The Latinization of the USA

As some of my recent articles have pointed out I find much similarity between the current USA and the Eastern Roman Empire (often called Byzantium). Yet again another common point between the two reveals itself, albeit for markedly different reasons.

For those who don’t recall their history it comes down to this, at its beginning (basically the 400s) Eastern Rome was truly Roman. The only real difference is that their seat of power was Constantinople rather than the city of Rome. As the centuries passed though Eastern Rome slowly gave way to Greek Byzantium.

Why you ask? Why would the Byzantine Emperor come to call the language of Latin, the language of his forefathers, the tongue of barbarians? Simply put the Romans may have migrated to Greece and its Anatolian (modern day Turkey) hinterlands but they did not displace the native Greeks.

To speak with these Greeks one of course had to speak Greek, naturally this resulted in Latin slowly dying out. When the westerners started to call the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium it was not merely a snub aimed at delegitimatizing them. It was a statement of fact, how can you call yourself Roman if you can’t even speak Latin?

The United States faces a similar future in my view, one brought upon us by waves of immigration from Latin America. Even assuming that the estimated 30 million illegal aliens are kicked out the previous waves will still be here. They are so strong in fact that the hispanic birthrate is the only one that achieves better than total replacement fertility (2.1 children per woman) in the USA.

Assuming that trend of high birthrates (2.4 to be exact) continues within the younger USA population the hispanic population will eventually balloon. They already make up a quarter of the younger generations according to pew research. It is conceivable that they might be half of all youth in the USA by 2050 if they maintain their current fertility rates.

This effect may at best result in an increasingly bilingual population, at worst it may lead to English mostly going extinct in the USA. As for the other possible political and social consequences of this, it is hard to prognosticate. The reason for that difficulty being this unanswered question, will hispanics and whites stay separate or will they interbreed?

If the former than the USA will become even more fractured, ever more prone to racial violence, and eventually disintegrate into new, ethnically based nations. If the latter the USA will no longer be the USA as we know it, much like Byzantium ceased to be Roman the USA will cease to be American.

What that new form, that new Byzantium would like isn’t easy to guess. The closest examples we have to look at are South American nations such as Chile and Argentina. These nations are largely populated by and run by what are called “castizos”, a group that can be roughly defined as at least 75% white and 25% Amerindian blood.

We would still be European at the end of the day, but we would cease to be northern European. Our society would come to increasingly look like those of Italy, Portugal, and Spain. This is far form the worst fate that could befall us, but like the Byzantines we will be doomed to labor in the shadow of our more successful ancestors.

Statistical sources

Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2012/05/17/explaining-why-minority-births-now-outnumber-white-births/