¡Ask a Mexican! Why don’t Mexicans have enough gratitude for America to learn to speak English?

Gustavo Arellano responds to another ignorant question:

Dear Mexican,

Why don’t Mexicans have enough gratitude for America to learn to speak English? Are they too stupid? Too lazy? …

TOOK FOUR YEARS OF SPANISH IN HIGH SCHOOL

Dear Gabacho,

The United States government shares your concerns, Took Four Years. Its Dillingham Commission released a 42-volume study on the waves of immigrants that concluded, “The new immigration as a class is far less intelligent than the old. … Generally speaking they are actuated in coming by different ideals, for the old immigration came to be a part of the country, while the new, in a large measure, comes with the intention of profiting, in a pecuniary way, by the superior advantages of the new world and then returning to the old country.” Sound familiar? That’s because the Dillingham report appeared in 1911, and the inassimilable masses at the time were eastern and northern Europeans. The Dillingham Commission proves that the time-honored conservative anecdote that earlier generations of immigrants walked off the boats, chopped down their multisyllabic surnames and learned English immediately is (nonsense). American racism is a carousel and here we are again.

From: ¡Ask a Mexican! Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

A Nation of Immigrants Clashes over the Future

Last year alone, Border Patrol officers arrested 1.2 million people along this border. Half that number again may have entered the US without getting caught.

“Give me your tired, your poor…”

America is a nation of immigrants. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” reads the inscription on New York’s Statue of Liberty. But the nation is deeply divided over the question of whether this promise is valid for the tired and poor arriving every day in Arivaca Valley or elsewhere along the USA’s 3,141 kilometer (1,952 mile) southern border.

America’s ”Tower of Babel”?

Tom Tancredo, a House Republican who voted for a tougher immigration law last year, claims America is becoming a new “Tower of Babel.”  The bill envisions sensors, drones, and giant fences along the southern border to prevent illegal transitions from the Third to the First World. Under this bill, anyone providing medical treatment to illegal immigrants would be legally punishable. The measure would “literally criminalize the good Samaritan and probably even Jesus,” Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton has said.

Yale Global: Univision Gives Citizenship Drive an Unusual Lift

Yale’s Online newspaper, “Yale Global” discusses the recent citizenship drive initiated by Univsion to inspire legal residents to vote. As was previously reported, this drive could significantly influence the 2008 election. Read the Yale article for more in depth coverage. Or click here:

From Yale Global:

More than 8 million legal permanent residents are eligible for citizenship in the US. Univision Communications is working with activists to encourage such green-card holders to collect their citizenship papers and participate in the 2008 presidential election. Such a large voting bloc could help Latino candidates and also influence the ongoing debate on immigration reform. The largest Spanish-language broadcast network in the US describes the citizenship drive as a nonpartisan effort to empower viewers, but analysts predict any upswing in Latino voters to favor Democrats more than Republicans. It takes about seven months for green-card holders to complete the procedures for citizenship, and already US Citizenship and Immigration Services employees report a large increase in applications. An extra incentive behind the drive – the US is expected to increase fees for citizenship applications and include tough questions in a new test. The company plans to follow the citizenship drive with massive voter drives in the months ahead.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Peace Not War: Art Gallery

A Gabacho In Chicano Park

Read the article written by the anti Immigration “watchdogs.” Their comments and hatred will surprise you. It’s sad to think that there are so many bigots in this world. You’d be surprised how many times people type in “Kill Mexicans” in the search engines. This country is full of a lot of hate, and it’s really sad.

A Gabacho In Chicano Park

Whites resistant to affirmative action “to protect fellow whites”

Paper: Whites resistant to affirmative action “to protect fellow whites”

The strongest source of white opposition to affirmative action today is neither racism nor a sincere conviction that any favoritism, even if compensatory, is wrong, but rather a “desire to protect fellow whites,” three scholars argue in a paper released last week by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

Comment: How come it’s considered okay if any other group wants to protect itself and to demand equal protection before the law, but not for whites to do the same?

My Response:

Because whites have been keeping EVERY OTHER RACE for at least as long as this country was invaded. The whites have had centuries to be wealthy, acquire land, wealth, status, roots in the established economy. While at the same time keeping all others of a different race down. So now that we want the same opportunity to advance it’s considered racism.

Crossing the Border Legally has it’s own set of problems

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports on a rather common practice of immigrant abuse. Many people assume that all immigrants cross illegally only because they don’t want to abide by our laws. In fact many immigrants would rather be legal, and have a work visa than to cross the dangerous desserts and risk death to get work. But as with all social and political issues, there is much more to the story than most people know.

One of the main hurdles to obtaining a work visa is a “complex and sometimes criminal network of foreign recruiters who extort money from poor migrants and then keep them on the job by forcing them into debt or threatening their families back home.”

It’s a problem similar to that of prohibition. Whereas the illegality of the act opens door for underground and criminal organizations to fill the void. If gaining a work visa weren’t so difficult, and if crossing the border to seek work weren’t illegal, these types of abuses would not occur.

¡Ask a Mexican! on the 1965 Immigration act

Gustavo Arellano, answers the question, “Has the 1965 Immigration Act proved to be a good thing or bad thing for America, and has the recent unprecedented flood of immigrants (both legal and illegal) been an overall good thing or bad thing for America?” in his Ask a Mexican column. His answer echoes my feelings on the subject: If they want it, let em have it… then we tax em.

Dear Mexican: Has the 1965 Immigration Act proved to be a good thing or bad thing for America, and has the recent unprecedented flood of immigrants (both legal and illegal) been an overall good thing or bad thing for America? Please fully explain your answer and include economical, cultural and quality-of-life issues in 25 words or less (just kidding — take all the words you want). Please include, if you would, your opinion of the axioms “All cultures are equal” and “Diversity is our (America’s) strength.”

—Punk Rock Fag!

LAPPL Blames MacArthur Park Beatings on lack of funding

The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), the LAPD Union, has released a list of suggestions for improving the LAPD response to the MacArthur Park beatings on May 1st.  They refer to the brutal beatings as “Missteps” and blame lack of funding for their brutal actions.  The LAPPL, recommends the types of training that one would assume as already being done.  This sheds light on a serious problem within the LAPD that could have been avoided had the city already been training their officers correctly:

The LAPPL recommends that any command, control and training changes in the wake of the MacArthur Park incident should include the following:

 

·        All new Metropolitan Division (Metro) officers attend “new person school” in their first deployment period assigned to Metro.  Class size should be limited to 18 officers, the maximum number that can effectively be trained at one time.

 

Families Struggle to survive in America mirrors immigrant struggle

This article from Get Rich Slowly, written by “J.D.” reviews the Movie “The Farmers Wife“. A movie “follows a couple from rural Nebraska for three years (1995-1997) as they struggle to save their farm from bankruptcy”.

J.D describes the hardship some Americans face every day in vivid detail. Reading it makes your heart bleed for their desperate situation. Being a father of two, I can sympathize with the characters plight. Imagining how painful it must be to not be able to feed your own children makes my throat tighten, and my eyes well with tears.

Unable to feed their children, their farm not producing food due to drought, and jobs being scarce in their area, forces these hard working Americans to use Food Stamps. The generosity of Americans and the taxes we so willingly pay, are put to good use here, to help the hungry and the poor.

So why is it that we should have such compassion for only American families? Why is it that when a Mexican family with the same problems has no opportunity for food stamps, the father (and sometimes mother) must leave to find work hundreds or thousands of miles away?