You have to remember that in Latin America that there are a lot of differences in classes. In the US, we are pretty much a classless society, but in Latin countries these things still exist. In Mexico, if one has curly hair, it is an indication of better breeding because Indians don't have curly hair. The European type people still control the governments, businesses and the churches.
The Spanish kept track of people's ethnic origins. There were Europeans, Criollos who were people of European extraction born in the new world, Mestizos who were European mixed with Indian, Negros, Mulattos and of course the Indians. The list of combinations goes on and on.
One's education and origins dictated one's place in society. For that reason, there are a lot of differences in the way the language is used. The illiterate speak what they hear. Indian words didn't go away, they were just incorporated. What makes sense in one location might not in another.
When looking at immigration, the successful don't emigrate, but the starving peasants do. The exception is a political diaspora such as occurred during the Mexican revolution and after Castro took power in Cuba. Then the educated and professional classes fled the country.
..
Historically the poorest people did not immigrate into the United States. There were requirements that one not become a public charge, that one have money on hand, and that one pay one's fare. Those who were starving peasants came as indentured servants, or they stayed at home. Even during the potato famine, only those who could afford the fare came here, and their relatives came when they could afford to send for them. Those who became dependent on government assistance were deported, and their children, born here or in their country of origin, generally went with them. Even after Ellis Island opened, very late in the 19th Century, immigrants had to prove that they would not become dependent on charity or government assistance by demonstrating that they had money on them.
Children born here sometimes stayed with other members of their ethic community or went into orphanages if the parents were deported.
I can trace my first ancestor in the Americas to Jamestown; he was one of those who was brought in to try and get the colonists to quit acting like gentlemen and learn how to grow their own food and trade with the natives. He was a trader and had to undertake this job at a time when the spoiled brats of the aristocracy had raided the tribes for food and stolen their trade goods so often that it was unsafe to step outside the stockade. He went outside the stockade. He later returned to England and was recruited to join the Mayflower Company as a merchant since he had experience trading with American natives. His name was Isaac Allerton.
Another ancestor of mine was a man named John Warren who was an indentured servant to a wealthy member of the Mayflower Company. When the man who held his indenture died, Warren was freed and was also the heir to the man's estate.
Another ancestor was one Daniel Perrine a Huguenot who came here for obvious reasons after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes.
What did they have in common? They paid their own way, one way or another, and they supported themselves. No welfare, no food stamps, no free school breakfast, no free school lunch.
On my father's side I descend in part from Bessarabian Germans who arrived with enough money to acquire land, wagons, stock, seed, and farm implements. They learned enough English to trade and do business, although they were unfortunately educated in German in the Lutheran church. My grandfather not only sent his kids to the public school so they could learn fluent English - but he got himself elected to the school board and established a high school. This so outraged his fellow Krauten Snouten that he only served one term. They didn't like the taxes, and they sure didn't like their offspring wanting to go to school rather than serving as draft animals on the farms and ranches. They also did not receive free school breakfast, free school lunch, food stamps, rent subsidies, and the public schools response to interest in learning in their own language was to slap them.
The only language in public schools was English. The first generation in the Ellis Island days tended to work in urban factories, their children born here, the second generation, tended to learn skilled trades or work in factories, or even go to college. By the third generation they shared the social values of those around them. There was no free school breakfast, no free school lunch, no food stamps, and no welfare for immigrants OR their American born children. I suspect if we went back to those requirements that illegal aliens would be as scarce as hens teeth.
Many people believe that the huddled, homeless masses of Europe referred to in the Emma Lazarus poem were the poor of Europe; actually, the poem is about the Ashkenaz who were victims of pogroms and driven from their homes by Tsarist decrees and hostile neighbors. Ms. Lazarus had no intention of the American taxpayer subsidizing those who could not support themselves. Even the charities that subsidized fares expected those who came to find work and often found them work in factories. Meanwhile, settlement houses focused on teaching how to use the food ingredients available in their neighborhoods and how to speak English, as well as American etiquette.
The frontier is gone, and we now suffer a shortage of our most critical resource, water. Our country is a net importer of food - we can no longer even feed ourselves. I do not see a single advantage our country gains by admitting more people who are only equipped to function in a third world economy. I can assure you that Americans will do those jobs, and did do those jobs. The one exception might be working as coyotes along the border.
