Sandy at Discovering Biology has a great post up right now on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM) Act. Under this initiative, immigrant children in the country illegally would be eligible to apply for permanent residency and, ultimately, citizenship, if the following conditions are met:
- The child entered the US before age 16, is currently between 12 and 30 years old, and must have been residing in the US for at lest 5 years.
- The child must have completed a GED or high school and must have good moral character.
I think this is a fantastic idea, giving opportunities to potentially bright, motivated, and talented individuals who are already largely assimilated into our culture. People on Sandra's blog are up in arms. This comment is my favorite. Dave (is this DrugMonkey Dave?) writes:
Enough of the emotional pleas for amnesty such as "I've been here since I was five and want to be a doctor.."
Spare me. How incredibly greedy, insensitive and immoral to push for in-state tuition and mass amnesty during this worst economy since the Great Depression.
Guess what, Americans CITIZEN and LEGAL immigrant families are having trouble affording college with mass layoffs and our 529 plans taking a dump. Those of us who have played by the rules are entire lives. And WE want to be doctors too -- in OUR country!
Illegal immigrants can return to THEIR countries and be doctors. And trust me, Mexico et al. can use more educated workers. And BTW, what are the tuition rates for Mexican universities?
Illegals must place their blame and anger where it belongs -- at their parents for illegally sneaking them into the country or overstaying their visas. And at the corrupt, dysfunctional Mexican govt. and billionaires who pillage Mexico.
It's THEIR fault, not ours! We've already paid for illegals' K-12 education and now they want more?! NO! It doesn't work this way in the real world.
It's time these supposed "innocent" mass amnesty-proponents learn about responsibility. If they are of college age they are supposed to be adults, so they should understand this.
If illegal immigrants want our middle class lifestyle, they must return to their home countries, where they were born, and fight for it THEIR -- not expect American middle class citizens to suffer and bail them out again! We don't like line-cutters and we have had enough! [Emphasis added by Isis because this is what I really want to talk about]
First, and foremost, I would like to apologize on behalf of immigrants everywhere to the American middle class for stealing their jobs. Especially the investment bankers, attorneys, physicians, research scientists, and CEOs who have recently lost their jobs to illegal immigrants.
When Dr. Isis was 17 she went to live with Los Abuelos (Grandparents) Isis over the summer. Dr. Isis had taken a summer job to help pay for college, and they lived closer to her place of employment. This was one of the most formative summers of my life. Los Abuelos Isis grew up in Quito, Ecuador. Abuelo Isis worked as a janitor in the local hospital and spoke enough English to survive in the workplace. Abuela Isis spoke no English, but had worked in a laundry when she was younger. She was since retired. Abuela Isis didn't sleep well at night. She was plagued by guilt. Guilt that came from the knowledge that she had prevented some poor, middle class white child from achieving his dream of spending his days folding some other dude's tightie whities.
Everyday I came home from work and Abuela Isis would have dinner waiting for me. Even when it was late and she was exhausted she would sit at the table with me while I ate. We would talk, and she would tell me tales of growing up in Ecuador. Tales of children who did not have shoes, who slept outside because their families had no homes, and had no opportunity for meaningful education. She told me of children contracting syphillus, of regions of her home city with no running water, and of a cholera outbreak she had survived.
One evening I asked her why she had left. She told me, "Isis, la Ecuador es la Ecua-peor," meaning "Isis, shit got awfully real." As often as I heard her talk, often with tears in her eyes, I knew I couldn't really understand it. I also knew I couldn't understand the life and the culture she had left behind.
For many who immigrate to the US, coming here isn't like moving from the city to the suburbs to get an extra garage bay and a bigger backyard. They flee disease and hunger. They flee oppressive governments. The flee outrageous infant mortality. And they often flee with an idea of what the American dream really means, wanting to work to obtain it. In their native countries there'd be no opportunity for education. To ask them to return home to "fight for it their" would be akin to asking them to return home to die.
We struggled growing up, but I never slept outside, I never questioned the safety of my food or drinking water, and I was never denied an opportunity for education. I have asked myself, especially since becoming a mother, what I would do if I had given birth in the situation people who immigrate here illegally found themselves in. I always come back to the same answer. I would try to gain legal entry to a country that offered the opportunity to obtain the things we take for granted - food, shelter, and education.
Then, if that didn't work, I would strap Little Isis to my back and swim for it.
Education & Careers
Politics
Comments
I love your post, Dr. Isis. It sounds as if our family histories are somewhat similar. You said everything I wanted to say, but much more eloquently (as usual). If you were in a situation where the availability of food, clean water, health care, etc. were such that the survival of your children was in jeopardy, but legal recourse hadn't opened any doors for you, would you stay "their"? (not to mention the lack of an opportunity for your children to get an education that might help to lift them out of poverty, etc.) If anyone says that in such a situation, they would happily sit and watch their children suffer...well, I find that hard to believe. I think that in general we tend to be too quick to judge such people, without giving thoughtful consideration to the situation in which they find themselves. I realize that the US can't save everyone, but just because we were lucky enough to be born in the US doesn't mean that we have the right to "not care" what happens to those born in different circumstances.
Posted by: postdoc | March 31, 2009 11:49 PM
these kids didn't ask to be placed in the situation they're in. they're trying to make the best of what they know. chances are, this is the only world they do know. blaming their parents doesn't do much good, what's done is done.
i tend to talk about these things from an economic standpoint because the arguments on the other side are inevitably based on the almighty dollar. but if you invest in a child's education- any child- and that child succeeds, they make more money. they spend more money. they pay more taxes. they contribute to the economy more than someone who did not get an education. how is this not a long-run positive return on investment?
maybe i'm missing something. i'm not an economist, after all. and i did come from one of those affordable (and therefore clearly subpar) undergraduate colleges. i got my bachelor's degree for about the cost of half a semester of undergrad tuition at my current university.
Posted by: leigh | March 31, 2009 11:57 PM
As a native U.S. citizen and from a long line of U.S. citizens, I could join the Daughters of the American Revolution, but my Grandmother Dot hath forbidden the women in my family from belonging because they didn't let Marian Anderson sing inside.
I can trace the other side of my family through Ellis Island. My paternal grandfather, whose middle name was Dmitri, was a second-generation immigrant. He put himself through engineering school at Case Western Reserve University during the Great Depression by going every other semester, saving up money on the off semesters by laying brick. After he graduated, he became a rocket scientist, working for NASA at Goddard for 42 years, eventually running his own lab.
FWIW, no access to clean water, educational opportunities, safe food, and shelter still exists in this country. I grew up in a rural county (7500 people in the entire county!) with a 21% unemployment rate and grinding poverty. I remember a 7th grade field trip that was the first time some kids had been out of the county. I had a friend whose mother dropped out of school in the 8th grade, and whose mother was just pleased as punch that she made it all the way to the 10th grade. I grew up without regular electricity because the power company wanted $38,000 in 1982 to put electricity in.
So, that establishes my creds, right?
Immigrants are the lifeblood of this country. If an immigrant wants to come here, face discrimination, a language barrier, crappy working conditions (cause most first-generation immigrants do the crappy jobs), and live what we consider dirt-poor to send remittances home....then we should let them! Who are we to restrict opportunity for that?
If some whino is afraid of the competition, they've got an inferiority complex, and nothing can cure that. If it's not an immigrant, then it'd be something else.
I'm appalled that my friend Debbie, who is married to another immigrant from a different country/continent/hemisphere, can't legally stay here, even though her daughter is a U.S. citizen. That's just B.S. Children need their parents. Both Debbie and her husband are hardworking, intelligent people - we need that brainpower!
If we didn't have immigrants, we'd have the Japanese population aging problem, and that's just ugly. Let's get some fresh blood in here!
Posted by: Courtney | April 1, 2009 12:16 AM
I just wrote my one nay-saying senator, asking him to change his mind. American political access is awesome!
Posted by: Courtney | April 1, 2009 12:30 AM
it must be the name Dave. oy vey.
This is another example of privilege.
My ancestors arrived at Lady Liberty. This land was not their land. It was Native American land. I'm thankful as all hell that the Native Americans didn't send my ancestor's asses packing, or worse.
Posted by: jc | April 1, 2009 1:04 AM
I find it interesting how certain americans will bitch and complain that those illegals are stealing their jobs or how their tax dollars are paying the the illegals education. Do you know what would happen if all the illegals stopped working? What is left of the american economy would stop. Dead. There is not a farm in the USA that does not depend on illegals, trust me no born and bred american is willing to do the back breaking work of harvesting crops. I know because the same is true in Canada. My inlaws fly in mexican workers to work in the fields because they can not find any local workers. The work is too hard for too little pay. We want cheap food but don't want to deal with consequences of asking for that. If a Californian farmer can not sell his fruit at a fair trade level, his workers are not going to get paid well either, which means only the illegals will take the work. The profit margins are TINY in farming.
Most illegals are working in crappy, 1930s work conditions. They have no advocates to enforce proper labor practices, are frequently taken advantage and threatened with deportation. It is disgusting. I understand that some feel like amnesty will just increase the problem, however right your countries life blood is the illegals.
Posted by: ScientistMother | April 1, 2009 1:36 AM
Then, if that didn't work, I would strap Little Isis to my back and swim for it.
Brava, Isis! Tell it like it is.
Posted by: Asphericity | April 1, 2009 1:52 AM
Do these people complain about people having kids? I mean, every other American Citizen's new baby will grow up to compete for jobs with your children!
Posted by: MPL | April 1, 2009 1:56 AM
Like Courtney, I have ancestors who got to these shores a long time ago. Unlike her, I'm going to join the DAR because if Marian Anderson forgave them, why should I not? (Much has changed in this country during the last 70 years.)
Dave is obviously a moron who understands nada and probably has never even met an illegal immigrant. I used to spend a considerable amount of time battling similar non-thinking mental midgets on a union message board. I teased them mercilessly about hating Bush and then supporting a radical Republican ideology. Until they kicked me off.
This is one of the better things Congress is considering and I hope it passes. The only thing that annoys me is when good stuff like this is not debated out in the open, but slipped in things like a defense budget bill.
There's got to be a better way of defending our borders against criminals than sending good people back. Where's the logic in that?
Posted by: Donna B. | April 1, 2009 2:20 AM
Isis, that was very nicely put ;-) I am not an American, but think it would be nice if worldwide we could increase the standard so that all enjoy food, shelter and education as a basic right. Sadly we're just not there yet.
Posted by: Angela | April 1, 2009 3:58 AM
Well said, Isis.
Posted by: MissPrism | April 1, 2009 7:24 AM
I think the thing that continually amazes me about people like Dave is their clear and utter inability to exhibit the smallest symptom of empathy.
Let's take Dave, age 2, and put him and his parents in Foreign Country.. Dave grows up happily in Foreign Country, speaks Foreign Countryese like a native, has Foreign Countryese friends, goes to a F.C. school...he is Foreign Countryese. Then, when he turns 16, he tries to find a job. He finds out that his parents brought him into Foreign Country illegally. He's not actually a Foreign Country citizen. He loves Foreign Country. He's willing to serve in the F.C. military to defend F.C. from its enemies. He wants to continue living there, paying taxes, contributing to F.C.'s economy. But the "real" Foreign Countryians tell him, "Go home. This isn't your country. Take it up with your parents if you're unhappy about it."
What's Dave supposed to do? Go back to the US, speaking no English, knowing nothing about the culture except what he's seen on TV, having no friends, no support network, nothing? Anyone want to bet how well he'd do? How productive he'd be?
It boggles my mind that there are people out there with so little empathy (or maybe cognitive ability?) that they cannot actually envision this kind of situation.
Anger at adults who enter the country illegally I can understand (I might not agree with it, but I do at least understand how it could occur). But how can you seriously tell a 17-year-old kid who has grown up in the US since he was 3 months old that he should "go back to his own country" because he's stealing from his friends?!??
Posted by: Dr. Kate | April 1, 2009 7:53 AM
Amen sister Isis - I would too - I thank God every night that I had the good fortune to be born into a middle class family in a country where every child has the opportunity and the right to healthcare, welfare system and education. And I think about what my life would be like if I couldn't read or never had the opportunity for an education - my whole life revolves around the written word - everything in my life. It scares me to be honest because all the things i love to do have at least some component of the written word involved - if I couldn't read and write my world would be a much smaller and darker place. I suspect if I never had the opportunity to learn these skills - I would do everything in my power to gain them for myself or my children, even if it meant swimming for it.
E.
Posted by: Eppendork | April 1, 2009 8:05 AM
Thank you Isis, for this great post.
I've a friend from Honduras, who tried 3 times to get over the mexican border into the US, and failed 3 times. The stories she tells about these attempts are very sacry, - she is a very brave woman. She finally married a European guy who contacted her via the internet and paid her (and for her daughters) to come over here (luckily, he is a good guy, as far as such a person can be "good").
She was desperate, desperate to have her cute and intelligent daughters not experience what she experienced. So they can grow up in a place where they can get proper education, and finally get proper jobs. A place where they don't have to sell their bodies (and bear unwanted children.
Things are not that different here in Europe, every day Africans die in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get into fortress Europe.
Apart from the fact that I consider it inhumane to exclude people, and especially children from living in so-called first-world countries, I also never understood why people would be against immigrants coming and working legally in the country. It has been shown over and over again that such fuels the economy. And right now, that is what we need.
Posted by: Fia | April 1, 2009 9:07 AM
Recently, I was discussing wealth and opportunity with a friend, and he expressed the same fear Dave expressed: that immigrants were taking opportunities away from "real" Americans (whatever those are). My friend's comments shocked me, mainly because he is (still) viewing America and the American Dream as a zero-sum game. It's never been that way; why would anyone think it should be/will be?
Posted by: John H. | April 1, 2009 9:35 AM
I'm with Courtney and Donna B. I have one side of the family with Mayflower roots, and the other side who were supposedly illegal Finnish immigrants who paid off the immigration officials. To me, people who move themselves to a totally new culture, voting with their feet that they want to be part of America, should be welcomed. We sure as hell shouldn't expect them to work for a pittance doing the crappy jobs that need doing, and then get pissy when they get "uppity" enough to want to move into the mainstream.
Lastly, Dave's schtick is running real thin.
Posted by: Nat | April 1, 2009 9:58 AM
Excellent post, Isis. This was very moving.
I'm third generation American on my dad's side of the family. My great grandparents came from Italy and spoke Italian at home, but learned enough English for my great-grandfather to find work in the mining town where they settled. My grandfather was part of the first generation born in America, never graduated from high school, although he's an incredibly smart man (still kickin' at 91, reads the entire newspaper every day), worked for the WPA during the Depression and served our country during WWII. My dad was able to go to college, although I think his primary motivation was avoiding Vietnam. He worked a blue-collar job until he died of cancer when I was 17. And now, in the third generation, I'm working toward a PhD in neuroscience. All immigrant families should be offered the same educational opportunities that my family was able to take advantage of. If we came this far in three generations, so can they. They deserve a chance, too.
Posted by: Laura | April 1, 2009 10:19 AM
The hysteria in the U.S. over Teh Illegalz is, IMHO, nothing more than thinly veiled xenophobic/racist bullshit. My father came here with nothing, working in a motherfucking toothpaste factory to get by, fighting with INS to stay here when his visas expired. But he was never the target of the vitriol and rage that Hispanic immigrants face and have had to face for decades because he was a European immigrant. Even though I learned English with his heavy accent, I didn't have to face discrimination in school because I am white and look just like all the other European kids. But I remember the other immigrants' children, who were Arab or Chinese or whatever, getting made fun of for how they spoke. The dominant European-American culture imprints young children with the message "BROWN = BAD", and that message echoes up all the way through society and out the mouths of the ignorant.
Furthermore!
Free-market ideology has created the impetus for illegal immigration in the first place. Before NAFTA, Latin American agriculture had internal markets where independent farmers and ranchers could compete and survive. In the mid-1990s cheap, industrially produced, food from the U.S.A. has flooded the Latin American markets and dropped the bottom out of prices, bankrupting farmers and causing mass migration to the cities. But there isn't enough work in the cities, so, in a twist of cruel irony, many come here however they can and wind up working in U.S.A. agriculture.
Posted by: Toaster | April 1, 2009 10:29 AM
i find it amusing that the example he uses of jobs that "illegal immigrant" youth would steal from "american" youth is that of doctors. we don't have enough doctors in this country and that is why both my sister-in-law and her husband are able to come to this country legally (from india) and work as doctors. The "good" jobs that people seem to think that illegal immigrants are "stealing" from us are precisely the jobs that we as a country are happily handing off to legal foreign workers because we don't give a shit about about education in this country and therefore can not produce enough homegrown talent to cover our own needs. and rather than make education a national priority, and make our youth competitive for these jobs, we just resort to fear mongering directed both at illegals that do the work we don't want to do and (to a lesser degree) legals that do the work that we can't.
Posted by: ashlee | April 1, 2009 10:33 AM
From the opposite end of the spectrum: my most recent immigrant ancestors came to the USA in time to fight in the Civil War, on both sides. Most had been here since before the Revolution -- and $HERSELF had some who were already here when the first Europeans arrived, while others came as slaves.
All I have to say to immigrants who come here to work and build is this: you're the ones who made this country. I'll trade you five Wall Street types for one of the brown dudes who replaced my roof in a New York minute.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | April 1, 2009 10:35 AM
The US populace probably said this about most of our relations when they got off the boat. Watch some old movies and appreciate the duragatory terms used for the Irish and Italians who came through Ellis Island. Of course, at that time they were often immediately conscripted into the army for service. Welcome to the US - now you can die for us!
I am also DAR eligible (relatives in the second wave of Jamestown settlers) but WILL NOT be joining. This group is way too conservative politically. I won an award from them in high school which included a luncheon. The woman sitting at our table told us that she used to be a social worker, but she gave it up when it became dominated by "pinkos and commies." I asked when that was, supposing she would say sometime in the 1960s. Nope, 1933 - the New Deal was a communist plot.
Besides, I don't think it matters when my ancestors arrived. The only thing that matters is what I do NOW.
Posted by: Pascale | April 1, 2009 10:45 AM
Great post Dr.Isis. I agree with the sentiments, and indeed I'll take them even further. I don't think we should require such immigrants to even jump through these hoops, and we should definitely make them eligible for federal grants. If they entered this country when they were minors then they had no say/choice in coming here---I see them as fundamentally no different than a child that was birthed in this country. Making them jump thru hoops while britney freaking spears gets full citizenship rights is a fucking disgrace to humanity. If they show the desire to reside, study and work in this country then they should have every right to do so. And what's with the GED and good moral character bullshit? If moronic degenerates such as GW Bush can do anything they want in this land, why shouldn't these kids (or indivs who came here as kids) have at least the same fighting chance that a natural-born American kid does?
Sure the neocon idiots will have a fit over this but to hell with them---they have a fit over anything that doesn't go exactly their way anyway. Who gives a shit what they think?
Posted by: Anonymoustache | April 1, 2009 12:01 PM
Like Courtney, I have ancestors who got to these shores a long time ago. Unlike her, I'm going to join the DAR because if Marian Anderson forgave them, why should I not? (Much has changed in this country during the last 70 years.)
Well, I did note that it was my grandmother Dot who has laid down the rules on that one. She's 94 this year, and has got a long memory. For her, it's still an issue. In my family, we respect her wishes.
Not that I'd be super-excited to join the D.A.R. anyway.
Posted by: Courtney | April 1, 2009 12:45 PM
Dave is clearly Native American. Otherwise, he too would be the descendant of immigrants and that would mean he's being a bit hypocritical.
Posted by: stickypaws | April 1, 2009 12:58 PM
The child must have completed a GED or high school
tough if you have Down's syndrome, autism, or learning disabilities... better start packing .... good luck finding your way 'home'
Posted by: jay | April 1, 2009 1:00 PM
Then, if that didn't work, I would strap Little Isis to my back and swim for it.
Damn right. I am glad I didn't have to, but I know I would.
Posted by: sciencegirl | April 1, 2009 1:09 PM
Speaking as a middle-class white American, I have to say that my issue isn't with illegal immigrants "stealing" jobs. My issue is with the white employers who are willing to pay them sub-minimum wage off the books to steal that job.
Addressing the problem of "job stealing" by trying to get rid of illegal immigrants is approaching the problem from the wrong end. What they should be doing is working to make sure even illegal immigrants have all the rights and requirements to work as regular Americans.
I'm tempted to draw an analogue to the whole "it's the woman's fault" thing being the wrong angle of approach for that problem, but I don't want to risk sparking off any more arguments about that.
Of course, I'm sure even if illegal immigrants were paid decent wages and offered the same benefits and promises from OSHA and the government as regular workers, leaving them on the same footing for the employer, there'd still be cries of job stealing because the immigrants were harder workers and willing to go the extra mile to get the job because they're driven and their own lives or the lives of others may very well depend on it.
Meanwhile, those crying foul only want the job to work 20 hours a week so they can still get their welfare check until they manage to get their disability claim through the bureaucracy (and I'll end here as I'm starting to sound bitter)....
Posted by: LtStorm | April 1, 2009 1:15 PM
Did an adult really write this? I can just see myself saying something like this during a fight with my brother when I was 6. I would say, "but HE started it!" and stamp my feet and cry.
Also, this person has made as least two homophone mistakes in a single post. If some immagrant learns the difference between their/there and are/our (one of the rarer mistakes, BTW), and this guy loses his job to that person, he deserves it. I'd much rather have a person in any job that takes a few moments to actually proofread.
Posted by: catgirl | April 1, 2009 1:19 PM
I am 'Drugmonkey Dave'. The 'Dave' you are talking about above is a different Dave. I chose the moniker 'Dave' precisely because it's sort of like 'John Doe', only less obviously so. I guess one disadvantage to that choice is that now every 'Dave' is me. Not that it matters; I am not about to list me participation in Sb on my CV or anything.
In any case, I generally agree with you. I think nationalism is stupid.
Posted by: Dave | April 1, 2009 1:21 PM
Angela wrote;
i am american and i can speak from a lifetime of experience: sadly, not even america is not "there" yet.
Posted by: "GrrlScientist" | April 1, 2009 1:49 PM
My maternal grandfather was born in Scotland, and six months after he and his parents and siblings landed, just as the Great Depression started, the farmhouse they were renting burned flat and they lost everything. Fortunately, they had relatives here already who could take them in, because there wasn't really a social safety net here at the time. Not every immigrant is so lucky, inasmuch as having people to go to after you lose everything you own is "lucky." I personally haven't a clue why they left Scotland for Canada, considering that they were solidly working class when they left, and stayed solidly working class for another generation. Considering that two generations later, the younger generation is mostly downwardly mobile, I'm not exactly seeing great opportunities for advancement.
I know because the same is true in Canada.
Funny, I grew up with kids (some years ago, because nobody farms tobacco here anymore) who used to work in their parents' tobacco fields, and everyone local who needed work in the summer would be picking tobacco. To me, it sounds as though your friends are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Meanwhile, those crying foul only want the job to work 20 hours a week so they can still get their welfare check until they manage to get their disability claim through the bureaucracy...
You know, 21 hours a week is about all I can work, 45% of disabled people here right now who want to work and can work are out of work (I'm one of the lucky 65% -- it's always worse when the economy is bad -- it went down to a historic low of 36% a couple years ago when things were going well), and disability is shit-hard to get on. If able-bodied people had an unemployment rate of forty-five fucking percent, there'd be riots in the streets, but we're just supposed to shut up because we're societal parasites, or something. What are you, some kind of ableist bigot?
Posted by: Interrobang | April 1, 2009 1:49 PM
Courtney -- it's absolutely right that you respect your grandmother's wishes. If my grandmother felt that way, I wouldn't be joining either.
Pascale -- I am a conservative! And like the woman you sat next to, I'm not fond of social workers. Not because of their political ideology, but because with very few exceptions, the ones I worked with stupid... as in low IQ. They were also harsh and mean to the severely mentally ill clients the agency served. Since I was in the financial department I also got to witness the greed of the smarter ones that ran the agency.
I quit that job and went to work for a geophysical firm and enjoyed the respite from stupidity and petty greed. Plus, there were rocks all over the place and really nifty computers operated by people who didn't require help double-clicking.
Also, one was much more likely in the '30s to run into an actual pinko commie than they were in the '60s.
Posted by: Donna B. | April 1, 2009 1:55 PM
Thanks Isis!
The DREAM Act seems like such a reasonable way to do the right thing. I know the kids will be glad for your support.
Posted by: Sandra Porter | April 1, 2009 1:56 PM
One of the problems with 'let them fix their own countries' is that the US has a rich-neighbor thumb on the scales -- I can't be angry at a refugee from a country that the US funded a war in, or from the country next door that we threatened with war if they didn't elect who we wanted.
Another problem, more systematic, is that people have to follow money in a capitalist world. When we freed border controls on money flows, we set ourselves up to be a big whirlpool of money flowing in, and labor has to follow it. I bet there's a decent equilibrium with either borders closed to both labor and capital, or borders open to each, but trying to maintain a difference is cruel and doomed.
#27 also makes sense to me from a more trust-the-market angle; if you believe that a no-force-no-fraud free market produces optimal results (which tends to be in the same ideological bag as nativism), then we should make the market here clean, and whoever gets the jobs, we'll all be better off.
Posted by: clew | April 1, 2009 2:07 PM
Do people really not think before they say things like this? As a long-time-in-the-States-er (DAR, DAC, Mayflower, Lord Baltimore) I really think that way too many people in the US have entitlement issues. When my brother whined about Brazilians taking his job I nearly shook him (he's too big now) and told him that they aren't getting his job because they're Brazilian, they're getting his job because they have a WORK ETHIC! Life takes work, and everyone needs to remember that.
And it doesn't matter if you're picking chiles, nursing, teaching, doing science or whatever. You show up on time (or early) you do your work well. Yes, you should get paid properly for this, no question. But don't bitch at me about "furrniers" taking the job you won't do.
(Corollary: Half of my lab are first generation immigrants. I don't feel threatened by them. I'm impressed that they would move half way around the world from all their friends and family for a better life. Go them.)
Posted by: JustaTech | April 1, 2009 2:09 PM
I, for one, think that the whole "illegals stealing our jobs" argument is freaking stupid. If YOU want that job, WORK for it. That's what they're doing.
Posted by: Engr Management | April 1, 2009 2:14 PM
Yep, and this is without counting all the "legal" immigrants who get all the other crappy jobs nobody wants like working as a taxi driver 18 hours a day without much reward because of the license and car prices...
Posted by: BdN | April 1, 2009 2:15 PM
Although the numbers have certainly changed due to the recession, a few years ago, the estimates actually had more undocumented workers in the US than unemployed citizens.
The clear implication is that, at least when times are good, there are actually more jobs in the United States than there are Americans.
That's a good thing, but the most obvious solution is to raise legal immigration to levels that match job demand.
Posted by: MPL | April 1, 2009 2:23 PM
I'm not fond of social workers. Not because of their political ideology, but because with very few exceptions, the ones I worked with stupid... as in low IQ. They were also harsh and mean to the severely mentally ill clients the agency served. Since I was in the financial department I also got to witness the greed of the smarter ones that ran the agency.
Hey! My mom was a social worker for 14 years! I object to that! She's a pretty smart lady.
No, seriously, based on what my mother said about her time with the state division of social workers, I think that part of what you saw was that social workers (at least around here) are usually part of the first generation to go to college, and that was the best job they could get. (Not unlike some teachers.) They weren't inculated in a professional culture, and don't know how to act professionally. Neither do they care to. Part of it is a socio-economic class thing. That's one reason why my mom hated her job. I could tell you tales....
Posted by: Courtney | April 1, 2009 2:36 PM
Interestingly, there was a poll conducted a year and a half ago for the Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the main reason people gave for deportation of illegal immigrants had nothing to do with jobs per se but the idea that they did not play by the rules : “We are a very civil society and we like the idea that people should play by the rules, and we don’t like it when there are rule-breakers and I think that has been a fairly consistent view,” said Showler. But : "once personal details about an immigrant, who is about to be deported, become public through the media, they often become extremely supportive."
Furthemore, "The pro-immigration aspects were identified as giving a boost to the workforce by bringing in more labourers and highly skilled people while increasing cultural diversity" while "negative aspects identified include the perception that there is a lack of integration in that immigrants are imposing their culture instead of adapting to ours".
Posted by: BdN | April 1, 2009 2:45 PM
BdN, you hear that a lot in American discussions of the topic, too - they're "line jumpers", they're getting in ahead of people who followed the rules, things along those lines. A lot of my colleagues at work are recent immigrants themselves, mostly from India and West Africa, and they're typically opposed to any process resulting in legal status for people now in the country illegally because "I followed the rules, and it took me a lot of time and money to do it."
I suspect the people that the DREAM Act would benefit have stories that could get that individual sympathy factor going - "I didn't know I wasn't a citizen until I tried to join the Army" must come up at least occasionally. (And then again I remember a story NPR ran on someone who is being deported after having been adopted as an infant because the adoptive parent didn't file one particular form, and some of the reaction amounted to "sucks to be you, enjoy Korea." I fear for humanity.)
Posted by: Cathy W | April 1, 2009 3:12 PM
If someone uses the word "illegal" as a noun, I'm probably not going to take seriously anything they say after that.
Posted by: mandrake | April 1, 2009 3:17 PM
I'm not talking about disabled people who genuinely need disability. I'm talking about the able-bodied ones who could probably prosper in life if they didn't put so much effort into getting on disability instead. I have a friend who's mom spent the past five years trying it on grounds a car wreck she was in 15 years ago left her with residual neck pain that wouldn't allow her to work. Meanwhile, she couldn't hold a job down because any money she made was squandered on drugs which in turn made her miss her shifts and get fired.
She was overjoyed when she got her arm broke in a bar fight and was told by the doctor she'd never re-gain full use of it without expensive surgery she couldn't afford.
There's also the guy that goes around my neighborhood soliciting people to mow their yard. He straight up told me that he needs to mow yards because he has a disability claim in and can't hold a real job if he wants it to go through. I'm not sure what his disability is, but it's apparently not one that inhibits him doing several hours of manual labor each day.
Posted by: LtStorm | April 1, 2009 3:31 PM
Wow. Never thought I was unleashing a discussion of social workers.
In my profession (pediatric nephrology) social workers are intergral parts of our care team. They are the ones who find out what the home situation and financial issues really are, cause no one tells their doctor the truth about that stuff (OK, that's a gross generalization, but you get the idea). Truth is, I don't want to have to learn the rules for all of these programs - and I am glad that we have intelligent professionals who do this for us. By the way, the new Conditions for coverage (see http://asn-online.org/publications/kidneynews/archives/2009/mar/KN_March09.pdf if you want to know more about this pain in the butt) for dialysis require social work evaluations for all dialysis patients. So there.
I still believe that my ancestors are not as important to me as what I do now. Judge me by my accomplishments, not when my predecessors stepped off the boat (although they beat a LOT of everyone else's ancestors to this hemisphere).
Posted by: Pascale | April 1, 2009 3:33 PM
There's also the guy that goes around my neighborhood soliciting people to mow their yard. He straight up told me that he needs to mow yards because he has a disability claim in and can't hold a real job if he wants it to go through. I'm not sure what his disability is, but it's apparently not one that inhibits him doing several hours of manual labor each day.
I'm not saying people don't abuse this system (I can think of at least one person I know who does) but I do have a friend who is on disability because she's mentally unstable. Schizoaffective disorder, with mania and psychotic episodes. When she's okay, she can work, but can't hold a regular job because she never knows when she's going to end up in the closet hiding from the voices.
Posted by: mandrake | April 1, 2009 4:12 PM
My daughter used to live in the foothills of the Huachuca Mountains. Mexico was on the other side of the mountains and from her back yard we could sometimes see (with binoculars) groups of illegal immigrants that had hiked over the mountains to get to this country.
At night, there was a steady stream of vehicles in and out of an adjacent neighborhood that really couldn't be accounted for by the number of residents. I'm fairly sure the hikers were being picked up.
The border patrol worked mostly during the daytime with helicopters siting groups and directing vehicles to them. We could hear the pilots telling them to stay put. One of them said (in English) "Don't make me land this thing and open a can o' whoopass on you." The rest of his warnings were in Spanish which I got the gist of, if not an exact understanding.
We found ourselves rooting for the hikers. Not that we rooting against the border patrol, we just figured that if somebody wanted to get here bad enough to hike over that mountain, well then they just might have the drive to succeed here.
The day my granddaughter was born, the border patrol brought in a woman who had made that hike 9 months pregnant. That is how badly she wanted her child to be an American. I wanted to ask the agent guarding her room if they were going to deport her and what would happen to the baby, but I didn't.
I also thought it was ridiculous to waste manpower guarding her room day and night. She wasn't going anywhere without her baby and it was a very secure OB ward with limited access as the babies were not kept locked up in the nursery.
They can arrest all the drug runners they want (in my mind, that's a completely separate issue), but I somehow doubt those are the ones hiking over mountains or swimming the Rio Grande.
Posted by: Donna B. | April 1, 2009 4:21 PM
I'm another "long-timer", family-wise (too Y-chromosome heavy for the DAR, though). The only issue I have with amnesty/grandfathering or any of that is mentioned above; it screws over people who followed the rules. That said, I think the real fix is to streamline immigration. I don't know if I'd require a rubber stamp, but maybe a form with a really big checkbox for "YES" and a tiny one for "no". Let 'em come in masses, like the statue says; take a name, do a medical check, load them up with vaccines if they can't prove they've already had them, and say, "Welcome to the USA. We'd appreciate it if you didn't litter." Even the lowest standards of living in the USA tend to far exceed the low end of other nations, particularly nations that are sending us the illegals we have, and that means we're likely to see people who have the drive to better their station. That's the kind of drive that put us on the map in the first place. I want the young, the old, the crazy, the people with no other chance -- You don't know who is going to make it big until you give them a chance, even if it doesn't pay off for a generation or two.
As a society, we're too tied up in protectionism, terrorism-fear, and outright racism. I'm sick of it. Sadly, I don't see it changing anytime soon, and the USA will miss out because of it.
Posted by: Ranson | April 1, 2009 4:29 PM
I think a major component of the hysteria over illegal immigrants comes from Big Business that wants to distract us from the real problem of the American worker - Outsourcing overseas.
And a question I find myself asking without getting any answer is why do we always leave Mexico on its own to suffer? It's like the only fucking country in the world that we're not willing to step into to try and "liberate" its people. There's a shitstorm going on down there right now, and what are we doing? Considering putting national guard troops along the border to protect US.
Why are we so reluctant to help out our southern neighbors? If we could figure out a way to improve the situation for Mexicans in their native country, it would be better for everyone. They shouldn't HAVE to leave their home in order to escape disease and awful living conditions. This is not a fucking immigration issue - it's a HUMANITARIAN one.
Why does this country feign impotence when it comes to human rights concerns?
Oh, that's right. Because these countries that desperately need help don't have anything we want. Like oil.
Posted by: JLK | April 1, 2009 5:33 PM
They must be gearing up to pass immigration expansion this summer!
Hey, how about dialing it back. Especially the "xenophobia" rhetoric.
Look: cut out illegal immigration, moderate the immigration flow and we'll give you your "white man's burden" guilt trip amnesty.
(nation of immigrants? pffft. only Ethiopia's not a nation of immigrants. "our life blood"? please. our children are are lifeblood. we "need" immigration. wtf? will we blow up or something?).
Posted by: anomalous | April 1, 2009 5:40 PM
JLK - Mexico has oil, quite a bit. And Mexico tends not to want our help in any meaningful way. There's little we could do without overthrowing their corrupt governing style. If you thought the Iraq war was unpopular, just think how unpopular invading Mexico would be.
Posted by: Donna B. | April 1, 2009 5:46 PM
from Dr. Kate's post above:
He loves Foreign Country. He's willing to serve in the F.C. military to defend F.C. from its enemies. He wants to continue living there, paying taxes, contributing to F.C.'s economy. But the "real" Foreign Countryians tell him, "Go home. This isn't your country.
my office recently represented a decorated Navy veteran who volunteered for two combat tours in Vietnam despite being a citizen of Mexico. he never followed through on US citizenship process. now he's in a federal prison, doing time for illegally reentering the country he risked his life for. i feel SO much safer knowing that he's behind bars.........
Posted by: payaso del mar | April 1, 2009 6:22 PM
Most of the sentiments expressed in this thread almost brings me to tears, as it gives me more hope about humanity. Thank you for being sane and intelligent. I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic or something, because I really mean it from the bottom of my heart.
Posted by: D.T. | April 1, 2009 7:28 PM
I think that one of the reasons illegal immigrants prefer to come to the US, beside its plentifulness (at least until Bush, with his stupidity, took it away), is the simple fact that this particular illegal act is hardly being punished and the immigration laws are hardly enforced. The US is not the only plentiful country in the region, or for that matter in the world, however, the US has the lightest hand of all developed countries where immigration law enforcement is concerned. If every illegal immigrant would know that s/he will lose all the money s/he paid to her/his smugglers, since s/he will be returned immediately to the country of origin, or because American employers won't break the US laws by employing illegal immigrants, or that s/he will spend time in jail, maybe s/he'll decide to illegally enter another country. In the past 20 years, illegal entry into the US is much easier than legal entry and much more rewarding. Since 9/11/2001 it is even easier and even more rewarding. I am surprised that we haven't heard, yet, of people from Europe and Asia using the US-Mexican border to enter into the US illegally instead of trying to do it legally, or maybe they already do, like members of the Russian Mafia.
Posted by: S. Rivlin | April 1, 2009 7:51 PM
What is a "plentiful country"? How can a singular entity be "plentiful"?
Posted by: PalMD | April 1, 2009 8:13 PM
I don't have much to say here, except that I seriously contest this notion of 'largely assimilated.' Those who claim that people like Dave have probably never met an illegal immigrant should spend some time deep in southwest Texas, or in So-Cal. I grew up in a town that had a large illegal immigrant population, and a large population of their descendants. They were not 'assimilated' in the least (downright racist would be more accurate) and they clearly had no interest in assimilation. Hell, they detested the idea (as an example off the top of my head, English was referred to quite often disparagingly as 'the Gringo language' by those who knew English from growing up in the school system here, and that is the tip of the iceberg) Every person I've spoken to that's lived in an area where illegal immigrants make up a large portion of the population has reports of the exact same behavior. Due to this, I'm not buying into this 'they want to be Americans and be assimilated and we know that's true because it's a nice idea' myth. I beg of anyone here who insists on taking this tact, please, try actually experiencing living with these people first-hand before you go on a rant about how cruel and unsympathetic others are toward the immigrants. The voice of experience tells a much, much different story.
Posted by: Thomas M. | April 1, 2009 8:51 PM
Well, I entered at 16, so I guess that doesn't apply to me, but it could be great for my brother, who is graduation high school next year. My family was supposed to get permanent residency, but some stupid lawyer fucked up, now I am illegal... Oh well.
Posted by: IBY | April 1, 2009 9:11 PM
There is a difference between wanting to be American and wanting to be white.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | April 1, 2009 11:25 PM
I'm wondering what it even means for someone who's been in the U.S. since they were 6 to go back to "their" country. I was born in Germany, abut have lived in the U.S. since I was three. Thanks to the arbitrary nature of citizenship laws, I am a natural-born citizen by luck of parentage. If someone were to decide I was taking a job and ship me back to Germany, I'd be screwed. My parents always spoke English at home, so I know barely any German. My work experience (in customer service for utilities) won't be much use in a non-Anglophone country.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | April 2, 2009 12:12 AM
"There is a difference between wanting to be American and wanting to be white." --Isis
Thanks for saying that so much nicer and in fewer words than I was going to use.
I am one who claims Dave has likely never known an illegal immigrant. One does not have to on the border to find communities of immigrants and it's not likely one will be able to tell from "looks" or neighborhood who (if any) are legal immigrants or not.
There is a large community of Mexican immigrants in SW Arkansas and it's been wonderful for the area. Having been raised in New Mexico and Colorado, I'm fairly picky about designating a Mexican food restaurant as excellent, but thanks to these immigrants, SW Arkansas now boasts a small chain offering wonderful food at reasonable prices.
I have a son-in-law whose father is a 1st generation immigrant. I have no idea whether he came legally or not and don't really care, but I cringe at the idea that his son could have been sent back if it was illegal.
Posted by: Donna B. | April 2, 2009 12:29 AM
As someone who legally immigrated to Canada, I'm going to have to call bullshit on the people saying that illegal immigrants screw over the legal immigrants by breaking the rules. The reason my parents and I were able to come to Canada was that they had the money and they had advanced degrees (a masters and a PhD). These kinds of criteria necessarily exclude the people who are worst off and would benefit most from immigrating to developed nations. These criteria also land us in the weird situation of having people with PhDs or MDs driving cabs or working in factories.
Posted by: LostMarbles | April 2, 2009 10:57 AM
I laugh at people complaining about foreigners stealing American jobs. My neighbor came here illegally about 20 years ago. He had married an American born citizen, owns a house and works hard... So hard that last year he got a job offer in Mexico.
Yup, he had to travel to Mexico half of last year to help pay for his home in Texas. The ironic bit, is he was working with transformer installations, and well, we all just got hit by a hurricane while he was away, and had to bring in a bunch of transformer repairman/installers.
I'll never understand why people despise someone like my neighbor, but I get a free pass because my mother was already American and so I was born dual-citizen and could move here and take jobs from the pure-blood Americans.
Posted by: Evinfuilt | April 2, 2009 12:35 PM
Excellent discussion; I read the entire thing (when I had many other more pressing things to do, like get groceries, go to the post office, pick up photos at the drugstore, and call my brother in Minnesota who has a home in Scottsdale and a condo in Minneapolis. He was bellyaching to me on the phone a couple of days ago that he couldn't live on the money he has left after the stock market went down (I said I though your wife was handling your finances and by your age you should have had most of your money in bonds anyway. Which I think you told me a couple of years ago.) I'm on disability, approaching 65 in a couple of months anyway. Disability for kidney failure due to having to take lithium for 12 years for bipolar. One of life's little ironies. Anyway, I worked from 1969 until 1990 in various law offices downtown, beginning with the draft dodgers in the late 60's, working with one of my friends from college (we actually met at a National Science Foundation Institute at St Cloud State in St. Cloud MN, a sleepy nice town in the middle of the state, and as far west in Minnesota as I have ever been; grew up in Pine City, a few miles from Wisconsin and about 65 mi north of the Twin Cities. So three of us from the institute received full tuition scholarships to Marquette U in Milwaukee, worth $950 each. Oh, wow. Tuition went up $75 a semester every year, if I remember correctly. When I transferred to the U of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1965, tuition was $128 a quarter. And it was a fabulous campus. Marquette has picked up a little over the years: when I first went there the only grassy area was a little plot behind the law school, and the brochure was clever to disguise the fact that Wisconsin Avenue was the center of campus life, the air was very sooty from the industrial valley directly south of campus. I had black specks on my face from a six-block walk, dorm on 18th St to classes on 12th. There was a yeast factory in the valley that you could really smell, and stock yards, that you could also really smell. We have the Harley-Davidson plant, which does not smell. Last year we had oh maybe 15,000 Harleys in town for the 105th birthday party of Harley. It was GREAT.
So I want to only contribute that this was an intelligent discuss all around except for "Dave," the instigator of the whole current exchange. Milwaukee is famous for its racism, and I participated as a college and post-college student in the marches to protest redlining and other atrocities perpetrated on our black brethren. It was exciting for a white girl, and exciting for black people too for bigger and deeper and awfuller reasons.
We have a lot of Hispanic people on the near South side, where I worked for four years for a federally funded community health center, doing data entry and Q.C. (quality control: somebody does the work, and somebody else checks it, because the first somebodies could not be completely trusted. But at least they were WORKING.
The entire north side, where I lived since 1970 until last year, is pretty much African-American. My ex- still lives in our little two story stucco home in the Garden Homes Neighborhood, located between Teutonia, Atkinson and 27th Street. The neighborhood was built for city workers in the early 1920's during Mayor Hoan's administration. It has 102 homes, none of them identical although very similar, and based on the garden cities in England--the streets are curvy, there is a little Garden Homes Park with a large rock and a bronze plaque designating it as a historic neighborhood. When these homes were built everybody owned everything; it wasn't a condo. After a couple of years people decided they wanted to actually own their individual homes, and so that's what happened.
Last fall when everybody else's neighborhood was taking a hit, there were 12 homes in GH that were boarded up or foreclosed upon. My ex- started the Garden Homes Neighborhood Association in 1976 and is still with it; also is working with a little larger group including CH but reaching to Capitol Drive on the South and a couple of blocks went of 17th Street; I don't have the exact boundaries. He wanted to be a labor organizer when he was a young man but married me instead. He admired Saul Alinsky and worked as a picketer for the Hatter's Union for a guy named Ted. I picketed with him, it was my first paying job other than a summer working at my family's hardware store. I'm sure my conservative parents thought he was off the wall, but they seemed to like him over the years and didn't express their pity for someone who didn't finish college (later, he did), didn't know how to change a faucet washer (I did that for us), and was saddled with a mentally ill wife (the subject of many essays by me, none by him; he wasn't the best writer but he has the biggest heart and the most generous personality of anyone I know. Community organizers are wonderful people in my book. That would include the President. I've shed many tears over Barack and Michelle and the direction our country has the opportunity to take. I worked in the Obama campaign doing data entry, signed up with the election commission to register people to vote and was surprised to see that about 50 other people did the same thing, i.e., trained at one of the Obama offices. The head of the Milw. County Election Commission trained us and she wanted to make it clear that any fraud would be prosecuted.
My son-in-law is African-American; my two granddaughters are each half African-American (by two different fathers: the older one's dad is very dark, and the younger one's father was half white, so she is practically white-skinned except for her wild slightly kinky hair. My daughter and the other granddaughter are adept at doing hair. My older granddaughter had a baby in October, after she turned 18. She was very proud of that, because her mother had her a couple of months before she turned sixteen. (Sweet Sixteen and never been ... I took a great picture of her on her 16th b-day party with the blazing candles in front of her cute little smiling face.) My granddaughter is partly Native American, so we have quite an eclectic family.
So back to my brother in Minneapolis. Yesterday I talked with him on the phone, and he had flown from Phoenix to Mpls the evening before because four of the five condos in his strip of condos had burned to the ground. His and his wife's unit was on the other end and wasn't touched. And this guy doesn't believe in God! That cracked me up. He and I had just had a terse conversation a few days earlier where he wound up telling me he was diametrically opposed to everything I believe in and didn't really care to have (that) conversation. Yesterday when I called him in Phoenix, not knowing he was now in the Cities, I said dramatically that I would never talk to him about politics again. Maybe we'll just be talking Fire. Insurance claims. The luck of the draw. How capable he is, and generous, helping out his neighbors who lost everything and glad to do it. He learned, even if he doesn't believe. He made the necessary phone calls to get the electricity and gas back up and running, fending deftly through the bureaucracy that said that would not be possible [at this early date] and he said why not? and oh yes it would be possible. He said it was nerve-wracking. Imagine how nerve-wracking it would have been if his house went up in smoke too!
In closing: my ancestors came over from Germany around 1860, settled in Minnesota and Wisconsin. My mother's family came from Sweden through Ellis Island in about 1903. My grandfather, uncle and aunt were children then. Grandpa became a finish carpenter and could both build houses, including at least one of their homes, and make inlaid wooden card tables--beautiful things. He died of dementia (don't know whether it would have been considered Alzheimer's) in 1949 when he was a mere 54 years old. My grandma sewed for their living during the 30's when Grandpa was out of work. She made 25 cents an hour sewing for the rich ladies across the river. She was an excellent seamstress and the summer she stayed with us when I was fourteen she taught me all her tricks. I loved sewing my entire life, starting out with hand sewing little dresses for my Ginny dolls when I was about 9. First real blouse I made when I was 11. I was addicted to clothes and beautiful fabrics. Later, got into mixed media, took a bunch of art classes, started writing--actually I found a term paper that I wrote in about 10th grade in HS about the Russian Revolution, and it was so interesting I have started typing it up on my computer, because it's so faint from a typewriter in about 1959. Plus I have a van service to get to dialysis 3 days a week, and the owner and his wife and a bunch of the drivers are from Russia; 250 people from Turkestan are living in the Milwaukee area. They are a lot of fun and very interesting.
My daughter is crazy for diversity and runs the 220 program in a suburban school system--that is for inner city kids to get to go to suburban, and putatively better, schools. She and her husband are going to Japan next week with some of her students. She says the only time she is happy is when she's on a vacation. I had to tell her that that is true for most people, not just her aberrant self.
We have a lot of Hmong people in Milwaukee and immigrants from Italy, Poland, Germany, and many countries in Africa. My church, All Saints Catholic Church on 25th St just north of Capitol Drive, has a large population of Africans, a church that was redesigned a few years ago to reflect our African and African-American heritage. We have members from more than 20 ZIP codes. It's a great, welcoming community. fter Martin Luther King, we call it a "beloved community."
I guess that's all for now.
Posted by: stephanie bova | April 2, 2009 1:08 PM
Interestingly the topic of immigration and immigrants' children has been a running series on NPR this week. Just yesterday on All Things Considered they were talking about how some people complain that Spanish speakers "won't assimilate". In Wisconsin, Minnesota and that area there were 4th generation German immigrants who didn't speak English as late at WWI. (Those WWs kind of killed German as a spoken language in the US.) But from the end of the Civil War to WWI there was actually bilingual instruction in public schools.
Everything old is new again.
Posted by: JustaTech | April 2, 2009 2:43 PM
"(Those WWs kind of killed German as a spoken language in the US.)"
Wait, so you're saying the solution to get rid of Spanish is to declare war on Spain?! That is an AWESOME idea. We could totes take Spain.
Mexico or Brazil would kick our asses though.
Posted by: becca | April 2, 2009 3:48 PM
becca, in Brazil they speak Portugese! Luckily we got rid of Bush, who probably would declare war on Spain for withdrawing their troops from Iraq.
Posted by: S. Rivlin | April 2, 2009 5:26 PM
@Donna - I just want to clarify that I don't think we should "invade" Mexico. I would never ever support that UNLESS the Mexican people started rallying for our military intervention.
But I don't think it's fair for us to turn a blind eye to what is going on there, the living conditions, etc., and at the same time rail against this idea of "illegal immigrants" stealing our jobs and what not.
Something has to be done, because they're being exploited in their home country and then being exploited here. They shouldn't BE paid less for the jobs they have here - in a way I think that's penalty enough for being here illegally, because they suffer without the protections that citizenship and visas provide.
As I said in my previous comment, by all accounts this is a humanitarian issue, plain and simple.
Posted by: JLK | April 2, 2009 5:37 PM
JLK, our fundamental disagreement may begin with the idea that anything concerning humans can be plain and simple :-)
One thing I almost never see discussed are border-town Wal-Mart parking lots packed on weekends with cars bearing Mexican license plates. (Please don't start in on evil Wal-Mart, these people are driving 40-50 miles to spend their hard-earned moola for American products - from what I saw, mostly milk, eggs, diapers, and clothing.
Whether they earned the moola working in Mexico or are spending what an illegal immigrant earned in the U.S., they are contributing to the U.S. economy by spending money here.
It's expecting too much from humans to live within spitting distance of each other and not participate in trade. It's going to happen whether it's legal or not. I think too many forget that wages/labor are a part of the Whole Trade Picture.
I get the feeling I'm the lone conservative here. I think conservatives and liberals actually want the same end product (freedom, above all else, because it's what allows all else) and we just have to learn to compromise on our methods of achieving it.
Please note that I do not speak of the established political parties. I think they are both radical. For instance, I'd have a hard time classifying the "Dave" that started this as either Republican or Democrat from that single moronic writing.
Remember that Bush's immigration plan was liberal and Reagan was the last one to push through an amnesty policy...
Posted by: Donna B. | April 3, 2009 1:29 AM
My great grandparents came here from Italy, namely the area around Napoli, a town called Fondi.
So I'm third generation born here. But I still support the rights of immigrants because I've heard the stories of what it was like to be an Italian immigrant in the early 20th century.
Growing up I had a friend, he and his parents had emigrated here from Guatemala.
I've worked with numerous immigrants and they've all been very hard working people. One immigrant was from Venezuela and she became a citizen not too long ago. I'm so happy she made it to citizenship.
Posted by: Tony P | April 3, 2009 11:28 PM
Cool response, Isis. Dave is a weird character. From his comments it seems he is quite content with his white male privileged (and apparently legally emigrated) background and using that as a backdrop to explain his alleged superiority over women (from DM's blog) and minorities (Isis' blog).
I see nothing wrong in giving minorities and/or women a chance to gain equal footing. There's nothing to be afraid of. We can have jobs and education for everybody. It's actually not taking away from deserving white male people at all. In the spirit of science, wouldn't it make more sense to have more educated (and motivated) people around?
We should strive for this instead of denying everyone a chance to do what they want to do in life. With the possible exception of the Native Americans, EVERYONE'S family had to come from some other place to get into this country. Those people who come here illegally are now here. The fact remains. Therefore, why not give them a frickin chance instead of dooming them to a life they wanted to escape?
Posted by: Apearl | April 4, 2009 1:05 AM
The basic problem is that capital is permitted to fly anywhere it damned well pleases, while labor isn't. When labor tries to follow the capital, it gets smacked around and treated like a thief.
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | April 4, 2009 11:58 AM
In Postville Iowa last spring there was an INS operation that shutdown the Agriproccessors plant resulting in the arrest of about 400 workers who had entered the United States illegally. At this point, a large number of the people who managed the plant are facing charges of violating numerous labor laws, including child labor, otherwise taking advantage of the working in renting them housing and selling them vehicles, the plant is bankrupt and the city of Postville is economically crippled.
The successful operation of the plant was based upon abusing and taking advantage of these workers. I'm certain this is not an isolated incident, take a look at tomato farming in Florida for example. So I am a little confused on your defense of a system clearly designed to abuse and take advantage of people.
How do you square that?
Posted by: Joel | April 5, 2009 4:45 PM
Joel:
Here's the situation: illegal immigrant workers are in much the same situation as prostitutes. Misogyny and/or homophobia is used as an excuse to shame sex workers, and as a result a prostitute has no recourse to the legal system if stolen from, or raped, or anything like that. The sex trade remains underground, and as a result, horrific abuses of human trafficking, sexual abuse, and the like continue.
Undocumented workers are in much the same situation. The racist nativists make sure they're kept illegal, which suits the people who hire them just fine, since they can treat them as just a step above slaves -- no benefits, minimal wages, and if the ICE arrests them, so be it, they're all interchangeable anyway. (There's a reason unions have gone after illegal immigrants to join them, and it's not just to have warm bodies on the membership rolls.)
One of the very, very few things I agreed with Gee Dubya Bush about (though I doubt I would have liked his particulars on examination) is the need for a guest worker program. But even more, just exactly what is wrong with just letting people in as long as they're going to be productive and behave? Immigration quotas are a relic of the Jim Crow era. Dump them.
Posted by: Brian X | July 2, 2009 2:11 AM