Immigration (as seen by a country composed of immigrants)

America is a people magnet. It's an adolescent country, still growing, that periodically throws itself into a tizzy over a central part of its nature — that it is built of people who came here from someplace else fairly recently.

Well, recently as nations go. People get stuck thinking that the way things were 20 years ago is the way things always were until today, and the way things were always meant to be. It isn't true. We're a different country every generation. Less dynamic countries might stay the same for several generations, but not us.

People are arguing about illegal immigrants, and there is a legitimate debate about that, but the mobilizing emotions are mostly about two things: economics and identity. We each weigh how much we will gain or lose because of immigrants, legal or not. And we all have an emotional stake in defining the country and our place in it.

The past couple of weeks immigration has seeped from the news into the back of my brain, popping up as I go about my business.

Yesterday's lunch I got from the young Japanese ladies at the bento box place. The day before I ate a sandwich from a Vietnamese shop on Capitol Hill. Today I might wind up eating a burrito served up by someone from Mexico, or a deli sandwich made by the East African guy a few blocks away, or a baguette sandwich from the French place in Pike Place Market, though I don't think I'd encounter an actual French person there.

Last night I dropped off a bunch of shirts to the Korean-American lady at the cleaners.

The guy who sits across from me has a Mexican flag on his desk, and though someone might mistake him for one, he's not an immigrant. The writer who sits in front of him isn't either, but her parents are. They came from South Korea.

The redhead who sits in front of me grew up in Canada, but I don't think most people have her in mind when they picture immigrants taking American jobs or changing the culture.

Immigrants are a diverse bunch; so is the work they do and the impact they have on native Americans (and maybe on Native Americans, too).

A few years ago there was lots of discussion of foreigners taking high-tech jobs and filling spots in American graduate schools.

This latest round of arguments has mostly been about undocumented immigrants who do more physical work in agriculture, construction and so on. It's been mostly about Mexicans and whether they are taking American jobs, using up social services, and refusing to assimilate.

The Republican Party has been split. They have interests on more than one side of things. Lots of good ol' conservative business people benefit from cheap labor, while good ol' conservatives who don't need the labor tend to worry about the identity thing, by which measure poor Mexicans are a threat to the American way of life and also might use up tax dollars.

It's complicated all over. One of the staunchest Democratic support groups, poor black folks, are often in competition for jobs with immigrants. On the low end of things, the point has been made that these jobs are ones that most Americans don't want to do.

That's true, but lots of them are jobs that the least educated black people and other poorer Americans did do until cheaper labor came along. More Americans would do those jobs if the pay were higher, which it would be with a smaller labor pool and especially with a labor pool that did not include people whose immigration status invites exploitation.

That said, I'm not one of those who'd like to see a border wall or mass deportation. The solution to that problem is not to beat up on Mexicans, but to actually take seriously the need to improve conditions for all Americans.

We are always going to attract immigrants as long as there is an imbalance of wealth in the world and we are on the high side of things.

That dynamic is particularly strong between the United States and Mexico, which share a border, yet are galaxies apart in development and opportunities. It's as if there were a huge vacuum sucking people north. It's so strong that immigration laws barely affect it.

The only way for us to stop immigration would be to stick a crowbar in this nation's economic wheels. Tax cuts and prolonged war may accomplish that, but I sure hope not.

I do hope, though, that someday the adolescent becomes an adult and appreciates the blessing of living in a country that attracts industrious people and over a couple of generations makes them part of itself, so they too can gripe about immigrants.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.

His column runs Thursdays and Sundays and is found at www.seattletimes.com/jerrylarge.