So the reasons that Mexicans’ and Arabs’ rates of poverty, alcoholism, incarceration, reliance on entitlements, and high school drop-out are far higher than those of the host population are similar: in a globalized economy, manual labor in the West is now rarely unionized, respected, well-paying, or lasting. Nor are such jobs often looked upon, as they once were, as a sort of entry-level apprenticeship in which character and discipline are inculcated, in which young people gain education and experience before moving up the employment ladder.

Much of the work offered to immigrants remains in the service sector — cooking food, making beds, cutting lawns, cleaning toilets — jobs that become galling for the perennially second-class citizen in constant proximity to his more affluent host, whom he must serve while never quite receiving the compensation or respect he believes is warranted. Such jobs tend to come and go without breeding loyalty on either side. This is why the French-Arab unemployment rate (nearly 20%) is twice the national average, and why nearly one-third of California’s Mexican immigrant households are on public assistance. In each case, foreigners are welcomed in due to a perceived shortage of labor, but their families eventually end up either unemployed or on public assistance at much higher rates than non-immigrant households.

Many in the second generation lap up their parents’ bitterness, but without the consolation that things are still better in the West than back home. This is one reason that nearly four out of every ten Hispanic high school students are not graduating from high school in four years. Of those that do, only 22.9 percent meet the minimum entry requirements of the California State University system, the less competitive of the state’s two systems. Of Latinos of all statuses in California, less than 10 percent of those over 25 have bachelor’s degrees — a legacy of their parents who in many cases came to the state without English, without education, without lawful entry, and without well-paying, secure jobs. In some sense, the anger of the tattooed gang member who ends up in San Quentin is not that different from the rage of the car-burning Muslim in the Paris suburbs. Both are resentful, have sufficient entitlement aid to indulge the appetites but insufficient skills to earn a good living; and are eager to blame society for their frustrations.