. That
is it. Thank you.’
“On the stage another woman in street dress, with a note-book in
her hand, very amiable, too, and very exact in her directions and
questions, took the parts of John the Baptist, half nude, of Herod in
his purple mantle, of Herodias magnificent under her veils, and
assumed the function of regisseur (one cannot yet say regisserice).
And I was struck by the smoothness of all this performance of a
complicated piece, with its movements and various changes. These
two American women, without raising their voices, quietly but with
the absolute brevity of practical people (distrust at the theatre those
who talk too much), these two women with their little hands
fashioned for command were managing the rehearsal as an expert
Amazon drives a restive horse.
“Then I had the immense pleasure of seeing this Salome in
everyday clothes dance her steps without the illusion created by
theatrical costume, with a simple strip of stuff, sometimes red and
sometimes green, for the purpose of studying the reflections on the
moving folds under the electric light. It was Salome dancing, but a
Salome in a short skirt, a Salome with a jacket over her shoulders, a
Salome in a tailor-made dress, whose hands—mobile, expressive,
tender or threatening hands, white hands, hands like the tips of birds’
wings—emerged from the clothes, imparted to them all the poetry of
the dance, of the seductive dance or the dance of fright, the infernal
dance or the dance of delight. The gleam from the footlights reflected
itself on the dancer’s glasses and blazed there like flame, like
fugitive flashes, and nothing could be at once more fantastic and
more charming than these twists of the body, these caressing
motions, these hands, again, these dream hands waving there
before Herod, superb in his theatrical mantle, and observing the
sight of the dance idealised in the everyday costume.
“I can well believe that Loie Fuller’s Salome is destined to add a
Salome unforeseen of all the Salomes that we have been privileged
to see. With M. Florent Schmitt’s music she connects the wonders of
her luminous effects. This woman, who has so profoundly influenced
the modes, the tone of materials, has discovered still further effects,
and I can imagine the picturesqueness of the movements when she
envelops herself with the black serpents which she used the other
evening only among the accessories behind the scenes.”
That evening between the two scenes, M. Claretie again spoke of
my book; and, to sum up, it is thanks to his insistence that I decided
to dip my pen in the inkwell and to begin these “memoirs.” It was a
long task, this book was, long and formidable for me. And so many
little incidents, sometimes comic and sometimes tragic, have already
recurred during the making of this manuscript that they might alone
suffice to fill a second volume.
 OLD FAMILY RECORDS

I N the muniment chests of many County Families there exist,

without doubt, papers and records of very great historical and
biographical value. From time to time a book will appear based
upon such material. A preface will explain how the papers that
appear in the volume were brought to light through the industry and
enterprise of some antiquarian or man of letters, and how he had
persuaded their owner to allow to be published what he had thought
possessed interest only for himself and members of his family.

N OT only documents and correspondence relating to literary,

political, or historical matters are likely to prove of interest; but
also family papers that tell of the social or domestic life of a
past century or a bygone generation. Messrs. Herbert Jenkins Ltd.
will be pleased at any time to advise the possessors of Old Diaries,
Manuscripts, Letters, or any other description of Family Papers, as to
their suitability for publication in book form. When deemed desirable
the papers themselves, duly insured against loss or damage during
transit, will, with the consent of the owner, be submitted to experts.

O N all such matters advice will be given without involving the

possessor of the original documents in any expense or liability.
In the first instance a list of the papers upon which advice may
be required should be enclosed, giving some particulars of their
nature (if letters, by whom and to whom written), dates and
approximate extent.

DIRECTORS: ADDRESS:
SIR GEORGE H. CHUBB, BT. HERBERT JENKINS LTD.
ALEX W. HILL, M.A. 12 ARUNDEL PLACE,
HERBERT JENKINS. HAYMARKET, LONDON.
 Transcriber’s Notes
Inconsistent word hyphenation and spelling have been
regularized.
Apparent typographical errors have been changed.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTEEN
YEARS OF A DANCER'S LIFE ***

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