Gungor Show/Immigrants & downward assimilation - 7/06

Thu Jul 27 17:24:30 EDT 2006

- GUNGOR SHOW
- TILL DEATH, OR LIVING IN AMERICA, DO US PART

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- GUNGOR SHOW

This is a clip from Dick Cronk's email to his regional marriage network.
It would help if others across the country also called their TBN affiliates
and 1) inquired about the Gungor "Laugh Your Way" programming and 2) lodge
complaints if they are not going to carry the show.  We need to let local
programmers know that the public does care about marriage and that there is
this market.  Let me know what you find.  Remember all our ships rise on the
rising tide.  If one show about marriage makes it, all the networks will
want their own.  - diane

> Hello again folks,
>     I just got off the phone with our local TBN affiliate
> station (WKOI-TV, Richmond, IN).  They said that Mark Gunger was
> being transmitted over the TBN network, but they chose to pre-empt
> his program with local programming.
>     She was unable to tell me if the same thing would happen to
> the second broadcast, scheduled for Tuesday August 1.
> 
> Not laughing in my healthy marriage at the moment.
> Dick Cronk
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Hello folks,
>     Set your VCRs to capture this.  Mark has a hilarious comedy
> routine to illustrate basic differences between males and females
> and how that causes problems in marriages.  Learn about how we
> males spend time in "the nothing box."
>     We saw him live at the Smartmarriages Conference in Atlanta
> in June and bought his complete DVD kit.  We are making it available
> to borrow. (It is already loaned out).  We also have a short 45 minute
> DVD of his routine that is availabe to be loaned out.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> The new Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage television show will premiere
>> worldwide on TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network) on the following dates:
>> Thursday, July 27th 12 PM Eastern / 11 AM Central
>> Tuesday, August 1st 12:30 AM / 11:30 PM Central
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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- TILL DEATH, OR LIVING IN AMERICA, DO US PART
Patrick McGee
STAR-TELEGRAM (Ft Worth)
July 27, 2006

((Wouldn't it be loverly if it were true - that immigrants' marriage culture
could inoculate and help stem our own divorce epidemic.  But, as this
article points out, that's not how it works.  We can, however, focus on
learning lessons from other cultures and we can continue to try to prevent
the spread of "downward assimilation" in immigrant populations. - diane ))

America's immigrants have more enduring marriages than U.S. citizens, but
experts say they cannot be considered reinforcements in the battle to
maintain the traditional family in this country.

Once here, immigrants get caught in America's culture of divorce.

"As they are assimilated and they learn our ways, they learn our divorce
rate," said Diane Sollee, director of the Coalition for Marriage Family and
Couples Education in Washington, D.C. "They catch up with our divorce rate.
It's contagious."

A greater percentage of immigrants who become citizens are married than are
Americans of the same age group. Far more immigrants, legal and illegal,
come from Mexico than any other country, and Mexico has a dramatically lower
divorce rate than the United States. Less than 9 percent of marriages in
Mexico end in divorce, according to the Organization for Economic
Development and Cooperation.

This is in stark contrast to what happens in America, where nearly half of
American marriages fail. The number of single Americans living alone is now
higher than any other type of household, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau. Twenty-eight percent of American children are growing up in
single-parent homes.

"The values that many of these people have emigrating from Mexico are
stronger than our own," said Elizabeth Marquardt, director of the Center for
Marriage and Families in New York.

She said she's stunned to see so many children with their fathers when she
drives through poor Hispanic neighborhoods.

But many Mexican marriages don't survive in the United States. About 12
percent of Mexican immigrant women's marriages end in divorce in the first
10 years, and about 41 percent of married women of Mexican ancestry born in
the United States get divorced within the same time period, according to the
Journal of Marriage and Family.

Marquardt and other marriage experts said marriage is important to society
because research shows that married people live longer, are more productive
and report being happier. Studies show children benefit from parents who
stay together even if the parents are unhappy.

Social conservatives often cite the same statistics when they promote
marriage as a pillar of traditional values and society.

But in some conservative circles, marriage is highly valued while there's
less tolerance for immigration.

Bradford Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, said
he has seen this in his study of marriage.

"Broadly speaking, the conservatives tend to be opposed to illegal
immigration, and yet they're looking for more marriage orientation," he
said. "I think there's been some tension within the Family Research Council
around this whole issue."

Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the Family Research Council, said
the Washington, D.C.-based group has not yet formed a policy on immigration,
and he chose his words carefully when talking about the subject.

"We welcome immigrants from Mexico as long as it's legal," Sprigg said. "Our
concern is with the disrespect for our laws and the lack of control of the
borders."

Carlos Espinoza said a priest he worked with in California believes God is
sending Mexicans to the United States in large numbers to restore the family
values America is losing.

Espinoza and his wife, Lupita, who are from Mexico, previously ran
marriage-strengthening programs in California. They moved to Haltom City
last year, and this weekend they will hold their first retreat for married
couples in this area.

Ten other married couples helped them organize the three-day Spanish
language retreat at St. George Catholic Church in Fort Worth. The free
retreat will be tied to Catholic principles and will include role playing,
group discussions and workshops.

The Espinozas, who married 13 years ago in Mexico, have three sons, ages 6,
9 and 12. Carlos Espinoza said the marriage saved him from alcoholism.
Lupita Espinoza said they drew closer to God when their first child was born
weak with kidney problems.

Their marriage grew stronger, but they worry that others' marriages are
unraveling.

"The culture that we are adapting to is changing us," Carlos Espinoza said.
"We should fight more to maintain the marriage, to maintain the family."

The Espinozas clean houses and offices for a living -- and said they are
shocked how many of their clients are divorced.

They worry that while America proves to be the land of opportunity, there
are also negative aspects of the culture chipping away at the family units
that were strong in Latin America.

Wilcox said Mexican immigrants have the lowest divorce rate of any racial or
ethnic group in the United States.

George Doub, partner and cofounder of Family Wellness Associates, a
marriage-counseling company in Scotts Valley, Calif., said religion and
traditional values maintain marriages in Mexico, but so does a cultural
acceptance of mistresses. He said adultery is less tolerated in the United
States, where women have more rights and cheating is more likely to end
marriages.

Wilcox said many Mexican immigrants move into poor neighborhoods where the
divorce rate is even higher than the national average, and they're affected
by that. By the second generation, the Mexican divorce rate has started to
catch up to the American divorce rate.

"Unfortunately, second- and third-generation Latinos are often exposed to
the worst in America -- a crass popular culture, failing schools,
neighborhoods with too many fatherless households and poor job prospects,"
Wilcox said. "They're experiencing what scholars call downward
assimilation."

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/15134321.htm

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