My Super Sweet Fifteen

From Liza Mundy's piece on the Quinceañera:

But the real worry is that the next generation isn't being tamed so much as unleashed, though not exactly liberated. These girls' post-quince lives will not be nearly so closely supervised as they might have been in their home countries, and they won't move toward anything like the same conclusion. Latina teens are among the most at-risk group of teenagers. Despite a high rate of religiosity, they are—like so many children of first-generation immigrants—often alienated from their parents' worldview. It doesn't help that more than 25 percent of Hispanic children live below the poverty line. They are also the fastest-growing teenage demographic: By 2020, one in five teens will be Hispanic. According to the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Latinas have the highest teen birthrate of all major U.S. racial/ethnic groups: 51 percent of Latina teens get pregnant at least once before the age of 20, nearly twice the national average. Alvarez interviews one hairdresser who notes that of seven girls he styled for their quinces, four invited him, within the year, to a baby shower ...

It is notable that the quinceañera, which originated as a prelude to a wedding, in this country seems to have become a substitute for the wedding a girl may never have. One of Alvarez's central questions is why parents are willing to spend so much arduously earned money—the average price of a quince is $5,000; the colloquial phrase for giving a party you can't afford is "throwing the house out the window"—on a one-night blowout. The answer is that for many of these girls, a quince is the only blowout her parents can be sure of giving.

The Mundy piece calls to mind Heather Mac Donald's City Journal essay on Hispanic family values, which includes this passage:

As Mona’s family suggests, out-of-wedlock child rearing among Hispanics is by no means confined to the underclass. The St. Joseph’s parishioners are precisely the churchgoing, blue-collar workers whom open-borders conservatives celebrate. Yet this community is as susceptible as any other to illegitimacy. Fifty-year-old Irma and her husband, Rafael, came legally from Mexico in the early 1970s. Rafael works in a meatpacking plant in Brea; they have raised five husky boys who attend church with them. Yet Irma’s sister—a homemaker like herself, also married to a factory hand—is now the grandmother of two illegitimate children, one by each daughter. “I saw nothing in the way my sister and her husband raised her children to explain it,” Irma says. “She gave them everything.” One of the fathers of Irma’s young nieces has four other children by a variety of different mothers. His construction wages are being garnished for child support, but he is otherwise not involved in raising his children.

This suggests something that conservatives, in particular, need to be aware of - both in debates about immigration and the larger question of the American family - which is that immigrant "family values" can be a double-edged sword where illegitimacy is concerned. The same coming-of-age tradition that in an agrarian society segues naturally into marriage and family can, in a more permissive cultural context, function as a license for sexual activitity and unwed motherhood. The same network of extended families, churches, and stay-at-home mothers that sustains a traditional social order can provide a temporary cushion that makes second-generation family breakdown more socially acceptable than it should be. All of which suggests that it's not enough for social conservatives, or anyone concerned about the illegitimacy rate, to say "Hispanic immigrants have strong family values; we like strong family values; all's well that ends well." The kind of family values that sustains a middle class - rather than an underclass - in a society like the United States aren't necessarily the kind of family values that you find in socially-conservative societies at very different stages of socioeconomic development, and any transition from the latter to the former is likely to be bumpy.

Comments

This is an interesting topic - though it sounds to me like Ross is trying to say the Quinceanos celebration is what's causing the family breakdown: "The same coming-of-age tradition that in an agrarian society segues naturally into marriage and family can, in a more permissive cultural context, function as a license for sexual activitity and unwed motherhood."

So is the solution to encourage getting rid of the tradition? Or is the problem the immigrants themselves? This is what conservatives need to be careful about, and why I purposefully excluded myself from the many conservatives arguing against the immigration bill. Heather MacDonald's article above about the legal immigrant family, and the writings of Mark Krikorian, John Derbyshire, et. al. point out that the leading intellectuals on this debate don't just oppose illegal immigration - they are quite hostile to most legal types of immigration as well. My impression during the debate was that many people opposing the bill weren't completely aware of this.

It also seems obvious to me that supporters of the bill like Bush, McCain and some Democrats, would be hesitant to give into the demands of those opposing the bill, when the ones leading the fight to defeat the bill (whether known or unknown to the foot-soldiers) were hostile to many or most forms of legal immigration as well. They fully expected, and I don't really blame them, that once they gave into demands on illegal immigration, the opponents would move the goalposts further away and - rather than leave it there and agree on the compromise - start looking for restrictions on legal immigration as well.

Posted by Dan | August 23, 2007 4:03 PM

It's worth bearing in mind that, as I understand it, there are historical and social factors that both explain the high rates of teenage and unmarried pregnancies across classes in many Latin-American countries, and also that help make it not such a bad thing in its original cultural context.
1) Most 'illegitimate' births in Latin American countries do actually take place within the context of common-law type relationships, in which both parents do stay together for years at a time and help raise the child.
2) The tradition is in part due to the fact that Catholic priests in Latin America, until the Catholic Action outreach movements of the 1920s, generally preferred to live and work among the middle-class, and therefore the large rural underclass often lacked regular access to a priest to perform the sacrament.
3) Grandparents in Latin American countries are accustomed and expected to help care for their grandchildren, and this allows young men and women to have children at a young age and then pursue their careers and/or education.
4) In the tightly knit urban or rural communities in which many poor Latin American people live, the community takes an important role in caring for children, and neighbors will help care for each other's children. See 'Death Without Weeping' by Nancy Scheper-Hughes for more details.
5) In modern times, of course, emigration and migrant labor (especially in Central America and the Carribbean) have destabilized family structures by drawing a lot of young men away from home.

From a strictly biological and medical viepoint, of course, there is nothing intrisically wrong with having children at a young age. Western capitalist society is of course not set up to deal with it, but perhaps that only means that the fault is with the way we have chosen to set up our society. Demographically, Latin American countries has an almost ideal birthrate of about 2.5 children per couple (slightly above replacement, reflecting the fact that South America, unlike most of the rest of the world, still has some capacity to support more people; LatAm is quick on track to stabilize at just about replacement level, while Europe and Anglo-America are below it). All of which goes to show that perhaps we should learn something from Latin American family structures. Certainly the modern North American family life has more than its share of problems.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | August 23, 2007 4:08 PM

Ah, the glories of American civilization: capable of rendering even the most admirable and beguiling traditions of other cultures into stumbling blocks and liabilities.

Posted by gabriel | August 23, 2007 4:36 PM

I was certainly surprised to see that article in Slate, which normally displays the classic liberal combination of utter boredom with Mexican-Amerians and irritation at any non-Hispanics who want to talk about Hispanics.

A few other facts would be of interest: the illegitimacy rate among Mexicans is actually higher (48% last I checked) among Mexican-Americans born in the United States than among those born in Mexico (41%). In other words, the immigrants are slowly assimilating toward American norms, but those norms are necessarily those of, say, Atlantic Monthly readers. In particular, African Americans provide charismatic role models for young Mexican Amerians.

The 1986 amnesty caused a huge baby boom among formerly illegal immigrants from about 1988-1994, which has vastly stressed the California publics schools by sending a demographic pig in a python through the school systems. LAUSD had to respond with year-round schedules, packing 50 kids into trailers for classrooms, and, belatedly, spending over $20 billion on new school construction. Now, though, enrollments are dropping as the amnesty baby boom graduates (or, more frequently, drops out) and the enormous cost of living in LA (plus the gangs, traffic, etc., all worsened by the illegal immigrant influx over the last 30 years) is driving Hispanics out of LA to the rest of America.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 23, 2007 4:41 PM

Urgh, let me try that paragraph again, now with the secret ingredient of proofreading!

he illegitimacy rate among people resident in America of Mexican descent is actually higher (48% last I checked) among Mexican-Americans born in the United States than among immigrants in America who were born in Mexico (41%). In other words, the immigrants are slowly assimilating toward American norms, but those norms are not necessarily those of, say, Atlantic Monthly readers. In particular, African Americans provide charismatic role models for young Mexican Americans.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 23, 2007 4:45 PM

Let me document how the last amnesty set off a disastrous baby boom among the least educated in California, since a new amnesty would do the same, just nationally, and on a quintuple scale. (That this wasn't talked about in the mainstream media in the recent amnesty debate just shows how negligent the press is on this issue.)

Demographers Laura E. Hill and Hans P. Johnson of the Public Policy Institute of California wrote:

“Between 1987 and 1991, total fertility rates for foreign-born Hispanics [in California] increased from 3.2 to 4.4 [expected babies per woman over her lifetime]. This dramatic rise was the primary force behind the overall increase in the state’s total fertility rate during this period. Were it not for the large increase in fertility among Hispanic immigrants, fertility rates in California would have increased very little between 1987 and 1991.

“Why did total fertility rates increase so dramatically for Hispanic immigrants? First, the composition of the Hispanic immigrant population in California changed as a result of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. In California alone, 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants applied for amnesty (legal immigrant status) under this act. The vast majority were young men, and many were agricultural workers who settled permanently in the United States. Previous research indicates that many of those granted amnesty were joined later by spouses and relatives in the United States... As a result, many young adult Hispanic women came to California during the late 1980s. We also know that unauthorized immigrants tend to have less education than other immigrants and that they are more likely to come from rural areas. Both characteristics are associated with high levels of fertility. As a result, changes in the composition of the Hispanic immigration population probably increased fertility rates.

“Another possible reason for the sudden increase in fertility rates for Hispanic immigrants is also related to IRCA. Because many of those granted amnesty and their spouses had been apart for some time, their reunion in California prompted a “catch-up” effect in the timing of births...”

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 23, 2007 4:49 PM

I'm not much on proms, for instance, because they really do solemnize teenage sex (and the worst kind of teenage sex, i.e., drunken, spontaneous, unprotected teenage sex), because they are associated with drunkenness, limos, adult costumes, parties pre- and post-, and hotel rooms.

But with respect to Quinceaneras, I don't see it. Where's the evidence that this particular tradition leads to teenage sex? This tradition looks a lot like a Bat Mitzvah or a Bar Mitzvah to me. The evidence of hispanic teenage motherhood probably has a lot more to do with community norms both in the countries of origin and in hispanic communities in the United States.

One can, it seems to me, criticize these things with respect to cost. There's a good argument for not spending thousands of dollars on ANY ceremony involving teenagers-- teenagers seem to think these things are very important when they are living through them, but in fact, very few adults spend very much time thinking about or reliving these things. It's a nice opportunity to teach needed lessons about frugality to teens as well, and there's also a lot of ugly one-upsmanship that goes on with respect to the expenditure of money on these things.

But with respect to teenage sexuality, I don't see it. Where are the hotel rooms and the keg parties? At least, go after the prom first.

Posted by Dilan Esper | August 23, 2007 7:09 PM

"The answer is that for many of these girls, a quince is the only blowout her parents can be sure of giving."

Wow, how sure the author is of having found the "answer." I'm Cuban and I don't know the "answer" but the fear of the quince not being the only blowout party the girl will have is not. The quince has always been that way, even many, many decades ago when the traditional family was more or less intact and the women weren't supposed to have sex before marriage.

Less sociologic bullshit, please.

Posted by Eduardo | August 23, 2007 8:26 PM

rE: Western capitalist society is of course not set up to deal with it, but perhaps that only means that the fault is with the way we have chosen to set up our society.

We did not "choose" how our society is organized; we are pretty much forced into by the technological and economic structures that undergird it. Integration into adult existence now requires an extensive period of apprenticeship (though this was often true, for males at least, of urban life even in pre-modern times). So the answer is not to somehow go back to some magical past when teenagers come marry and live happily ever after, but to adapt to the reality we find ourselves in, at least to the point of muddling through the less happy side effects of modern life.

Posted by JonF | August 23, 2007 10:03 PM

I don't know any social conservative who looked at "hispanic family values" and said "all's well that ends well." I don't mean I don't know them personally; I mean this is a straw man as no pundit has said anything of the kind. The only thing close is a bunch of pro-immigration folks who are in the Republican party, but on this and many other elements, they aren't conservative.

Most social conservatives don't think that immigration is just ducky. They want assimilation. Real assimilation would mean the underclass stopped being an underclass--which is what happens with the large majority of northern Asian and Indian immigrants. If anything, all the conclusions you reach support the social conservatives' anti-amnesty, english-before-green-card, assimilation views on immigration.

Posted by Allison | August 24, 2007 8:41 PM

An interesting article, but the conclusions are completely wrong. You assume that just because certain immigrant communities have suffered moral breakdown to a greater extent than 'us', therefore 'we' must be more advanced and superior in some subtle way, and 'they' inferior. And since the one culture is clearly inferior to the other, the reason must be whatever is most obvious and visible -- some sort of coming-of-age ceremony perhaps? Pretty weak logic, and more than a little offensive.

Here in the Deep South -- Australia and New Zealand -- we have seen rates of marriage plummet and illegitimacy soar amongst 'our' Anglo Saxon middle class, a middle class that enjoys a distinct cultural superiority even to that of the USA.

Humans are the most subtle, complex and mysterious of beings. This sort of crude analysis is informative of one thing only: the preconceptions of the author.

Posted by Kip Watson | August 24, 2007 8:58 PM

After seeing the "feathers fly" in families of all ethnicities and watching the nasty lives of children growing up in Hell all of the time. Suicides up, murder within the family up, severe drug use is in all ethnicites and gangs are full of unfathered boys who will end up at the morgue sooner or later.

Although I cannot be called a Chrisitian. I've decided it's a better life than the one the World is presenting. I don't mean the glitz and glammour. I mean the dead end stuff that chews you to the bone and then cracks the bone. As a Christian even when I die in a gutter, penniless, I have a Mansion and a good life afterward. But of course no one wants to "try Christianity on" for a life time. Why not? There's at least a prize at the end. Think about it.

Posted by John Smith | August 24, 2007 9:02 PM

Kip Watson said:

"Here in the Deep South -- Australia and New Zealand -- we have seen rates of marriage plummet and illegitimacy soar amongst 'our' Anglo Saxon middle class, a middle class that enjoys a distinct cultural superiority even to that of the USA."

I beg your pardon?? Just what is this supposed "cultural superiority"--the propensity for producing children out of wedlock? If you consider that cultural superiority, then I'm glad to be culturally inferior.

Posted by John S. | August 24, 2007 11:26 PM

All I know is, I'm a middle-class white guy, so it's somehow my fault.

Posted by Chester White | August 25, 2007 12:21 AM

John S,

Exactly. The 'my culture is better than yours' argument is repulsive. So how is the 'my culture does better than yours because we're better than you' argument any improvement...?

Posted by Kip Watson | August 25, 2007 2:36 AM

The problem with Latino culture (and Latin American culture) is that it produces a few "big men" i.e. guys like Tony Villaraigosa, or Fidel, or Carlos Slim, and impoverished peasants for everyone else.

There is no middle class.

Having kids early, with no married father in the house, is a one-way ticket to poverty, and gang-joining thug young men and teen age mothers in the next generation.

This is reality, inconvenient though it may be.

The problem is that Latino culture is one of trust inside the family or family substitute, be it a street gang like the Mexican Mafia, MS-13, or various guerrilla groups infesting South America.

There is no tradition of broad, civic society trust relationships among men and women. Does not exist. No equivalent to the Masons, Shriners, Kiwanis, etc. which is the leading indicator of a society's health. I.E. people trust one another enough to volunteer to help others together.

The great tragic weakness of Latino culture is their family structure which is extended and pervasive. High trust inside it, no trust outside it (and very rationally too).

To combat poverty, Latino culture should be erased as much as possible (especially speaking Spanish) and replaced with Anglo culture of civic volunteerism, with the Protestant work ethic, mutual societies, nuclear not extended family, and all the other cultural advantages that led to European domination of the world. Of course that would mean restricting the labor supply too so that wages are high enough to support a nuclear family. High wages for labor was also the critical European/American advantage over the Hacienda system.

[Yes yes yes. This is "racist" and un-PC and not multicultural. Choose one: end Latino poverty or preserve "colorful" Latino culture which causes it.]

Posted by Jim Rockford | August 25, 2007 4:28 AM

Mr. Rockford's post is remarkable less for its fairly open racism than for its lack of understanding of the real situation in Latin America. If the lack of Western cultural values is the reason for inequality in Latin America, then how come Chile, the most Westernized country in the region, is also one of the most unequal. The idea that Fidel Castro is some kind of oligarch, analogous to the capitalist oligarchs in Brazil, Chile or Central America, is also completely without foundation. You may support or oppose the Cuban government, and even I would acknowledge that an overreliance on central planning has caused the Cuban economy to stagnate in many ways (notwithstanding their important achievements). However, one problem that they don't have (to any great extent) is inequality, Cuba is generally considered to have one of the lowest levels of economic inequality in the world. Maybe that is not worth the cost in economic growth or political freedom, but one should at least acknowledge the fact.

The reason Latin American countries are poor are basically structural and economic. Capitalism in Latin America, like in other regions of the world, generated inequality and an increaisng gap between rich and poor. Unlike in North America, however, Latin American capitalism largely failed not just by my standards, but by its own: it failed to generate the kind of economic growth that it did in North America or Europe.This was largely due to the economies of those countries have been controlled by a parasitic oligarchy which preferred to spend the economic surplus (on opera houses, trips to Europe, and luxury goods) rather than to invest it. Additional factors were that Latin American capitalists (in contrast with North American ones) traditionally valued loyal workers rather than efficient ones, and dealt with militancy among the poor by violent repression rather than co-optation. One should also remember that Latin American ruling classes came to a working relationship with the United States in which

So you're perhaps right in that cultural factors made capitalism in Latin America largely unsuccessful, but cultural factors among the ruling class, not among the poor. Industrial workers and peasants in Latin America are as hard working as anywhere else, and probably more than most (have you ever tried mining sulfur at 18,000 feet?). The conclusion that I would draw from this, as someone on the political left, is that while social revolution is neither necessary nor desirable in North America, it is probably necessary in most Latin American countries, as the only way of destroying the system that generates oligarchs and impoverished peasants. the irony of course is that the United States, from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to Venezuela today, has done its best to thwart any attempt to better the lives of the impoverished peasants and take economic control away from the oligarchs.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | August 25, 2007 11:06 AM

Re: Real assimilation would mean the underclass stopped being an underclass

The underclass is as American as apple pie. We did not import it from elsewhere. It evolved right here from among our own people. Whatever its pathologies, lack of assimilation is not the underclass' problem.

Re: To combat poverty, Latino culture should be erased as much as possible (especially speaking Spanish)

This is asinine. Are you really claiming that language is the problem? That somehow words like "Justice" and "opportunity" do not exist or have a diferent meaning in Spanish? Well, how do you explain the parent culture across the Atlantic? The Spaniards and the Portugese were, within living memory, ruled by dictators and their social structures were very similar to those of their former colonies. So how (without adopting the English language and Anglo culture) did those two countries manage to become modern democracies boasting of decent living standards for nearly all their citizenry, in so brief a time?

Re: ...with the Protestant work ethic

Hmm, so now we have to get rid of Catholocism even? I thought religious bigotry of that sort was dead and gone in this country except among those who prance among in white robes and hoods. (The Protestant work ethic is a myth: modern capitalism got its start in Renaissance Italy-- you know, abode of Il Papa-- years before Luther started nailing manifestos to church doors.

Re: ...nuclear not extended family

Nuclear families are not stable, as witness the current epidemic of family breakdown. And though I am a mix of German and Anglo by ancestry I keep in close touch with many of my cousins, indeed I am going to visit a bunch of them next weekend. But I guess if I want to be a real American I ought write them right out of my life. Am I permitted to love my step-mom and sisters still?

Re: However, one problem that they [Cubans] don't have (to any great extent) is inequality

Um, you are overstating your case. You don't think the Cuban Communist party enjoys a great many perks that the common folk don't? That old saying, He who has the gold makes the rules, is also reversible: He who makes the rules gets the gold.

Re: Capitalism in Latin America, like in other regions of the world, generated inequality

Latin America never really had capitalism. What it had was a sort of neo-feudalist mercantilism which spawned a "crony capitalism" (really, neo-feudalism with 20th century technology) that is very unlike the true capitalism strains found in Europe or North America or Australia. Or even Asia, for that matter.

Posted by JonF | August 25, 2007 11:04 PM

JonF,

I think that LA societies had enough features in common with North American ones to qualify as capitalist- a different sort of capitalism, certainly, but still capitalist. Of course it was different in many ways from North American capitalism, that was my point- it stressed luxury consumption over investment, loyalty over efficiency, and tended to violently oppress the poor rather than trying to co-opt them. These were some of the reasons that it didn't accomplish what U.S. capitalism did. But I think that to call it neo-feudalism is also innacurate. real feudalism depended on a whole network of social duties and obligations, peasants being bound to the land, land being the primary source of value, the Church setting the rules for society, etc. that were not present in 20th century LA to any great extent (compared with medieval Europe, or even compared with colonial-era Latin America.) A lot of feudal values obviously survived into present-day LA, and in some rural redoubts of Central America or the Andes conditions may have remained pretty much feudal into the modern era, but as a whole I would say that by the early 20th century most of LA had some form of capitalist economy.

My point was really that capitalism, pretty much everywhere in the world, generated economic inequality, but that in Latin America it generated not just inequality, but stagnation as well (in contrast to capitalism in the U.S.). And that this was due both to the region's status of economic dependency on the US, as well as to the nature of the ruling oligarchies which one might say combined the worst of capitalism with the worst of feudalism.

Of course there is a ruling class in Cuba, but my impression is, from what reading I have done, that the gap in status and standard of living between the ruling class and the ordinary peasant or worker is smaller than in most countries of the world- certainly smaller than in other LA countries.

Posted by Hector Dauphin-Gloire | August 26, 2007 5:58 PM

Re: But I think that to call it neo-feudalism is also innacurate. real feudalism depended on a whole network of social duties and obligations, peasants being bound to the land, land being the primary source of value, the Church setting the rules for society, etc.

But that's precisely how Latin American societies were organized until VERY recently (within living memory in many countries). The system of peonage (and in some raeas outrigh tslavery) was a direct continuation of European serfdom. In this respect Latin America resembles early 20th century Russia, but without the royalty and explicitly titled nobility: a narrow land-based oligarchy lording it over the rest of society. (And i nLatin America this was often racially based, the upper class tending to be pure European, even today).

Re: My point was really that capitalism, pretty much everywhere in the world, generated economic inequality

Here I differ with you: the economic equality, even in N. America and NW Europe, was already present. Surely you don't think late 18th century Britain or early 19th century US was some sort of egalitarian paradise which capitalism and the Industrial Revolution spoiled?

Re: Of course there is a ruling class in Cuba, but my impression is, from what reading I have done, that the gap in status and standard of living between the ruling class and the ordinary peasant or worker is smaller than in most countries of the world

The Party ruling class has always lived like God on a holiday in "Peoples Republics", even when they were fiercely egalitarian in rhetoric. Check out biographies of Chariman Mao or his even more radical wife-- they were not strangers to luxury or decadence. I don't know any specific details about Cuba, but I would be surprised if Clan Castro were not similarly decked out behind closed doors as First World sybarites.

Posted by JonF | August 26, 2007 9:56 PM

JonF,

I think that many people make an error when they judge all leaders of a particular ideology (communist, fascist, liberal-democratic, social-democratic, what have you) as equally good, evil, or whatever. My best friend is a Caribbean Latino who is fiercely pro-Cuban, and he often has a hard time believing how bad some other Communist states were, because he reasons "the right wing compares, say, Mengistu to Castro, I know that Castro wasn't that bad, so Mengistu can't have been either'. of course he's wrong about that, for the same reason.

I know that Mao was quite the decadent sybarite, just like Stalin was a power-mad psychopath. That's why I seldom have much good to say about either of them, aside from the fact that Stalin helped win WWII. I don't think that Fidel Castro is another Mao, or another Stalin, just because their ideology has some similarities, and I think anyone who does is making the same mistake as the Greek leftists who compared Metaxas to Hitler on the grounds that they were both 'fascist'.

Some communist states (like Cuba, or Yugoslavia) were much, MUCH less brutal or repressive than places like the Soviet Union, China, or Romania, and on that basis it seems probable that they were less corrupt/decadent as well.

I don't have any statistics on Fidel's personal life, but I have never heard even his critics argue that he lives a particularly ostentatious life.

I wouldn't say that pre-industrial England was a great or a particularly egalitarian place to live, but there are reasons why a great many social thinkers from Thomas More to Dickens saw the industrial revolution, at least in the short run, as a turn for the worse. Peasants were deprived of their lands, the 'commons' were enclosed and turned into private estates, peasants were forced to become overworked industrial laborers, and health and nutrition levels became abysmal. To say nothing of the spiritual impact of losing one's connection to the land and at least some degree of control over one's own labor power.

A similar situation actually held true in much of Latin America. There are reasons why most peasant uprisings in Latin America, however revolutionary, socialist, or Marxist-inclined in practice, began by selling themselves as reactionary- i.e. reacting against capitalism, and trying to restore a lost golden age of self-sufficient peasants. Even the revolutionary-socialist government in Bolivia today sells itself as culturally 'reactionary' (not in the pejorative sense) trying to recover a pre-Columbian golden age. (Other peasant movements might have variously claimed to be bringing back the better days of 50, 100, 200 years ago, or whatever.)

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