As the Minuteman Project in Arizona winds down, the “vigilantes” gained a new ally this past week in CA Governor Ahnold Schwarzenegger.
The day before, the Governator called into KFI640’s John and Ken Show to denounce some outrageous billboards that have been put up by local Spanish language Channel 62. You can listen to Ahnold on The John and Ken Show here.
Here’s a picture of the offensive billboard that is causing a ton of outrage here in Southern California:
Of course, KFI640 has a great counter:
Heh.
UPDATE: Close observers may note an amusing irony: The rented billboard in this picture is owned by ClearChannel, the same company that owns KFI640 and broadcasts The John and Ken Show. That just goes to show that no matter where you stand politically, the color of money is still green.
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Categories: Immigration
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April 30th, 2005 at 10:37:38 pm
Even though Mexican immigrants represent the great majority of immigrants in California, and in the greater LA area, they really need to tone it down, specialy the Spanish language channels, who act as if only the only Spanish speaking immigrants who live here and watch the Spanish channel are Mexicans. They talk about Mexican soccer and Mexican news as if the rest of us Spanish speaking immigrants do no matter, and it drives me nuts! This ad is offensive for the obvious reasons (we are not in Mexico anymore people!), and also because there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America who are stuck with their overzealous Mexican pride. As much as I think preserving your culture and your native language and all those wonderful things you learned growing up or from you family are, dude, this is offensive. I would be equally offended if this was a Colombian ad. I have a lot of Colombian pride myself, I speak Spanish at home, I will teach my children Spanish and Colombian customs, but, yeah, if I am going to live in America, my first allegiance is going to be to this country, where I win my daily bread. The sooner immigrants learn the language and learn to interact with the rest of the people who live here too, the white guys, the asians, the filipinos, the persians, the rest of the latinos, the better it is for everyone involved. urgh.
April 30th, 2005 at 10:40:56 pm
The sooner immigrants learn the language…the better it is for everyone involved.
Racist!
j/k :)
April 30th, 2005 at 11:14:37 pm
Samuel P. Huntington (a conservative historian and political scientist at Harvard) wrote an article in Foreign Policy Magazine entitled: The Hispanic Challenge. The article is a bit of a long read, and has roughly to do with assimilation of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. I can’t say that I agree with everything he said, or necessarily even with his overall thesis (which has some ethnocentric and borderline racist undertones) but it is a fascinating read and does bring up some interesting arguments. There are some gross historical errors, or at least oversights, that he makes which detract from the article, but I’ll refrain from ranting about it for now.
I’d be interested in Bea’s take on this. The article should be free, but let me know if you have difficulty accessing it and I’ll try to do something (either provide registration info — my subscription, basically — or I’ll reproduce it for you).
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2495.php
April 30th, 2005 at 11:45:31 pm
Can’t access it from that link.
I’ve read his Clash of Civilizations book. I don’t think he’s ethnocentric at all, just a pessimistic realist.
April 30th, 2005 at 11:55:41 pm
I need subscription info, you can email it to me.
Generally though, I am very sympatethic towards all immigrants, legal and illegal, because I find it hard to fault the hard working dude that crosses the border looking for a job to feed the family and buy medicine for a sick child. I also get very upset that people abuse illegals, and that others use and brainwash them for their own political agenda. I blame the governments. Our government for not fixing the immigration process, having an effective guest worker programs, etc, and for not helping the state of California out, maxing out what we as a state can handle and allowing animosity to breed against the immigrants. The Mexican government and the other governments take the big blame though. They do not take care of their people, who are then forced to break the law and do whatever to survive, and the safety valve of migration allows them to continue to rule amidts corruption and broken down rule of law. Then when US factories go abroad to find cheap labor, we denounce them, “they’re exporting our jobs and paying them dirt”, but never stop to think that the more low wage jobs we create in Mexico, the more Mexicans who can choose to stay in their homeland and make a decent living (valid sweat shop examples aside, yes, wages that look meager to us can translate into a decent living abroad, just as the purchasing power of our tourist dollars in developing nations can go a long way).
Having not read the article yet, I assume it also touches on the multiracial future that is more and more the reality of California. Latinos marry people from other ethnicities and cultures, and blend away, but at the same time more and more latinos keep coming.. if they do not “assimilate” we are in trouble as a country and as latinos. I do not find talk of assimilation offensive, and why should it be? To suggest that immigrants should learn Spanish and to be Americans (and I do not mean simply white by American, but a more broad idea of what it is to be American) is not offensive, but practical and necessary. I know some people find the term offensive, un-PC, racist, blah blah blah. When in Rome, do as the Romans.
May 1st, 2005 at 12:03:59 am
” To suggest that immigrants should learn Spanish and to be Americans….”
Freudian slip? ;-)
May 1st, 2005 at 12:36:49 am
hahahhaha yeah, immigrants should learn English, and the white kids like you should learn Spanish, so they can woo the beautiful, brown-skinned latinas and their families :)
May 1st, 2005 at 12:42:07 am
Dude, piece of cake. I accomplished all that speaking just valley-girl English. :-P
May 1st, 2005 at 1:05:32 am
Andrew, are you calling yourself a valley girl?
I never knew! All this time…
May 1st, 2005 at 1:25:27 am
Well, since I originally thought you were gay, I took on the male appearance with the hopes of winning your affaction. Alas, it didn’t quite work out…. ;-)
May 1st, 2005 at 2:44:38 am
And here I was acting gayer than usual when you were around, in hopes of winning your affection! If I had known you were a Valley girl, I would have acted more manly. We are truly star-crossed would-be lovers, Andrew. ;)
May 1st, 2005 at 3:09:57 am
You guys are ridiculous :)
May 1st, 2005 at 3:37:38 am
Even though Mexican immigrants represent the great majority of immigrants in California, and in the greater LA area, they really need to tone it down, specialy the Spanish language channels, who act as if only the only Spanish speaking immigrants who live here and watch the Spanish channel are Mexicans. They talk about Mexican soccer and Mexican news as if the rest of us Spanish speaking immigrants do no matter, and it drives me nuts! This ad is offensive for the obvious reasons (we are not in Mexico anymore people!), and also because there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America who are stuck with their overzealous Mexican pride. As much as I think preserving your culture and your native language and all those wonderful things you learned growing up or from you family are, dude, this is offensive. I would be equally offended if this was a Colombian ad. I have a lot of Colombian pride myself, I speak Spanish at home, I will teach my children Spanish and Colombian customs, but, yeah, if I am going to live in America, my first allegiance is going to be to this country, where I win my daily bread. The sooner immigrants learn the language and learn to interact with the rest of the people who live here too, the white guys, the asians, the filipinos, the persians, the rest of the latinos, the better it is for everyone involved. urgh.
May 1st, 2005 at 3:40:56 am
<i>The sooner immigrants learn the language…the better it is for everyone involved.</i>
Racist!
j/k :)
May 1st, 2005 at 4:14:37 am
<a href=”http://www.gov.harvard.edu/Faculty/Bios/Huntington.htm”>Samuel P. Huntington</a> (a conservative historian and political scientist at Harvard) wrote an article in <a href=”http://www.foreignpolicy.com”>Foreign Policy Magazine</a> entitled: <a href=”http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2495.php”>The Hispanic Challenge</a>. The article is a bit of a long read, and has roughly to do with assimilation of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. I can’t say that I agree with everything he said, or necessarily even with his overall thesis (which has some ethnocentric and borderline racist undertones) but it is a fascinating read and does bring up some interesting arguments. There are some gross historical errors, or at least oversights, that he makes which detract from the article, but I’ll refrain from ranting about it for now.
I’d be interested in Bea’s take on this. The article should be free, but let me know if you have difficulty accessing it and I’ll try to do something (either provide registration info — my subscription, basically — or I’ll reproduce it for you).
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2495.php
May 1st, 2005 at 4:45:31 am
Can’t access it from that link.
I’ve read his <i>Clash of Civilizations</i> book. I don’t think he’s ethnocentric at all, just a pessimistic realist.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:55:41 am
I need subscription info, you can email it to me.
Generally though, I am very sympatethic towards all immigrants, legal and illegal, because I find it hard to fault the hard working dude that crosses the border looking for a job to feed the family and buy medicine for a sick child. I also get very upset that people abuse illegals, and that others use and brainwash them for their own political agenda. I blame the governments. Our government for not fixing the immigration process, having an effective guest worker programs, etc, and for not helping the state of California out, maxing out what we as a state can handle and allowing animosity to breed against the immigrants. The Mexican government and the other governments take the big blame though. They do not take care of their people, who are then forced to break the law and do whatever to survive, and the safety valve of migration allows them to continue to rule amidts corruption and broken down rule of law. Then when US factories go abroad to find cheap labor, we denounce them, “they’re exporting our jobs and paying them dirt”, but never stop to think that the more low wage jobs we create in Mexico, the more Mexicans who can choose to stay in their homeland and make a decent living (valid sweat shop examples aside, yes, wages that look meager to us can translate into a decent living abroad, just as the purchasing power of our tourist dollars in developing nations can go a long way).
Having not read the article yet, I assume it also touches on the multiracial future that is more and more the reality of California. Latinos marry people from other ethnicities and cultures, and blend away, but at the same time more and more latinos keep coming.. if they do not “assimilate” we are in trouble as a country and as latinos. I do not find talk of assimilation offensive, and why should it be? To suggest that immigrants should learn Spanish and to be Americans (and I do not mean simply white by American, but a more broad idea of what it is to be American) is not offensive, but practical and necessary. I know some people find the term offensive, un-PC, racist, blah blah blah. When in Rome, do as the Romans.
May 1st, 2005 at 5:03:59 am
<i>” To suggest that immigrants should learn Spanish and to be Americans….”</i>
Freudian slip? ;-)
May 1st, 2005 at 5:36:49 am
hahahhaha yeah, immigrants should learn English, and the white kids like you should learn Spanish, so they can woo the beautiful, brown-skinned latinas and their families :)
May 1st, 2005 at 5:42:07 am
Dude, piece of cake. I accomplished all that speaking just valley-girl English. :-P
May 1st, 2005 at 6:05:32 am
Andrew, are you calling yourself a valley girl?
I never knew! All this time…
May 1st, 2005 at 6:25:27 am
Well, since I originally thought you were gay, I took on the male appearance with the hopes of winning your affaction. Alas, it didn’t quite work out…. ;-)
May 1st, 2005 at 7:44:38 am
And here I was acting gayer than usual when you were around, in hopes of winning <i>your</i> affection! If I had known you were a Valley girl, I would have acted more manly. We are truly star-crossed would-be lovers, Andrew. ;)
May 1st, 2005 at 8:09:57 am
You guys are ridiculous :)
May 1st, 2005 at 11:10:39 am
Hey, now, California used to be part of Mexico, and an independent country for a little while. So the billboard’s off by (hold on, 2005 minus 1848…) 157 years.
It takes seven to ten years to learn a language such that you’re truly comfortable with it. Yes, immigrants should learn English. We should also be patient. And since our country is so very much against anybody here learning a second language, it seems rather hypocritical to pounce on anybody who isn’t ready to learn a new language overnight. Sure, your life is full of misery. But deal with it for ten years until you’re good enough to have a long conversation about politics in your second tongue.
The history of language is the history of two or more cultures coming together and learning to communicate with each other. Hell, that’s the only reason the English language exists.
There’s a joke a friend told me in Mexico:
What do you call someone who speaks many languages?
A polyglot.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks just one language?
Gringo.
May 1st, 2005 at 3:58:27 pm
Sean, I have to confess that I am continually baffled by people who claim that Americans are against learning and teaching other languages. We may not be as stalwart about our language education as Europeans are, but then again, they’re all a lot closer together. And I think that those who live in NE suburbia have a lot less interaction with Spanish speakers that people who live in say, Mesa or San Diego.
I look at my own family and I think we’re not doing so bad in terms of our language skills. My mom understands basic German, my Dad speaks Polish and understands some basic communication in other slavic languages, my sister is fluent in German and Spanish, and she’s skilled in Hebrew, Portugeuse, French and Latin. My brother understands basic Spanish and Korean and, as the ignorant member of the family, I have a moderate understanding of Spanish (much better written than spoken).
To take one of my mom’s siblings families, her brother, Rick, speaks decent Spanish, Evelyn speaks Spanish and German and both kids, Elena and Alex speak Spanish.
Hell, even my Grandfather spoke Polish, a tidbit of German and Russian and enough Spanish to connive his way to a free cup of coffee in Tijuana.
Fact is, when other immigrant groups first came to America, let’s say the Poles, most would speak Polish at home. They would attend Polish church services and some even had Polish elementary schools. But it was understood that in order to get ahead, you had to learn to interact with everyone else in English. Despite forming little Polish enclaves where people could happily barter in Polish and indeed, conduct every business interaction in Polish, most people understood that while they had Polish pride, they were in a new place and they couldn’t try to recreate Poland there. To be the best businessman, you had to know English, or people would take advantage of you.
And I think that’s what happens to a lot of Spanish-speaking people who refuse to assimilate to a new culture. Fact is, the language of power, commerce and money in the US is English. You either learn it, or you live in poverty as a rich person’s housekeeper or gardener, riding the bus 3 hours a day in a feeble attempt to provide for your kids.
And this statistic, it takes 7-10 years to learn a new language, is crap. If you move to a new country and you are immersed in the language, you’ll learn a helluva lot faster than that! In fact, when my sister was learning German a few years back, one of the ways she would practice her skills at the beginning was by going to a bakery and buying new things there.
Anyway, you learn. And that’s not to say that you can’t teach your kids about your customs and your language. You should. But you also shouldn’t pretend that it’s okay to create this insular community doomed to live in relative poverty.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:10:39 pm
Hey, now, California used to be part of Mexico, and an independent country for a little while. So the billboard’s off by (hold on, 2005 minus 1848…) 157 years.
It takes seven to ten years to learn a language such that you’re truly comfortable with it. Yes, immigrants should learn English. We should also be patient. And since our country is so very much against anybody here learning a second language, it seems rather hypocritical to pounce on anybody who isn’t ready to learn a new language overnight. Sure, your life is full of misery. But deal with it for ten years until you’re good enough to have a long conversation about politics in your second tongue.
The history of language is the history of two or more cultures coming together and learning to communicate with each other. Hell, that’s the only reason the English language exists.
There’s a joke a friend told me in Mexico:
What do you call someone who speaks many languages?
A polyglot.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks just one language?
Gringo.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:13:08 pm
Try Chinese, spanky. Proper understanding of English requires a knowledge of French, German, Latin, and Greek. Not that I’m claiming that most Americans have a proper understanding of English, mind you.
I’m not comfortable speaking German or French… but I can. I can also converse, poorly, in Chinese. I doubt I’ll ever be “comfortable” in any of these, but 7-10 years seems a bit long for someone not so bound up by insecurity. And I must say that living in a place where your non-native language is spoken helps enormously.
But I don’t really want to have a discussion about politics in Chinese. Not my bailiwick, and I don’t want to be deported.
May 1st, 2005 at 4:35:56 pm
…it seems rather hypocritical to pounce on anybody who isn’t ready to learn a new language overnight. Sure, your life is full of misery. But deal with it for ten years until you’re good enough to have a long conversation about politics in your second tongue.
My primary complain was not that immigrants won’t learn English fast enough, but that the Spanish channel is really the Mexican channel, and they show little consideration for the fact that, while less than the Mexican immigrants, there is no less a sizeable amount of people from all other sorts of Spanish-speaking backgrounds. I am not trying to silence them on political topics, and the Spanish stations are political enough, biased and borderline propagandistic often times, but political no less. I just want them to be more balanced, from the way they frame the news to the way they talk about the “national league” (like all of us think the Mexican soccer league is the national league, ha!). The national soccer league is the MLS. It’s interesting, some perceive the Mexicans as the marginalized immigrants, while some of us perceive Mexicans as doing marginalizing of their own..
I would venture to say most immigrants do no see their life as being full of misery, that is a rather insulting way to see it Sean. Immigrants deal with tough issues, like being away from family, the language barrier, for some a dubious legal status, but to say their lives are full of misery is just plain wrong. Most immigrants are happy to be here, earning a living, and even those who yearn to go back or are temporary workers are not automatically miserable.
Pouncing on someone for not learning English overnight is one thing, but actively choosing not to learn is another. There are many people who do not have a lot of time or transportation to go to ESL classes, while there those who are not very literate and have a harder time learning a second language when they are not that good in their native tounge. These people are stuck and I sympathize with them. But there are many people who choose not to learn English because it is the easier way out. Before I get accused of calling immigrants lazy, I will say it myself, some immigrants are lazy, they know they can get by on their limited English so they don’t make time to learn. (Some Americans are lazy too, it is human to be lazy). But the one thing that really makes me cringe is bilingual education, an utter failure if I ever saw one. Young immmigrants will learn English in months, in a year. When you are 7 or 10 you pick it up so easy. But here in California, we throw you in a five year program to phase in English, and screw you for life. “Concerned” powers pushing their agenda want to make sure you learn English slowly so you have a harder time integrating into your new home. Bilingual education is a failed experiment, but here in California some Legislators and many other powerful people seem to think it is a good idea. Place a kid in ESL classes and he will transition in a year. My Russian friend sure did, there was nobody who could “help” her in Russian so she had to learn English. Interestingly enough, the other day I went a presentation of English Learners which showcased a study from the PPIC, and which found that Asians and Russians learned English faster than Latinos, despite the former having a different alphabet. Being immersed in the new language is the best way to learn, that is the way I learned. So, while we cannot expect adult immigrants to learn English in a year, we sure as hell can expect to have better policies make sure those who can learn faster, do.
I have heard that joke, a little different, the poliglot is an intellectual, the bilingual is an immigrant and then, yeah the gringo :) I do think Americans would benefit from learning another language, but I guess two years of high school Spanish is a start, hehe. I think we would all benefit even more from having a more thorough curriculum in high school, none of this Calculator Math stuff, but that is another post for another time :)
May 1st, 2005 at 5:31:57 pm
Try this link for the Huntington article:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2495&print=1
If it still doesn’t work, email me.
May 1st, 2005 at 7:58:21 pm
Aruh? I thought my email address was posted along with every comment. Must be an anti-spam measure. It’s brian - at - briandot.org. (replacement text obvious…)
May 1st, 2005 at 8:58:27 pm
Sean, I have to confess that I am continually baffled by people who claim that Americans are against learning and teaching other languages. We may not be as stalwart about our language education as Europeans are, but then again, they’re all a lot closer together. And I think that those who live in NE suburbia have a lot less interaction with Spanish speakers that people who live in say, Mesa or San Diego.
I look at my own family and I think we’re not doing so bad in terms of our language skills. My mom understands basic German, my Dad speaks Polish and understands some basic communication in other slavic languages, my sister is fluent in German and Spanish, and she’s skilled in Hebrew, Portugeuse, French and Latin. My brother understands basic Spanish and Korean and, as the ignorant member of the family, I have a moderate understanding of Spanish (much better written than spoken).
To take one of my mom’s siblings families, her brother, Rick, speaks decent Spanish, Evelyn speaks Spanish and German and both kids, Elena and Alex speak Spanish.
Hell, even my Grandfather spoke Polish, a tidbit of German and Russian and enough Spanish to connive his way to a free cup of coffee in Tijuana.
Fact is, when other immigrant groups first came to America, let’s say the Poles, most would speak Polish at home. They would attend Polish church services and some even had Polish elementary schools. But it was understood that in order to get ahead, you had to learn to interact with everyone else in English. Despite forming little Polish enclaves where people could happily barter in Polish and indeed, conduct every business interaction in Polish, most people understood that while they had Polish pride, they were in a new place and they couldn’t try to recreate Poland there. To be the best businessman, you had to know English, or people would take advantage of you.
And I think that’s what happens to a lot of Spanish-speaking people who refuse to assimilate to a new culture. Fact is, the language of power, commerce and money in the US is English. You either learn it, or you live in poverty as a rich person’s housekeeper or gardener, riding the bus 3 hours a day in a feeble attempt to provide for your kids.
And this statistic, it takes 7-10 years to learn a new language, is crap. If you move to a new country and you are immersed in the language, you’ll learn a helluva lot faster than that! In fact, when my sister was learning German a few years back, one of the ways she would practice her skills at the beginning was by going to a bakery and buying new things there.
Anyway, you learn. And that’s not to say that you can’t teach your kids about your customs and your language. You should. But you also shouldn’t pretend that it’s okay to create this insular community doomed to live in relative poverty.
May 1st, 2005 at 9:13:08 pm
Try Chinese, spanky. Proper understanding of English requires a knowledge of French, German, Latin, and Greek. Not that I’m claiming that most Americans have a proper understanding of English, mind you.
I’m not comfortable speaking German or French… but I can. I can also converse, poorly, in Chinese. I doubt I’ll ever be “comfortable” in any of these, but 7-10 years seems a bit long for someone not so bound up by insecurity. And I must say that living in a place where your non-native language is spoken helps enormously.
But I don’t really want to have a discussion about politics in Chinese. Not my bailiwick, and I don’t want to be deported.
May 1st, 2005 at 9:35:56 pm
<i>…it seems rather hypocritical to pounce on anybody who isn’t ready to learn a new language overnight. Sure, your life is full of misery. But deal with it for ten years until you’re good enough to have a long conversation about politics in your second tongue.</i>
My primary complain was not that immigrants won’t learn English fast enough, but that the Spanish channel is really the Mexican channel, and they show little consideration for the fact that, while less than the Mexican immigrants, there is no less a sizeable amount of people from all other sorts of Spanish-speaking backgrounds. I am not trying to silence them on political topics, and the Spanish stations are political enough, biased and borderline propagandistic often times, but political no less. I just want them to be more balanced, from the way they frame the news to the way they talk about the “national league” (like all of us think the Mexican soccer league is the national league, ha!). The national soccer league is the MLS. It’s interesting, some perceive the Mexicans as the marginalized immigrants, while some of us perceive Mexicans as doing marginalizing of their own..
I would venture to say most immigrants do no see their life as being full of misery, that is a rather insulting way to see it Sean. Immigrants deal with tough issues, like being away from family, the language barrier, for some a dubious legal status, but to say their lives are full of misery is just plain wrong. Most immigrants are happy to be here, earning a living, and even those who yearn to go back or are temporary workers are not automatically miserable.
Pouncing on someone for not learning English overnight is one thing, but actively choosing not to learn is another. There are many people who do not have a lot of time or transportation to go to ESL classes, while there those who are not very literate and have a harder time learning a second language when they are not that good in their native tounge. These people are stuck and I sympathize with them. But there are many people who choose not to learn English because it is the easier way out. Before I get accused of calling immigrants lazy, I will say it myself, some immigrants are lazy, they know they can get by on their limited English so they don’t make time to learn. (Some Americans are lazy too, it is human to be lazy). But the one thing that really makes me cringe is bilingual education, an utter failure if I ever saw one. Young immmigrants will learn English in months, in a year. When you are 7 or 10 you pick it up so easy. But here in California, we throw you in a five year program to phase in English, and screw you for life. “Concerned” powers pushing their agenda want to make sure you learn English slowly so you have a harder time integrating into your new home. Bilingual education is a failed experiment, but here in California some Legislators and many other powerful people seem to think it is a good idea. Place a kid in ESL classes and he will transition in a year. My Russian friend sure did, there was nobody who could “help” her in Russian so she had to learn English. Interestingly enough, the other day I went a presentation of English Learners which showcased a study from the PPIC, and which found that Asians and Russians learned English faster than Latinos, despite the former having a different alphabet. Being immersed in the new language is the best way to learn, that is the way I learned. So, while we cannot expect adult immigrants to learn English in a year, we sure as hell can expect to have better policies make sure those who can learn faster, do.
I have heard that joke, a little different, the poliglot is an intellectual, the bilingual is an immigrant and then, yeah the gringo :) I do think Americans would benefit from learning another language, but I guess two years of high school Spanish is a start, hehe. I think we would all benefit even more from having a more thorough curriculum in high school, none of this Calculator Math stuff, but that is another post for another time :)
May 1st, 2005 at 10:31:57 pm
Try this link for the Huntington article:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2495&print=1
If it still doesn’t work, email me.
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:25:55 am
More food for thought:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043000110.html
May 2nd, 2005 at 12:58:21 am
Aruh? I thought my email address was posted along with every comment. Must be an anti-spam measure. It’s brian - at - briandot.org. (replacement text obvious…)
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:01:38 am
Doc - “Proper understanding of English requires a knowledge of French, German, Latin, and Greek. ”
Actually, proper understanding of English only requires a proper knowledge of English.
Yes, it can be facilitated by a knowledge of Latin, especially, and German to some extent, but neither is required …
Becky - I suspect that the linguistic skills of your assorted extended family members probably relate directly to religious reasons (albeit not necessarily theological reasons) …
Bea - the problem with “bilingual education” in California is that it is like “Moral Majority” - in its name, neither of the words apply …
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:28:21 am
You’re right Alasdair, bilingual education is an oximoron in practice and with California style bilingual education,instead of learning to be proficient in both your native tounge and English, you learn to do a halfass job of both. And people defend this crap, boggles the mind..
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:29:09 am
I think Mexicans are as hypocritical as Muslims. They clamor for open borders in the north, but on their southern border, they crack down like all hell on the Central American version of wetbacks.
(Note: Inflammatory stereotypes used solely to make Brian screech)
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:46:53 am
Sorry Brian, the link to Huntington still doesn’t work.
The Washington Post article was a good one, but for a couple of things. First, the obvious solution to the problem is simply to finish the fence. Heck, maybe we should hire Israelis to do it, they sure know what they’re doing!
Second, I refuse to buy her logic and assumptions in this paragraph:
The United States, on the other hand, is rich and needs workers who will take jobs Americans don’t want, for lower wages than Americans will accept. (Try this thought experiment: Imagine suggesting that your teenager take a summer job picking melons for 12 hours a day in California.) If, by magic, the Minutemen’s dreams were granted overnight — if the border were sealed and the estimated 11 million people living in this country illegally were deported — America would most likely be unrecognizable, and not in a good way. Crops would rot in the fields, bathrooms would stay dirty, mothers of small children would be stuck at home. America is addicted to cheap labor, and withdrawal is beyond contemplation.
Sure, I used to believe that, and it’s still the strongest argument for loosening immigration policy, but I don’t buy it anymore because it’s simply not true. The migrant farm workers that are always held up as the example are only a small minority of the problem; Los Angeles didn’t become the second most Mexican city after Mexico City because of migrant farm workers. Americans (specifically blacks and poor whites) would easily take those jobs for higher wages, which would result naturally if the cheap, easily replaceable and easily intimidated, undocumented Mexican immigrants were kept out. More than likely, some agribusiness would, well, go out of business, and we’d end up importing more food from places like, well, Mexico. Besides, American corn is only so damn cheap and putting Mexican farmers out of business because of farm subsidies, so there’s your answer to how to get rid of that problem (and save some money in the process).
If we kicked farm subsidies, finished the fence, deported a few illegals here and there (just the criminals and troublemakers is fine, to save some jail space), and retooled the immigration bureaucracy, many things would change. We’d shut up us allaged xenophobes, for starters, and we’d put a halt to the cramping overpopulation of the Southwest. Workers would be less taken advantage of, and we’d finally see some real wage growth at the bottom of the income table. Unions could get a boost organizing in shops, although more than likely more shops would relocate to cheaper areas (Arizona, Nevada, Mexico, or abroad). There would be some inflation in groceries and some manufactured goods, but it’d more than be offset by less demand and overuse of public services, less tax pressure, less strain on transportation infrastructure, and more affordable housing as supply catches up to demand.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer that America.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:24:56 am
People who claim to sympathize with illegal immigrants because they do the undesirable jobs at low wages, fail to see cruelty of that statement. It is not good news that immigrants pick the crops and clean the bathrooms for cheap. It is a horrible thing that we could find complacency in having a segment of the population live as second class, doing the dirty work for dirt cheap. If my tomatoes are cheap because an illegal immigrant picks them, and he has no rights and cannot demand a higher wage, well, that is a tragedy, and nobody should be defending illegal immigrations on grounds that it keeps wages low. I have said it before, illegal immigrants are taken advantage of, because they are not legal, because they do not know the language and because they are scared and often times uneducated. The endless supply of cheap labor that cannot speak up largely keeps the wages low, and stopping illegal immigration would be a good thing, not a bad thing, for the low wage workers, be they immigrants, whites or blacks. It is simply economics. If people are not willing to pick the tomatoes for next to nothing, then you have to pay more and offer more decent working conditions. People won’t do those undesirable jobs? Well, someone was cleaning the bathrooms before the illegal immigrants came along, and someone will if we halted illegak immigration and had to pay a decent wage for cleaning crap (janitors make more than I make, when I brake down my salary per hours worked, by the way, but yeah, I rather be a legislative aid than a janitor). People who denounce illegal immigration are often portrayed as xenophobes and anti-immigrant, when the real anti-immigrant policies, IMO, are those that aim to perpetuate the marginalized, exploited worker, so we can keep wages low. How can anyone really defend illegal immigration because, gasp, some comodities would go up in price if we had legal workers doing the undesirable jobs. We need to pay the real price for salad people! And people like me are supposed to be anti-immigrant, ha!
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:43:49 am
Heh. You’re not the only one making less than a janitor on an hourly basis. At least I’ll get to add to the alphabet soup following my name after a few years of this, though…
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:46:34 am
I was thinking of you as I wrote my post :) We’ve had this conversation before..
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:49:01 am
Oh c’mon Bea, the immigrants WANT to do those jobs for cheap… just like Arabs WANT to live in perpetual slavery at the hands of murderous tyrants and theocratic thugs! Don’t you understand, it’s their culture! Really, you need to be more sensitive to other cultures, and stop imposing your American values on them!
[evil liberal-baiting grin]
:)
May 2nd, 2005 at 5:25:55 am
More food for thought:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043000110.html
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:01:38 am
Doc - “Proper understanding of English requires a knowledge of French, German, Latin, and Greek. ”
Actually, proper understanding of English only requires a proper knowledge of English.
Yes, it can be facilitated by a knowledge of Latin, especially, and German to some extent, but neither is required …
Becky - I suspect that the linguistic skills of your assorted extended family members probably relate directly to religious reasons (albeit not necessarily theological reasons) …
Bea - the problem with “bilingual education” in California is that it is like “Moral Majority” - in its name, neither of the words apply …
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:28:21 am
You’re right Alasdair, bilingual education is an oximoron in practice and with California style bilingual education,instead of learning to be proficient in both your native tounge and English, you learn to do a halfass job of both. And people defend this crap, boggles the mind..
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:52:25 am
I have yet to take any strong position on the immigration issue. However, I do not buy the “they’re destroying white Protestant culture” (one of the themes in Huntington’s essay), and I do believe that many people who are anti-immigrant have racist motives; I also don’t necessarily think that it’s a good thing that immigrants are taking essentially slave labor jobs, and I don’t think that the border should be open to all.
So I suppose it’s a thorny issue, eh? :)
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:29:09 am
I think Mexicans are as hypocritical as Muslims. They clamor for open borders in the north, but on their southern border, they crack down like all hell on the Central American version of wetbacks.
(Note: Inflammatory stereotypes used solely to make Brian screech)
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:46:53 am
Sorry Brian, the link to Huntington still doesn’t work.
The <i>Washington Post</i> article was a good one, but for a couple of things. First, the obvious solution to the problem is simply to finish the fence. Heck, maybe we should hire Israelis to do it, they sure know what they’re doing!
Second, I refuse to buy her logic and assumptions in this paragraph:
<i>The United States, on the other hand, is rich and needs workers who will take jobs Americans don’t want, for lower wages than Americans will accept. (Try this thought experiment: Imagine suggesting that your teenager take a summer job picking melons for 12 hours a day in California.) If, by magic, the Minutemen’s dreams were granted overnight — if the border were sealed and the estimated 11 million people living in this country illegally were deported — America would most likely be unrecognizable, and not in a good way. Crops would rot in the fields, bathrooms would stay dirty, mothers of small children would be stuck at home. America is addicted to cheap labor, and withdrawal is beyond contemplation.</i>
Sure, I used to believe that, and it’s still the strongest argument for loosening immigration policy, but I don’t buy it anymore because it’s simply not true. The migrant farm workers that are always held up as the example are only a small minority of the problem; Los Angeles didn’t become the second most Mexican city after Mexico City because of migrant farm workers. Americans (specifically blacks and poor whites) would easily take those jobs for higher wages, which would result naturally if the cheap, easily replaceable and easily intimidated, undocumented Mexican immigrants were kept out. More than likely, some agribusiness would, well, go out of business, and we’d end up importing more food from places like, well, <i>Mexico</i>. Besides, American corn is only so damn cheap and putting Mexican farmers out of business because of farm subsidies, so there’s your answer to how to get rid of <i>that</i> problem (and save some money in the process).
If we kicked farm subsidies, finished the fence, deported a few illegals here and there (just the criminals and troublemakers is fine, to save some jail space), and retooled the immigration bureaucracy, many things would change. We’d shut up us allaged xenophobes, for starters, and we’d put a halt to the cramping overpopulation of the Southwest. Workers would be less taken advantage of, and we’d finally see some real wage growth at the bottom of the income table. Unions could get a boost organizing in shops, although more than likely more shops would relocate to cheaper areas (Arizona, Nevada, Mexico, or abroad). There would be some inflation in groceries and some manufactured goods, but it’d more than be offset by less demand and overuse of public services, less tax pressure, less strain on transportation infrastructure, and more affordable housing as supply catches up to demand.
I don’t know about you, but I prefer <i>that</i> America.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:24:56 am
People who claim to sympathize with illegal immigrants because they do the undesirable jobs at low wages, fail to see cruelty of that statement. It is <i>not</i> good news that immigrants pick the crops and clean the bathrooms for cheap. It is a horrible thing that we could find complacency in having a segment of the population live as second class, doing the dirty work for dirt cheap. If my tomatoes are cheap because an illegal immigrant picks them, and he has no rights and cannot demand a higher wage, well, that is a tragedy, and nobody should be defending illegal immigrations on grounds that it keeps wages low. I have said it before, illegal immigrants are taken advantage of, because they are not legal, because they do not know the language and because they are scared and often times uneducated. The endless supply of cheap labor that cannot speak up largely keeps the wages low, and stopping illegal immigration would be a good thing, not a bad thing, for the low wage workers, be they immigrants, whites or blacks. It is simply economics. If people are not willing to pick the tomatoes for next to nothing, then you have to pay more and offer more decent working conditions. People won’t do those undesirable jobs? Well, someone was cleaning the bathrooms before the illegal immigrants came along, and someone will if we halted illegak immigration and had to pay a decent wage for cleaning crap (janitors make more than I make, when I brake down my salary per hours worked, by the way, but yeah, I rather be a legislative aid than a janitor). People who denounce illegal immigration are often portrayed as xenophobes and anti-immigrant, when the real anti-immigrant policies, IMO, are those that aim to perpetuate the marginalized, exploited worker, so we can keep wages low. How can anyone really defend illegal immigration because, gasp, some comodities would go up in price if we had legal workers doing the undesirable jobs. We need to pay the real price for salad people! And people like me are supposed to be anti-immigrant, ha!
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:43:49 am
Heh. You’re not the only one making less than a janitor on an hourly basis. At least I’ll get to add to the alphabet soup following my name after a few years of this, though…
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:46:34 am
I was thinking of you as I wrote my post :) We’ve had this conversation before..
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:49:01 am
Oh c’mon Bea, the immigrants WANT to do those jobs for cheap… just like Arabs WANT to live in perpetual slavery at the hands of murderous tyrants and theocratic thugs! Don’t you understand, it’s their <i>culture</i>! Really, you need to be more sensitive to other cultures, and stop imposing your American values on them!
[evil liberal-baiting grin]
:)
May 2nd, 2005 at 11:52:25 am
I have yet to take any strong position on the immigration issue. However, I do not buy the “they’re destroying white Protestant culture” (one of the themes in Huntington’s essay), and I <i>do</i> believe that many people who are anti-immigrant have racist motives; I also don’t necessarily think that it’s a good thing that immigrants are taking essentially slave labor jobs, and I don’t think that the border should be open to all.
So I suppose it’s a thorny issue, eh? :)
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:15:38 pm
We certainly don’t need immigrants to destroy traditional WASP culture in America. Our cultural elites have been self-loathing liberal WASPs and Catholics for decades now.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:19:54 pm
Brian, I’m not sure how many of even the most strident and ugly-sounding anti-immigration activists I’ve heard are actually racist. With the more extreme of them, it’s a weird psychology: Brown, Yellow, and Black is okay if you’re already here, but no more new ones need come. They’ll rail against the brown wetback scum coming across their border while standing next to their third-generation Mexican-American (and hence completely whitewashed and gringo-ized) neighbor. It’s bizarre and offensive, but I’m not necessarily sure it’s racist.
May 2nd, 2005 at 1:31:31 pm
They’re A-OK with Canadians coming down from the north, but not the brown people from the south. It may not be explicit, but I do see racist undertones there.
May 2nd, 2005 at 2:40:33 pm
Brian, if Canadians were coming in by the hundreds of thousands and speaking French, I believe that’d also piss a lot of people off.
May 2nd, 2005 at 3:14:44 pm
Hmmm. OK, so you don’t see any racism against Hispanic immigrants. Good for you.
May 2nd, 2005 at 4:49:33 pm
Andrew said racism is not the underlying reason for anymosity towards immigrants in many cases, and I agree with him. I have found, personally, that nobosy really cares that I am Latina, because they do no perceive me as a burden to society, because I work and pay taxes and stay out of trouble. The economic and social impact that illegal immigration has on our communities can be devastating, and thus people develop animosity towards immigrants in general, and that is unfortunate. Billboards showing Mexicans claiming LA as their own only help excacerbate the problem. I do not think immigration is destroying white culture, white culture is simply fusing with the rest of the cultures immigrants bring with them. While some might see this as a tragedy, there is plenty of white guys eating food spicier than I can handle, marrying non-whites, and mix and mingling with the brownies like me :) I really think at the root of the anti-immigrant feeling is a fear that we are going to fall apart if we do not regulate the flow of immigrants into this country, and ensure sustainable growth. Some of the rethoric gets out of hand, and I am not excusing it, but, really, if we could just fix immigration policy, with my imaginary wand, then a lot of the anti-immigrant rethoric would die down, and then yeah, we could see who the racists, as opposed to the concerned citizens, are.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:15:38 pm
We certainly don’t need immigrants to destroy traditional WASP culture in America. Our cultural elites have been self-loathing liberal WASPs and Catholics for decades now.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:19:54 pm
Brian, I’m not sure how many of even the most strident and ugly-sounding anti-immigration activists I’ve heard are actually racist. With the more extreme of them, it’s a weird psychology: Brown, Yellow, and Black is okay if you’re already here, but no more new ones need come. They’ll rail against the brown wetback scum coming across their border while standing next to their third-generation Mexican-American (and hence completely whitewashed and gringo-ized) neighbor. It’s bizarre and offensive, but I’m not necessarily sure it’s racist.
May 2nd, 2005 at 6:31:31 pm
They’re A-OK with Canadians coming down from the north, but not the brown people from the south. It may not be explicit, but I do see racist undertones there.
May 2nd, 2005 at 7:40:33 pm
Brian, if Canadians were coming in by the hundreds of thousands and speaking French, I believe that’d also piss a lot of people off.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:14:44 pm
Hmmm. OK, so you don’t see any racism against Hispanic immigrants. Good for you.
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:56:09 pm
“Some of the rethoric gets out of hand, and I am not excusing it, but, really, if we could just fix immigration policy, with my imaginary wand, then a lot of the anti-immigrant rethoric would die down, and then yeah, we could see who the racists, as opposed to the concerned citizens, are.“
Thanks Bea, you nailed it. The racism of some right-wing morons is not an excuse to fail to do the right thing and get immigration under control, and you more readily identify the former when you accomplish the latter. If you do nothing, you merely empower the racist voices.
May 2nd, 2005 at 9:49:33 pm
Andrew said racism is not the underlying reason for anymosity towards immigrants in many cases, and I agree with him. I have found, personally, that nobosy really cares that I am Latina, because they do no perceive me as a burden to society, because I work and pay taxes and stay out of trouble. The economic and social impact that illegal immigration has on our communities can be devastating, and thus people develop animosity towards immigrants in general, and that is unfortunate. Billboards showing Mexicans claiming LA as their own only help excacerbate the problem. I do not think immigration is destroying white culture, white culture is simply fusing with the rest of the cultures immigrants bring with them. While some might see this as a tragedy, there is plenty of white guys eating food spicier than I can handle, marrying non-whites, and mix and mingling with the brownies like me :) I really think at the root of the anti-immigrant feeling is a fear that we are going to fall apart if we do not regulate the flow of immigrants into this country, and ensure sustainable growth. Some of the rethoric gets out of hand, and I am not excusing it, but, really, if we could just fix immigration policy, with my imaginary wand, then a lot of the anti-immigrant rethoric would die down, and then yeah, we could see who the racists, as opposed to the concerned citizens, are.
May 3rd, 2005 at 1:56:09 am
<i>”Some of the rethoric gets out of hand, and I am not excusing it, but, really, <b>if we could just fix immigration policy,</b> with my imaginary wand, <b>then a lot of the anti-immigrant rethoric would die down, and then yeah, we could see who the racists, as opposed to the concerned citizens, are.</b>”</i>
Thanks Bea, you nailed it. The racism of some right-wing morons is not an excuse to fail to do the right thing and get immigration under control, and you more readily identify the former when you accomplish the latter. If you do nothing, you merely empower the racist voices.