In a New York Times article on a report on immigration there is some note on the changing face of New York City with 6 in 10 births having one parent that is foreign-born. Now in and of itself this is not outrageous at all, New York City has always had a diverse ethnicity. The report is to be released today as a 265-page book entitled The Newest New Yorkers 2000: Immigrant New York in the New Millennium. A few items mentioned in the article include an increase in counted immigrants from 2.9 million in 2000 to an estimated 3.2 million today, which is a record high for New York City.

The immigrant increase is due to the higher birth rates of most immigrant groups. Mexicans moved from 17th to 5th in immigrant totals with a quadrupling in numbers that the report acknowledges can not be due to birth-rates and legal immigration alone.

Jeffrey Passel, a demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center who has studied the issue, said that nationally, 80 to 85 percent of all Mexican immigration since 1990 was undocumented, while among other immigrant groups, a great majority had entered legally.

"Any place that's getting a lot of new immigration from Mexico, virtually all of it is undocumented," Mr. Passel said, "and that certainly includes New York."

The report also looks into ethnicity's and how they settle once they get here, their education levels and their median incomes and poverty rates. For a contrast one of the examples is showing the Mexican community and how it fares against the Filipino community.

Though Mexicans had the city's lowest median earnings ($16,737 for women, $21,284 for men) and lowest levels of education (slightly more than a third graduated from high school), they managed to bring their household incomes to 85 percent of the city median of $37,700, by having multiple workers in overcrowded households.

That was a strategy used even by highly educated foreign-born groups like the city's 49,600 Filipinos, at the other end of the spectrum. Median female earning among Filipinos was $51,000, and median household income $70,500, both the highest of any immigrant group. Though there are only 60 Filipino men to every 100 Filipino women, the Filipino poverty rate is only 5.3 percent, a fourth the citywide rate of 21 percent; only 2 percent receive public assistance.

One of the reasons for this is not only education level, but being willing to assimilate into the culture and society of America. Most in the Mexican community continue to speak Spanish and rather than learn English try to force the educational systems to support their bilingual education throughout their educational career.

Filipino's, as a group, come in willing and able to fit into society, work hard and don't expect handouts.

How can I say such a racist thing? Well first of all I've been married to a Filipino for nearly 15 years and have watched the immigration of Filipino's through legal means to this country. I have watched them from their first arrival to their first job to the way they have raised their kids. I have watched a child of 6 just starting in first grade all the way to medical school.

Now I have also watched the Mexican community in my area, being from California. They have more kids than they should and do not try to get their kids to fit in. Where Filipino's speak both Tagalog and English at home, Mexican immigrants speak only Spanish and do not attempt to give their kids an edge by learning English themselves. They resist fitting in and will settle for a menial job and not try to advance further.

This is the big difference between the two groups. One number that skews my observations is of course the issue of illegal immigration. Where most Filipino's are here legally, most Mexican's -- as noted by the pew study above 80-85% -- are not here legally. A slew of uneducated and non English speaking illegal aliens from Mexico knock the numbers way out of whack making all Mexicans look as if they are uneducated and under the poverty line and looking for a handout. While this is obviously not true, the Hispanic community would do itself a favor by getting these miscreants and criminals that are coming across our borders out.