Ned Strong is Executive Director of Laspau, a Harvard-affiliated organization that serves as a link between U.S. higher education and educational needs in Latin America. He has a vast knowledge of who does (and needs) what in both sides of the equation and a special touch about how to make relations between them work.
Is it worthwhile to commemorate the Hispanic heritage?
It’s extremely worthwhile for two reasons. The first is the growth of the population with Hispanic heritage. The other is the affinity of the entire region of the Americas, something about our collective heritage that is sometimes ignored. I think the Americas is something important to be put on a map.
What are Hispanics’ major contributions to mainstream America?
The biggest is our founding. The indigenous people of the Americas were here, but the first encounter between them and the European culture was from Spain. I think it’s important to recognize that and commemorate and celebrate it. Yes, there were people that came to America from northern Europe and England, but our first Euro-heritage is based on Hispanic culture.
In a more contemporary note, what positive heritage do Latinos bring to the table today?
One issue is immigration. It’s an economic force that is extremely important because there are a lot of jobs that no citizen of the U.S. wants to do. That’s one end of the scale. At the other end there are important segments of immigrants from Latin America who are very well educated, who integrate into American culture, and quickly become leaders. It’s interesting because it’s a mix of every kind of economic level, from people that cross the border at night, to PhD students who stay on and become leading professors. There is the example of a Chilean who won a Nobel Prize, started a pharmaceutical company in San Francisco, made a great discovery about cancer treatment, became very wealthy, but then returned to Chile and tried to duplicate the research experience there. So it’s a very rich contribution.
For some people Hispanics are a hindrance for American society. Do you find we have a negative influence? If so, what is the way to overcoming it?
One thing is that there are school systems around the country that are overburdened by too many kids that fail because teachers are unable to teach them in Spanish. But the total cost to fix this and other problems is not as expensive as building a wall between Mexico and United States.
Immigration is perhaps the issue in contemporary American society. Is there a silver bullet, a quick fix for this problem of immigration?
Well, there was a big task force in the 1990s that promoted legislation about immigration including proposals like if people wanted to invest in the U.S. hundred of thousands of $ they could then apply for a visa; it also promoted commerce among the Americas. The other recommendation of this commission was to invest more money in the countries from which many of the immigrants come: El Salvador, Honduras, certainly Mexico. It’s less expensive to invest in job creation in those countries than it is to deal with the problems of illegal immigration. The third solution is to allow seasonal workers to enter and exit the country legally. Currently if they enter the country they don’t want to leave because they will never be readmitted to the U.S. to do seasonal work and this works against both what we are trying to do and against economic reality. This could work because people do prefer to live in their own homes in Central America and Mexico rather than have to stay in the U.S. They’re afraid to stay because they can’t go back.