LatinaLista — Juana Villegas DeLaPaz, a Nashville, Tennessee resident, should be happily tired these days since the recent birth of her fourth child. And Villegas DeLaPaz is tired but it’s one derived of an emotional ordeal that has drained and depressed this 33-year-old mother — not because of her undocumented status, but because of what local law enforcement subjected her to as she was about to deliver her baby.
Juana Villegas DeLaPaz
(Source: wtvf)
Our thanks to Tim Chavez, publisher of Nashville-based Political Salsa who alerted Latina Lista to the fact that on July 3, 2008, Villegas DeLaPaz was pulled over by Berry Hill, TN police and, who during the course of being questioned, was found to not have a driver’s license and was subsequently arrested.
Acting as operatives of ICE’s 287(g) program, the Berry Hill police department is authorized to identify those persons who may be undocumented immigrants for deportation proceedings — AFTER they’ve been arrested.
Yet, in a review of what Berry Hill police did on the eve of our nation’s Independence Day, it is clear that their actions violated the purpose of 287(g) and needlessly subjected Villegas DeLaPaz to such emotional terror that it caused her to go into labor and endure the next few days of unspeakable treatment at the hands of those entrusted to protect their communities.
According to ICE’s own definition of the 287(g):
What is the program designed to do?
The 287(g) program is designed to enable state and local law enforcement personnel, incidental to a lawful arrest and during the course of their normal duties, to question and detain individuals for potential removal from the United States , if these individuals are identified as undocumented illegal aliens and they are suspected of committing a state crime.
What is the program not designed to do?
The 287(g) program is not designed to allow state and local agencies to perform random street operations. It is not designed to impact issues such as excessive occupancy and day laborer activities. In outlining the program, ICE representatives have repeatedly emphasized that it is designed to identify individuals for potential removal, who pose a threat to public safety, as a result of an arrest and /or conviction for state crimes. It does not impact traffic offenses such as driving without a license unless the offense leads to an arrest.
As stated earlier, Villegas DeLaPaz didn’t have a valid driver’s license but she did have two other pieces of documentation that should have sufficed and garnered her only a written citation: a valid vehicle registration sticker and a consulate photo identification.
With these two pieces of documentation, it should have been enough to let her go with a citation, especially since the officers saw her advanced stages of pregnancy. Yet, in this climate of zero tolerance and zero common sense, they chose to use her lack of a driver’s license as cause to arrest her, though 287 (g) guidelines explicitly say the individual should “pose a threat to public safety” and “does not impact traffic offenses such as driving without a license.”
Once they arrested her and started proceedings, Villegas DeLaPaz went into labor. What followed is both disturbing, outrageous and beneath what the U.S.A. used to stand for.
According Poltical Salsa:
Villegas DeLaPaz was arrested, incarcerated and forced to go through labor under armed guard handcuffed to by her wrist and ankle to a hospital bed. When she arrived at the hospital, the nurse asked the accompanying officer to step outside while Villegas DeLaPaz changed into her hospital gown – he refused, forcing Villegas DeLaPaz to unclothe before him.
Then she was shackled on her legs whenever she went to the bathroom. The nurse asked that the shackles be removed because she wanted Villegas DeLaPaz to be able to clean up after childbirth and do other hygiene to prevent infection. Again, the attending officer refused.
Her newborn was taken from her and did not receive needed breast milk for several days. She was re-jailed and denied a breast pump to express her milk. Nurses attending her were crying. She could not sleep in the jail because of the intense pain from her swollen breasts.
She was not allowed to call her family so her husband could be with her for the birth.
By the police department’s own admission, Villegas DeLaPaz endured more days in jail than she should have because of the 4th of July holidays.
The Berry Hill police department is not making apologies for their actions but instead are portraying themselves as compassionate because they surrendered Villegas DeLaPaz to her family instead of deporting her.
Chances are they realized that if they deported her their public image would have sunk so low that it would have been a public relations nightmare to rectify it.
However, the Berry Hill police department’s actions underscore why it is dangerous to put a federal program in the hands of local law enforcement who either may be required to fulfill quotas or show superiors “progress” in justifying the expense of paying their salaries while they were offsite receiving training.
No matter the reason, the Berry Hill police department’s abuse of the 287(g) program calls for an immediate suspension of the program by ICE until a proper investigation can be conducted to determine if the program was abused in implementing it and, if so, a fine should be levied against the department and/or a revised supervision of the program be implemented.
In their haste and zeal to “authorize” local law enforcement to act as branches of federal authority for them, ICE has done nothing to hold those local law agencies accountable for abuses such as this.
It is time they did before more atrocities against nonviolent, low-level violators of U.S. law are treated like death row criminals.
Comment(90)
bfp
Excuse my french–but F**K. This makes me sick to my F***ING STOMACH.
Frank
It is ridiculous to claim that the whole 287g program should be suspended just because of one police department’s questionable tactics!
kgarcia
This is incredible. Thank you for sharing this. This woman’s story hasn’t made news here in East Tennessee. As a Tennessean, I am embarrassed. As a human being, I am outraged. What happened to women in custody being escorted by women guards?
Evelyn
Because we have several loyal supporters of ‘rule of law,’ I suppose they will be out in full force supporting this lady.
The police dept. in her town clearly violated the law.
Will we see true loyal supporters of ‘rule of law’ or hypocrit ethnocentric racist who support “rule of law’ only when it supports their racist agenda of excluding Hispanics in America.
Marisa Treviño
Please reread the post, I said that the 287(g) program should be suspended at THAT police department.
Frank
You weren’t very clear on that Marisa. You might want to re-read it yourself.
If the claims are actually true, then I agree that that the treatment of this woman was unwarranted and the PD should be investigated.
Frank
It isn’t white people who are advocating amnesty for their own ethnic kind. Therefore it isn’t they that are the ethnocentric racists.
Who is excluding Hispanics in this country, liar! Your nose must be so long that you can dial your phone with it!
Liquidmicro
“The police dept. in her town clearly violated the law.”
Actually, they did not. What ensued, as tragic as it was, was not against the law either.
Driving without a license in Tennessee is a Class B Misdemeanor ($500 fine and/or 6 months in jail). When the officer ran her name (from a Matricular Card, she had no form of U.S. documentation other than a vehicle registration not in her name) it came back with a Federal Deportation order from 1996, thus because the officer is 287(g), he arrested her for an outstanding deportation order.
I call into question her husband. Why was he not driving her around especially if she only had 3 days before her due date? Why should the 287(g) program then be suspended in that town? She knew the consequences of what could happen to her if she were caught driving without a license, she took the risk. The question then comes down to her being a ‘criminal fugitive’ for disobeying a Federal Deportation order from 1996.
challis
Apart from this horrid story, it also shows us how our State officials are ill equipped to deal with this issue.
I believe that this is wasting state money and resources trying to handle what is, ultimately a federal problem that needs to be addressed in the federal government.
We cannot add these responsibilities to our State police and government, it is a recipe for disaster, with more stories and situations like this as the consequence.
Marisa Treviño
Isn’t the real question why would the police subject a woman on the cusp of delivering her child to such measures when she ended up being released anyway?
Jill
If she would have come here legally , or stayed in Mexico she would’nt have had his problem.
Frank
States are having to deal with the illegal alien problem because our Federal government has failed us on this issue and it is the states that are being affected negatively by it. With proper training our state and local law enforcement can perform the job that our federal government refuses to do. It is actually easier to handle it on the local levels anyway.
Evelyn
challis said:
Apart from this horrid story, it also shows us how our State officials are ill equipped to deal with this issue.
I believe that this is wasting state money and resources trying to handle what is, ultimately a federal problem that needs to be addressed in the federal government.
We cannot add these responsibilities to our State police and government, it is a recipe for disaster, with more stories and situations like this as the consequence.
E
Spoken like a TRUE patriotic law abiding American citizen who is really against ‘Illegal immigration’ like most Americans.
Congress will have to address this issue sooner (2009) rather than later. It will have to be a compromise.
Both sides of the isle will have to work to fix the mess immigration laws are creating now.
Liquidmicro
“Isn’t the real question why would the police subject a woman on the cusp of delivering her child to such measures when she ended up being released anyway?”
ICE had a detainer on her, would it then not be ICE that released her? The Police and the Sheriffs merely did their jobs. I would be looking to ICE for the reasons as to why she was not deported and instead was released. I’m willing to bet ICE released her due to humanitarian reasons as they release many others who have to care for their children (look at those released during raids), they are given new deportation orders for hearings and are expected to show up at them.
We all agree that this was a tragic set of circumstances, we all feel for this womans plight.
yeah man
Fleeing an Federal Deportation order and driving without a license that’s reason enough to be put in jail. She was treated like any other jailed criminal. To bad this is her fourth child born here illegally she should have been deported before the first one. Because INS didn’t do their duty taxpayer paid for four children that shouldn’t have been here. Racism? Mexican is not a race it’s a nationally and Mexico wouldn’t put up with this BS. I know many white Mexicans and I know many really dark Mexicans so which one of those it the Mexican race? It’s about nationally stupid and respect of American laws..
Eric
I dont get it, how many laws does someone have to break to actually be punished.
SHE BROKE LAWS, SHE IS A LAWBREAKER.
It is illegal here in America to drive without a license. I am an American Citizen, if I get caught without a license I get arrested.
Alex
Frank, Liquidmicro, do you believe that your lame excuse, “Rule of Law”, when you meet Our Lord, will prevent you from being thrown to hell? You still have time to change. Nobody knows when that will happen. Could be tomorrow, maybe tonight, while you sleep. Are you prepared?
laura
Dear Marisa,
in my mind, the question is why a woman’s simple basic dignity and human rights are violated in this abominable way.
Seriously – for those who doubt my analogy to Nazi Germany: do you think the German police in 1940 would have shackled a Jewish woman in labor to the hospital bed by her wrist and ankle? Do you think they would have let an – armed – male guard watch her as she was changing? Do you think they would have kept her feet shackled after childbirth when she went to the bathroom so she couldn’t clean herself?
I am not sure German police would have done that to a Jewish woman.
What kind of a country are we living in?
And beyond the politics of a country treating a minority like the Jews in Nazi Germany – what about the individuals in that police department? What is going on in their minds? What is going on in the mind of an armed policeman who watches a woman in labor change into a hospital gown? What is going on in the mind of a policeman who keeps a woman in labor shackled to the bed?
Those police have serious mental health problems. And because they are our police, they are our problems.
cayla
This disturbs me on a number of levels. First, lets start with the reason she was driving in the first place. She had no license, therefore she should not have been behind the wheel. Also, during my pregnancies, at the end, I was advised NOT TO DRIVE by my doctor. It has been too many years to recall the reasoning, but I believe it had to do with the waistline interfering with the steering wheel lol. Either way, she was a danger to herself and others, including her child, by being behind the wheel in the first place. This leads to my second question, what did she do to draw the attention of the officers who arrested her? The article fails to state the only crime was driving without a license. Could it be she was driving in a dangerous manner? Could it be that she has been pulled over on the same offense before? The article does not state the original cause. It also is clearly omitting any claim that the sole cause of being pulled over was no license.
Quote:
Villegas DeLaPaz was arrested, incarcerated and forced to go through labor under armed guard handcuffed to by her wrist and ankle to a hospital bed.
I have a friend who is a prison guard, this is standard procedure for inmates in labor. Should she have gotten special treatment because she is Hispanic? I think not. The bottom line is that officer was responsible for his prisoner and could not let her out of his site. To avoid this, maybe she should not have been driving illegally in a country in which she was illegally residing, then she could have had a warm, family filled birth experience.
Quote:
She was not allowed to call her family so her husband could be with her for the birth.
It is usually standard procedure not to let inmates have visitors while in a hard to secure area such as a hospital. Again, she should have considered this BEFORE HER JOY RIDE.
Quote:
Her newborn was taken from her and did not receive needed breast milk for several days.
Some jails allow the babies to stay with their inmate mothers, others do not. Obviously, in the case of this mother in the process of being deported, they are not going to put a US citizen in her cell to complicate things. Like any other criminal who gives birth, the baby was more than likely put into state custody until another parent or family member could take custody of the child.
They let the baby starve? Shocked Of course not, the baby was fed formula, like millions of other babies are each year.
Quote:
She was re-jailed and denied a breast pump to express her milk. Nurses attending her were crying. She could not sleep in the jail because of the intense pain from her swollen breasts.
As for the breast milk, they wouldn’t let her express it???? What kind of nonsense it that? At the risk of being crude, all she had to do was walk over to the nearest sink or toilet and milk herself. It isn’t that hard, I had to do it once or twice when I returned to work after having my middle child.
Quote:
By the police department’s own admission, Villegas DeLaPaz endured more days in jail than she should have because of the 4th of July holidays.
How many of us in college were always warned not to get a public intoxication charge on a weekend or holiday because the judge is off and we would have to spend extra time? Once again she is whining because she did not get special treatment.
Last, but certainly not least, she was NOT ARRESTED FOR DRIVING WITHOUT A LICENSE! SHE WAS ARRESTED FOR A WARRANT OUT ON IGNORING A PREVIOUS DEPORTATION ORDER!!!!! To have let her go would have been a felony offense without the permission of a judge. If she wanted a normal child birth, she should have complied with the court order to begin with. I have zero sympathy for her, she asked for it, she got it.
Evelyn
It isn’t white people who are advocating amnesty for their own ethnic kind. Therefore it isn’t they that are the ethnocentric racists.
E
Gee, I went through each of the posts to see who made the accusation that white people or any race was advocating amnesty for their own kind. No one did.
I have never heard of anyone doing that. What I have heard are many ignorant people calling CIR amnesty. They dont know the meaning of words and have trouble understanding what they read.
~~~
Who is excluding Hispanics in this country, liar! Your nose must be so long that you can dial your phone with it!
E
Hypocrit ethnocentric racist who support “rule of law’ only when it supports their racist agenda of excluding Hispanics in America.
LOL, you’re calling
me “Pinocchio” (a childish nursery rhyme caricature) because the shoe fit and you were EXPOSED?
How um, um, childish!
Evelyn
Minutemen Outside Obama Rally: F@$! La Raza
by kyledeb
Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 05:03:46 PM PDT
Original Post at The Sanctuary.
I’m here in San Diego where Barack Obama just spoke at the annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference. NCLR flew out me here and provided with me accommodations at the luxurious San Diego Marriot Hotel & Marina. I was given the opportunity after I helped publicize NCLR’s latest We Can Stop the Hate video using Digg and StumbleUpon, among other new media tools.
kyledeb’s diary :: ::
I didn’t do it to advance myself in an particular way. I just thought the video provided the most succinct description of the link between leading “anti-illegal immigration” groups and white supremacy. I wanted as many people to see it as possible.
In fact, when NCLR invited me here, I did everything I could to get them to bring one of my blogmig@s along with me, or in my stead. I identify as white and there should be a latin@ blogger here covering this conference. I hear Todd Beeton of MyDD, and Lucas O’Connor of Calitics are here liveblogging Obama’s speech, as well. They probably weren’t hand picked by NCLR like I was, but if you don’t see a problem with three white male bloggers covering a National Council of La Raza conference, I’ll leave that for a post that I’ll write when all of this is done. For now, we’ll get back to Obama’s appearance here.
I debated whether or not to cover Obama’s speech. A put up a full copy of his remarks here. Eventually I decided that with hundreds of press people here, and more “influential” bloggers than myself covering this, that it would be best to do something a little different.
I knew Barack Obama wouldn’t reveal anything new about his positions on comprehensive immigration reform. As anyone who knows anything about the U.S. migration debate will tell you, the devil is in the details when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. That’s why leading members of the SanctuarySphere have been trying to get the presidential candidates to answer a very specific questionnaire on migration. I will reserve my endorsement of a presidential candidate until those questions are answered. We need more than soundbites when it comes to immigration. See what my blogmig@s have to say on the subject:
Kai at Zuky
Marisa at Latina Lista
Manny at Latino Politico
Sylvia at Problem Chylde
Maegan at Vivirlatino
Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican
Kety at CrossLeft
Symsess at Citizen Orange
XP at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!
So rather than attend Barack Obama’s speech, I thought it would be best to cover what was happening around Barack Obama’s speech. I went outside where a crowd of a few hundred was gathered. There was a sizeable group of Obama supporters, a few people holding signs for 9/11 Truth (Noam Chomsky says all that needs to be said on that), as well as a loud and bosterous group that identified themselves as the San Diego Minutemen.
Supporters of the San Diego Minutemen held signs that said things like:
“Support Americans Not La Raza”,
“La Raza Means ‘The Race'”,
“La Raza Stop the Hate Against Americans”,
“La Raza, Neo-Nazi, KKK, Racist Groups”,
“Obama: 50% White, 43.75% Arabic, 6.25% Black, 100% Brown RACIST”
Just as I was about to turn away from filming a man holding a sign of a boy urinating on the phrase “La Raza”, I heard him begin to chant, “Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy.” The San Diego Minuteman supporter was walking up a ramp to the convention center and was speaking to another full-grown man that looked to be of latino descent to me.
In all fairness, I have no idea what the latino man was saying to the San Diego Minutemenn supporter. It could have been just as hateful. I followed them until they parted ways and just as I was about to stop filming again, a group of people walked through chanting, “Viva La Raza. Viva La Raza.” The Minuteman supporter then went at it again, “Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza.”
It was heated out there. I tried to interview supporters of the San Diego Minutemen, but most walked away when I asked them. I was able to interview one woman, and they’ll be back tomorrow when I will try to interview them again. It’s not fair of me to call them out like this without getting an official comment from them.
Still, I find it ironic that the San Diego Minutemen were holding signs calling out the National Council of La Raza for their supposed racism at the same time that this man was engaging what was clearly blatant racism to me. How can you call a grown latino man a “boy” and condemn an entire race without being racist?
Why talk about this specific incident, today? Here’s a phrase from Obama’s speech that’s relevent:
The 12 million people in the shadows, the communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands, the neighborhoods seeing rising tensions as citizens are pitted against new immigrants…they’re counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves – rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation. They’re counting on us to rise above the fear and demagoguery, the pettiness and partisanship, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform.
Some will see the above incident as the fault of a fringe lunatic, who supports a fringe organization, but as anyone who blogs about migration can attest, hateful rhetoric like this has poisoned almost every online forum that takes up the subject. Any newspaper article that dares even suggest that unauthorized migrants are human quickly fills up with hate like this in the comment section. Even the mainstream progressive blogosphere is filled with hate like this. Look no further than Alternet’s special immigration section for evidence of that.
This hate is degrading the U.S.’s democracy, and preventing the U.S. from arriving at a meaningful solution to the issues associated with migration. I live and breathe the U.S. migration debate. And even for someone like myself, who is very familiar with the U.S.’s history oppression, I find myself living in disbelief over the suffering of that millions of authorized and unauthorized migrants have to live through every day in the United States.
The latest outrage comes from Tim Chavez over at Political Salsa, who describes how Abu Ghraib and Guantamo have come to Nashville, Tennesee, where a pregnant mother was shackled as she tried to give birth to her baby. Her child was then denied the milk from her breast, and suffered from jaundice as a result of it. I highly recommend you read the full post to get a sense of the sorts of things I read about every day.
.
Is this the sort of country you want to live in?
E said,
I wonder how many noses of people who defend the minuteKLAN yet claim they are not racists, not liars and take offence to being called ignorant, are getting longer and longer and longer.
(One must humor them, this is as far as their intelligence allows them to think in nursery rhymes. They get their education watching you tube videos and swear everything they see on you tube is gospel truth.) LOL!
Liquidmicro
http://www.wrcbtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8672981
“The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency released Villegas on her own recognizance on July 10 after a judge sentenced her to time served for the traffic violation.”
Frank
I support the rule of law AT ALL TIMES! When have I ever said otherwise? If these were 12 million Chinese or German illegals, etc. rather than Hispanics, my stance on this issue would still be the same!
Hispanics aren’t “excluded” in this country. There are 40 million of them here either legally or are citizens of this country. My how convenient to forget that little fact! Hispanics have the second highest quota for legal immigration into our country by only a few percentage points lower than Asians. You will never be satisfied until they become the majority in this country also just like they are in 22 other countries on the Western Hemisphere!
Frank
Alex, being for the rule of law is lame? Maybe you should let our government know that and all other governments on the face of the earth.
I don’t know what kind of bible you live by but mine doesn’t say I must sacrifice my own family’s welfare for a lawbreaker and a sinner. Charity begins at home.
Liquidmicro
“do you think the German police in 1940 would have shackled a Jewish woman in labor to the hospital bed by her wrist and ankle? Do you think they would have let an – armed – male guard watch her as she was changing?”
They would have actually watched her undress, took her belongings, forced her into the shower area with everybody else, and then gassed and killed her. No need for shackles.
“Do you think they would have kept her feet shackled after childbirth when she went to the bathroom so she couldn’t clean herself?”
She was able to use the restroom to clean herself, shackles only slowed her trip to the john. Did she need to put her legs behind her head to clean or did she need to squat over the bowl to do it with a wet towlett? Shackles allow for movement.
She was treated no different than any other detainee. But, since you like Nazi Germany so much, maybe we should begin to do what you instill up on us, treat them as the Jews were. After all you are for equality right.
Magyart
This woman clearky is a crimminal. She is in the country illegally, she drives with out a license and insurance.
IMO, ALL drivers, including legal residents, without a license should be put in jail.
cayla
I am pleasantly surprised that my comments were posted, for that I thank you. IMHO this issue is NOT about race. If you look at the statistics of illegal immigrants, only 70% are Hispanic. The remaining 30% are every color in the rainbow. Do I believe any one of these groups should be treated in any different manner, either positive or negative? I do not. I believe all should be treated equally from the enforcement of the laws, to communications in their native tongue. If you can press two for Spanish, you must then be allowed to press 3 for Chinese, 4 for German, 5 for Irish, 6 for Russian ect. Equal protection means just that, all are treated equally. There should be NO SEPARATE STANDARDS FOR ANY RACIAL OR ETHNIC GROUP OF ILLEGALS.
Marisa Treviño
Cayla, Though I may not agree with you, I never expect everyone to agree with me either. I’m a firm believer that the only way to work through an issue is via discussion. Discussion usually means two sides are represented. While you may see on the site that, at times, frustration levels reach new heights, the talk is still going on.
Welcome to Latina Lista.
Evelyn
LOOK AT THIS WOMAN”S FACE AND TELL ME SHE IS NOT A NATIVE AMERICAN.
Cayla, Eric, Yeah Man…(learn english),
liquid, Jill, Magyart:
Mexicans are American Indians – It’s the Border that is Illegal
Will the Real Illegal Aliens Please Stand Up
By Barry Carter
The brown people of Mexico have been on the North American continent for tens of thousands of years. They are American Indians indigenous to America and thus cannot be illegal aliens. One cannot be both indigenous and alien since these are opposites. Euro-Americans renamed them Hispanic, Latino, Mexican, Mestizo, Chicano for reasons of self-gain. By renaming them eventually people forget that they are Indigenous North American Indians. Once forgotten then the American land is free for the taking.
All one has to do is look at a pre-contact map of the North American continent to see that the US-Mexican border, is an artificial line, that bisected the territory of Indian people, such as the Ute-Aztecan. The Ute-Aztecan territory covers much of current day Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada. Thus the border is illegal, not the Indians. The Indian peoples never approved this border. Thus American Indians as illegal aliens in America is as ridicules as someone coming into your house, taking your house at gunpoint and then getting an illegal court order barring you from entering your own house. It does not matter how many years pass it is your house. If you are the illegal alien in the house, what better defense than pointing the finger at the real owners as the illegal aliens, in order to hide your true status and theft.
The mislabeling of an entire group of Indian people is no accident. It was/is a common ploy to steal land, wealth and power of the rightful inhabitants of America. In the Southeastern U.S. many Indians pass as light skin black people because for centuries they were forced to deny their Indian heritage or face death. The same is true of Indians in the Caribbean. The Taino Indians were supposed to be extinct, but when DNA testing was done, in Puerto Rico, over 90% of the population had significant American Indian DNA. The motivation of Euro-Americans was and is the possession, ownership and control of American “Indian†land. Europeans inflicted the greatest human holocaust in history in order to attain the land and wealth. This holocaust resulted in tens of millions of Indian deaths, extinction of entire nations, languages and cultures.
It does not take a rocket scientist to simply look at Mexicans to know that they are American Indians. Demographics for Mexico show that 90% of the population is Indian. So why then does Euro-America see Mexicans as illegal aliens and not as American Indians? Because it conflicts with their self-interest and vision of manifest destiny or “greedifest destinyâ€. They feel that they have some god given right to American Indian land and seeing Mexicans as American Indians threatens this illusion.
What we really have is an apartheid system on the North American continent. The system of apartheid started in the Americas in 1492. Initially millions of east coast Indians were killed to make lands free for Europeans. The remaining eastern Indians were supposedly forced out of the east as indicated with Andrew Jackson proclamation that there were no more Indians east of the Mississippi. In essence everything west of the Mississippi was a large Indian Reservation. As the Euro-Americans came west, the Indians west of the Mississippi, were forced onto apartheid “homeland†reservations or to the south. Eventually a line was drawn to the south (the U.S.-Mexican border) with the majority of American Indians barred south of the line. Euro-Americans argue that the delineating factor is that Euro-English conquered the lands north of the border, for the most part, and the Euro-Spanish conquered the lands to the south. This, however, is meaningless to the American Indians who were already here and thus are indigenous.
What the illegal alien issue is really all about is threatening the Euro-American manifest destiny dream. We don’t call Lakota or Navajo or Apache illegal aliens today because their numbers were reduced so greatly that they have little power to threaten Euro-America. They are free to leave their reservations and come and go as they please. However, when they were a threat, to manifest destiny, it was illegal for them to leave the reservations and they were considered illegal aliens off the reservations. And this was true of Indians living east of the Mississippi. After Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of the 1830’s it was illegal for Indians to be east of the Mississippi and Indians were not only considered illegal aliens if they were found east of the Mississippi, they were found DEAD illegal aliens.
Today the 100,000,000 Indians living south of the illegal border pose the only Indian threat to Euro-America’s vision of manifest destiny. And believe me the racist notion of manifest destiny is unconsciously still alive and kicking the majority of Euro-Americans heads. The mere notion that the America today is still Indian land is a foreign notion in most Euro-America’s heads. This is why most Euro-Americans are ignorant to the fact that Mexico is part North America. And this buried racial bias is behind the thinking that allows the Indians, in question, to so easily be classified as illegal aliens in their own homelands.
When we really think about it Mexico is a very large Indian reservation. All Indian reservations are part of an American apartheid system created by Euro-Americans. The border between the US and Mexico is an apartheid border. It is a racist border created out of imperialism and the colonization of indigenous people. Euro-Americans have 100 million brown Indians isolated on a large reservation called Mexico in order to keep brown people separate and powerless and to maintain power in the hands of Euro-Americans. This is exactly what was done with South African apartheid with “homeland†reservations for brown people. Like South Africa, the brown people from the Mexican reservation are allowed to come in temporarily and do menial work, but must return to their reservations when the work is done. They both must have a pass to be off their reservation. It is all about control of indigenous brown people.
What’s really behind Euro-American fears and the illegal alien propaganda? Euro-Americans in the United States have the same fears as White people in South Africa before the apartheid wall fell. They fear being overrun by 100 million brown people. If the 100 million Indians are let off of the reservation Euro-Americans lose control of government, politics, business, etc. Their dreams of manifest destiny collapses and it becomes clear that American’s destiny has always been brown and the illusion of a “white†America is gone.
Many Euro-Americans will refuse to accept the facts of history. They’ll get hung up on all kinds of details. They will argue, show us the Yaqui, Cahita, Tarahumara, Jumano, Seri, Coahuiltec, Karankawa, Tonkawa, Mixtec, Tarascan Indians since these are the people whose land was bisected by the border. However, the “Euro-recognition con-game and other specious arguments do not matter since there is no way to stop the 100,000,000 Indians from crossing the illegal border and thus no way to stop the re-browning of America. There are 100 million brown Indians that cannot be imprisoned on the Mexican reservation indefinitely. They are reclaiming the North American continent one person and one day at a time—American Indians crossing the illegal apartheid border. And there is nothing Euro-Americans can do about it.
AS I SAID IN A RECENT COMMENT THREAD, the purpose of renaming Mexicans as “Hispanic” is to deny them their Indian status. The purpose of naming Mexican migrants as “Aliens” is grossly obvious. Could you possibly think of a nastier, more dehumanizing word? The purpose of framing those of Mexican descent as anything except what they are is done for very insidious and harmful purposes. As if some wall or ocean or moral boundary separates la tierra of “texas” from la tierra of “mexico” and has since the dawn of time. It truly requires some magical, self-interested and deluded thinking to come to the conclusions one must in order to feel justified about countless realities today such as NAFTA, border-walls, Incarceration of children, and “hunting me some aliens.”
The recent history of Mexico, that of the last five hundred years, is the story of permanent confrontation between those attempting to direct the country toward the path of Western civilization and those, rooted in Mesoamerican ways of life, who resist. The first plan arrived with the European invaders but was not abandoned with independence.
—Guillermo Banfil Batalla
The conquest of this continent did not end with the Spanish leaving, nor with the American Declarations of whatevers. The conquest bloodly, blindly, desperately staggers on. But unless you kill every single one of us and our descendants (or wipe our memories), this conquest will never succeed. Invent laws, invent courts, invent reasons why Indians are subhuman, but it doesn’t matter, your small-scale dreams and greed-stained papers flutter like sick flies in a mighty wind of inconsequence. Some of us keep our hearts in the hands of the Earth, our precious truths in the gold envelopes of the Sun, herself—places where time will not yield to the Lie. Some of us have deeper alliances than those formed by the Dollar. We are still here. We will be here to watch the balance restored. We are restoring the balance.
~~~~~~~~~
Since when has guilt become shameful? Since when is shame shameful when it’s shame about a four-centuries-long historical crime? Not one of us has killed a Native American today, segregation is no longer enshrined in law, and there are fewer overt racists than before, but if we want to praise America’s virtues, we have to concede – and feel guilty about – America’s sins, else we praise a false god, a golden calf, a whited sepulcher, a Potemkin village of virtue…
Goodness, a moral crescendo is upon us. Someone fetch a towel. It’s heartening to know that there are among us some whose moral insights are so keen they entitle those so endowed to dictate how the rest of us should – must – feel.
Guilt is good, people!
Well, that rather depends on what a person is feeling guilty about, or pretending to feel guilty about.
The only people who don’t suffer guilt are sociopaths and serial killers.
ALIENATED SOCIOPATHS have never developed the ability to love, empathize, or affiliate in real life with another person. They will show more emotion toward their pet or a personal artifact than toward a person. Or, they may hate animals and live out their emotional life by watching TV (identification with soap opera characters is a common pattern). Dating and marriage relationships will be very barren and empty. They won’t get along with the neighbors. They live in a shell. They have a cold, callous attitude toward human suffering or any social problem in the society they live in. They just don’t care because it’s outside their range of empathy. Most will believe they are justified in this because they feel they were cheated in some way themselves by society, and a few will be more than happy to rant and rave about it to anyone who listens. They are chronic complainers, and underneath it all, they would like to see nothing better than all of society destroyed.
AGGRESSIVE SOCIOPATHS derive strong, yet nonperverse gratification from harming others. They like to hurt, frighten, tyrannize, bully, and manipulate. They do it for a sense of power and control, and will often only drop subtle hints about what they are up to. They polish their aggressive, domineering manner in such a way to disguise any intimidation others might feel. They seek out positions of power, such as parent, teacher, bureaucrat, supervisor, or police officer. Their style is one of passive aggression as they systematically go about sabotaging the ideas of others to get their ideas in place. In their spare time, they like to hunt or occasionally do sadistic things like find stray dogs and cut them up. They are usually effective at getting their way, and are especially vindictive if resisted or crossed. They don’t follow the social norm of reciprocity like others do.
DYSSOCIAL SOCIOPATHS identify and hold an allegiance with a dyssocial, outcast, or predatory subculture. Any subculture will do, as long as it runs counter to established authority. They are capable of intense loyalty, and even a feeling of guilt and shame, within such limited circles. They seem to continually fall upon bad luck and bad companions, however. While they will constantly complain that none of this is their fault, behind it all is a kind of self-defeating mechanism in the poor choices they made themselves.
laura
Sadists like the policemen who abused this mother, and those who applaud them on this site, like “Frank, Liquidmirco,”etc, think that it will always be they who mistreat others, not that the poisonous standards of behavior they set will ever target them.
The violent speech and brutal behavior of these people finds its way to everyone. That is the sad part. Not only Juana Villegas DeLaPaz, and you, and I become victims of that violence. They themselves become its victims too.
This is what happened to the Germans, and it will happen to us. “Liquidmicro,” I suggest you study history a little more. I suggest starting with the diaries of Viktor Klemperer.
Evelyn
Cayla, Eric, Yeah (learn english Man), Liquid, Jill, Magyart,
IS this what you truly want to support. All this hate will only destroy you. You will be the one that suffers most.
~~
Supporters of the San Diego Minutemen held signs that said things like:
“Support Americans Not La Raza”,
“La Raza Means ‘The Race'”,
“La Raza Stop the Hate Against Americans”,
“La Raza, Neo-Nazi, KKK, Racist Groups”,
“Obama: 50% White, 43.75% Arabic, 6.25% Black, 100% Brown RACIST”
Just as I was about to turn away from filming a man holding a sign of a boy urinating on the phrase “La Raza”, I heard him begin to chant, “Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy. Fuck You Brown Boy.” The San Diego Minuteman supporter was walking up a ramp to the convention center and was speaking to another full-grown man that looked to be of latino descent to me.
In all fairness, I have no idea what the latino man was saying to the San Diego Minutemenn supporter. It could have been just as hateful. I followed them until they parted ways and just as I was about to stop filming again, a group of people walked through chanting, “Viva La Raza. Viva La Raza.” The Minuteman supporter then went at it again, “Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza. Fuck La Raza.”
It was heated out there. I tried to interview supporters of the San Diego Minutemen, but most walked away when I asked them. I was able to interview one woman, and they’ll be back tomorrow when I will try to interview them again. It’s not fair of me to call them out like this without getting an official comment from them.
Still, I find it ironic that the San Diego Minutemen were holding signs calling out the National Council of La Raza for their supposed racism at the same time that this man was engaging what was clearly blatant racism to me. How can you call a grown latino man a “boy” and condemn an entire race without being racist?
~~~
Imperial Sociopaths
by Kurt Nimmo
Dissident Voice
September 15, 2003
“The sociopath sees other people as objects to be manipulated and used, much as the rest of us would use a screwdriver or a kleenex. The sociopath feels no empathy for others (although he can fake empathy) and he feels no shame or remorse about abusing people. In his universe, he is the center, and everyone else exists only to serve him.”
— Glenn Campbell
Christopher Columbus was a Sociopath
“It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion,” wrote Columbus in his journal upon encountering the natives of Guanahani.
Columbus installed himself as “viceroy and governor of [the Caribbean islands] and the mainland” of America. He instituted slavery (encomiendo) and engaged in the systematic extermination of the native Taino population. These natives numbered approximately 8 million when Columbus arrived; upon his departure the Taino numbered around 100,000. A census taken in 1542 reported only 200 remained. By 1555 the natives of Haiti were completely extinct. “All told, it is probable that more than one hundred million native people were ‘eliminated’ in the course of Europe’s ongoing ‘civilization’ of the Western Hemisphere,” explains Ward Churchill.
“There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history,” radio talkshow know-it-all Rush Limbaugh once declared. “Does this sound like a record of genocide?”
Yet according to the 2000 Census, there were 1,678,765 Indian Americans, down from an excess of 12 million prior to the arrival of Columbus. Not only is Limbaugh a liar — he is an ignoramus. But then considering he makes a comfortable living inventing excuses for neocon sociopaths, this should probably be expected.
Going after the New Canaanites
John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay, considered America the New Israel and the Puritans Israelites. Like the Zionists of today, these evangelical Puritans believed the land where millions of indigenous natives lived was for their exclusive use and possession, given to them by an Old Testament god. The American Indians were the “new Canaanites” in America’s “Promised Land.” It was the divine mission of the Puritans to convert these “Canaanites” to Christianity. If that failed, it was acceptable to slaughter them in the name of Christ.
“God laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven,” declared Captain John Mason as he went about slaughtering the Pequot Indian tribe in 1637. “Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies.” “Sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents,” added Captain John Underhill. “We have sufficient light from the Word of God for our proceedings.” In other words, the Puritans referenced the Bible for genocidal inspiration, just as the Zionists and the Christian Zionists reference it today.
Within two hundred years John Winthrop’s New Israel became John L. O’Sullivan’s Manifest Destiny. It contained similar evangelical Christian underpinnings. “It had a future that was destined by God to expand its borders, with no limit to area or country. All the traveling and expansion were part of the spirit of Manifest Destiny, a belief that it was God’s will that Americans spread over the entire continent, and to control and populate the country as they see fit. Many expansionists conceived God as having the power to sustain and guide human destiny,” notes Michael T. Lubragge. Manifest Destiny seized the Puritan notion of establishing a “city on a hill” and injected it with ideological and religious steroids. And like the Puritans, adherents of Manifest Destiny had no problem eliminating those who stood in their way — namely Indians.
According to O’Sullivan, a democratic leader and influential editor, the unhindered imperialist expansion of European white people over native American land was “right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth.” Soon after O’Sullivan uttered these words, the United States declared war on Mexico and proceeded to grab much of what is now the Southwestern United States.
William E. Channing, in a letter to Henry Clay in 1837, wrote that “the Indians have melted before the white man, and the mixed, degraded race of Mexico must melt before the Anglo-Saxon. Away with this vile sophistry! There is no necessity for crime. There is no fate to justify rapacious nations, any more than to justify gamblers and robbers, in plunder. We boast of the progress of society, and this progress consists in the substitution of reason and moral principle for the sway of brute force.”
So powerful was the “sway of brute force” mingled with religious fanaticism in the name of empire that Albert T. Beveridge stood before the Senate and proclaimed: “God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Tectonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns… He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples.” If you edit out the overt racism and over-the-top religiosity from the above statement it sounds close to something a neocon sociopath told the Wall Street Journal last week. It’s a “clash of civilizations” driving the neocon war against the Third World, the idea that our everybody on the planet should have “democracy” forced on them at gunpoint. No doubt Albert T. Beveridge would nod his head in agreement if he were alive today.
Chronic Wrongdoing in the Empire
But it wasn’t strictly the American West and Mexico where Manifest Destiny came into destructive play. The US intervened militarily in Puerto Rico (1824), Nicaragua (1857 and 1860), and in the province of Panama (1860). In 1898, President McKinley used the accidental explosion aboard the US battleship Maine in Havana harbor as a pretext to launch the Spanish-American war and invade and occupy Cuba.
“Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be indifferent,” declared McKinley as Admiral Dewey destroyed Spain’s Pacific fleet at Cavite, in the Philippines. The “annexation” of the Philippines resulted in 200,000 civilian dead and nearly fifty years of US colonialism. “Whatever a man feels or thinks or does, there is never any but one reason for it — and that is a selfish one,” wrote Mark Twain of the invasion and occupation of the Philippines.
“Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the US, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power,” said President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. In other words, the United States felt compelled to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela.
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1905 declared the United States to be the policeman of the Caribbean. That same year the Dominican Republic was placed under a customs receivership, i.e., the US would run its affairs and decide what particular sociopath would act as its unelected leader, so long as he knew how the treat the locals when they revolted, as they did on occasion. So feverish was the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that when the Mexicans refused to salute the US flag, a battleship shelled Veracruz and Marines invaded part of the city.
American Sociopaths: Serving Other Imperatives
And so US sociopaths behaved for most of the 20th century. “The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives,” writes William Blum (a lack of moral sense is a key attribute of clinical sociopathy). As the meticulous research of Blum demonstrates, the United States intervened covertly and overtly in:
China (1945-49)
Italy (1947-48)
Greece (1947-49 and 1964-74)
the Philippines (1945-53)
South Korea (1945-53)
Albania (1949-53)
Iran (1953)
Guatemala (1953-1990s)
the Middle East (1956-58)
Indonesia (1957-58 and 1965)
British Guiana/Guyana (1953-64)
Vietnam (1950-73), Cambodia (1955-73)
the Congo/Zaire (1960-65)
Brazil (1961-64)
the Dominican Republic (1963-66)
Cuba (1959 to present)
Chile (1964-73)
East Timor (1975 to present)
Nicaragua (1978-89)
Grenada (1979-84)
Libya (1981-89)
Panama (1989)
Iraq (1990s and 2003)
Afghanistan (1979-92 and 2001 to the present),
El Salvador (1980-92)
Yugoslavia (1999)
These interventions and covert underminings have resulted in numerous military coups, countless tortures, disappearances, mass starvation, assassinations, and literally millions of dead people all over the world (200,000 in East Timor out of a population of between 600,000 and 700,000; a million in Indonesia; 75,000 in El Salvador; 100,000 in Guatemala; upward to 2 million in Cambodia; 3 million in Vietnam).
Creative Destruction: the Neocon Sociopaths
The Bush neocons are simply the most recent and some would argue to most vicious and ideologically demented of a long line of American sociopaths serving empire and pathologically selfish personal interests. While an earlier sociopath, Albert T. Beveridge, believed the Judeo-Christian god “has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns,” present day neocon sociopath Michael Ledeen has embraced chaos and declares “Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically…”
Ledeen may sincerely believe this form of destruction — the neocon “sway of brute force” in the name of a renewed and updated version of global Manifest Destiny and an Americanized “city on a hill” — may be “creative,” but for thousands of Iraqis and Afghans it is nothing less than merciless barbarism, pernicious mass murder. Spreading between 1000-2000 tons of depleted uranium over the Iraqi countryside is anything but creative — it is a war crime of a nearly unimaginable magnitude, an immeasurably destructive act.
The neocons, of course, are not the only ideological sociopaths on the block. Large organizations of monetary sociopaths — most notably the IMF and World Bank — have no interest in “Christianizing” natives in the Third World, but are as interested in gold — or rather the new financial gold produced through debt — as Columbus and the Conquistadors.
“Debt is an efficient tool,” writes Susan George. “It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms.” Just as sociopaths following the selfish white-only Christian contrivances of Manifest Destiny plotted to strip the Pequot, Narragansetts, the Mohawks, the Pokanoket and many other tribes of their ancestral land, so the sociopaths at the helm of the IMF and World Bank conspire to steal land from the original indigenous peoples of Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. According to UNICEF, 500,000 children per year die because of IMF and World Bank “structural readjustment programs,” the main tool used to gain control of land and natural resources in the Third World. Only a sociopath can sit in an office on Wall Street or in Singapore and not be disturbed by the mass suffering and death caused by these criminal financial policies.
“The United States achieved its present position of strength not by practicing a foreign policy of live and let live, nor by passively waiting for threats to arise, but by actively promoting American principles of governance abroad — democracy, free markets, respect for liberty,” explain the neocon twins Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan. In other words, the United States has consistently employed military force to impose “free markets” and “democracy” — as defined by Wall Street, investment bankers, transnational corporations, the IMF and World Bank — on the Third World. “Support for American principles around the world can be sustained only by the continuing exertion of American influence.”
Resistance to the Imperial Drive of the Neocon Sociopath
As Ken Reiner notes, people need to understand the neocon military/transnational vision of world domination — and soon. If left unchecked, “America will continue its imperial drive, utilizing its World Bank, IMF and WTO to place the entire world under corporate control and into conditions of slavery and colonialism. Concurrently it is uncontrollably on a path that will irreversibly destroy the environment and the lives of billions of helpless peoples throughout the world.”
In small ways, resistance to the master plan of the neocon sociopaths and the transnational corporations they work for is growing. For instance, on September 12, workers and farmers in Bangalore, India, destroyed a greenhouse at a research facility belonging to St. Louis-based Monsanto, which sells genetically modified seeds. “We timed the attack to draw the attention of those attending the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico,” said M.D. Nanjundaswamy, president of the Karnataka State Farmers Association, an organization opposed to the introduction of genetically altered cotton seeds in India, saying they are environmentally hazardous and could contaminate the genes of native varieties through cross pollination.
From the Zapatista movement in Mexico to Sin Tierra in Brazil, to peasant movements in India and beyond, there is a growing activism in opposition to the inhumane neoliberal schemes of the neocons. Bush may attempt to attack these movements by clamping down on humanitarian NGOs — who often work side by side with peasant groups — but his efforts are destined to failure.
Resistance is growing exponentially and eventually through patience and persistence the reign of the American sociopath may one day come to an end. Hopefully this will happen before the clique of neocon sociopaths in Washington — espousing their own high-tech version of Manifest Destiny — completely destroy the planet’s already damaged biosphere.
Kurt Nimmo is a photographer, multimedia artist and writer living in New Mexico. To see his photo work and read more of his essays, visit his excellent “Another Day in the Empire†weblog: http://www.drmenlo.com/nimmo/
Frank
laura, this was my remark below in here regarding this woman. Do you want to apologize now or later for accusing me of applauding the treatment of this woman?
“If the claims are actually true, then I agree that that the treatment of this woman was unwarranted and the PD should be investigated.”
(Edited by Latina Lista moderator)
Liquidmicro
“IS this what you truly want to support. All this hate will only destroy you. You will be the one that suffers most.
~~
Supporters of the San Diego Minutemen held signs that said things like:”
You confuse my beliefs and opinions with that of groups that you associate as being on my side. You believe because they advocate something one way that those of us who advocate the same thing to a degree are all “guilty by association”? And you wonder why this situation has been stalled.
You deem us as hateful, by your own convictions. You refuse to understand our points of view and ‘condemn’ us to hell. I merely point out the actual situations and what the laws state. I have no problems with you guys having bleeding hearts, it’s good to know, however do not condemn those of us who don’t.
“Sadists like the policemen who abused this mother.”
How was this ‘mother’ abused by a police officer? She was treated no differently than any other detainee. Instead of arguing for just this one woman, how about then arguing for all women incarcerated in the position of giving birth and treated just like this. You condemn the officer unjustly for merely doing his job, but because he didn’t live up to your moral wish, he is a ‘Sadist’?
“LOOK AT THIS WOMAN”S FACE AND TELL ME SHE IS NOT A NATIVE AMERICAN.
Mexicans are American Indians – It’s the Border that is Illegal”
Back to his again. I asked before: How long must one live in an area to be deemed “Indigenous”? Even those in Europe are migrants, dating back 40,000 + years ago. The world became populated due to migration, no matter how long ago.
For the USA and your argument of “Mound Builders”, what of those that were “Mound Builders” from Europe dating back to before the “Mound Builders” of the USA? Could they be related? What of the White skinned mummies found in the Utah and Nevada caves, carbon dating them back to the time of the Bearing Straight? Could they be my ancestors therefor deeming me and the White Anglos as “Indigenous” as well on this continent? What of the Chinese who discovered the Coast of California in 498 AD. Should they also be considered “Indigenous” to this Continent? What about the Vikings who founded the east coast in 1000 AD?
I ask again, how long must one live in an area to be considered “Indigenous” to that area? How can one then claim the entire continent when they merely passed through and settled where they ended up or there last known final location?
Evelyn
do you think the German police in 1940 would have shackled a Jewish woman in labor to the hospital bed by her wrist and ankle? Do you think they would have let an – armed – male guard watch her as she was changing?”
They would have actually watched her undress, took her belongings, forced her into the shower area with everybody else, and then gassed and killed her. No need for shackles.
“Do you think they would have kept her feet shackled after childbirth when she went to the bathroom so she couldn’t clean herself?”
She was able to use the restroom to clean herself, shackles only slowed her trip to the john. Did she need to put her legs behind her head to clean or did she need to squat over the bowl to do it with a wet towlett? Shackles allow for movement.
She was treated no different than any other detainee. But, since you like Nazi Germany so much, maybe we should begin to do what you instill up on us, treat them as the Jews were. After all you are for equality right.
E
(Edited by Latina Lista moderator)
Liquidmicro
Wow Evelyn, your whole rebuttle was deleted, I guess so much for civility on your side.
Since you, Laura, and Alex all feel that myself, Frank, Horace, Grandma, Cayla, Eric, Yeahman, Jill, Magyart are all guilty by association of the minutemen and various other groups such as the KKK, etc, and that we are racist.
Are we to believe that you guys all want cheap slave labor and to be called mass’er? Are we to believe that your greed wares the mask of morality based on your accusations of us and the fact that big business and corporations are on your side wanting cheap labor?
Why don’t you guys try arguing the points made with facts vs. spouting ‘racist’, ‘sadist’, and various other forms of vulgarity. Most of all, quit arguing with others opinions, you don’t need to post an entire article, try posting just the relevant or pertenant information.
Laura, you are aware that you are offending the Holocaust survivors and the German peoples by comparing Nazi Germany to what is happening today to the “Illegal Immigrants”, if you are not aware of this, maybe you should be.
Evelyn
IS this what you truly want to support. All this hate will only destroy you. You will be the one that suffers most.
~~
Supporters of the San Diego Minutemen held signs that said things like:”
You confuse my beliefs and opinions with that of groups that you associate as being on my side. You believe because they advocate something one way that those of us who advocate the same thing to a degree are all “guilty by association”? And you wonder why this situation has been stalled.
E
When someone thinks it’s OK for people like themselves to immigrate to the U.S. but if the people immigrating are not like them and because of this, should be rejected,(and they conjure up all kinds of lies as to why they should be rejected,) that is racism.
To treat “them” as equal to “us” is to be patriotic and American, as that is what this country is supposedly founded on. Justice and equality.
~~~
You deem us as hateful, by your own convictions.
E
It’s not just me. Many people and organizations can see the racism. When people want to exclude “others” because they do not like “them,” that is racism and racism is hateful and unacceptable among other things.
~~~
You refuse to understand our points of view and ‘condemn’ us to hell.
E
I understand your point perfectly. You want to exclude immigrants especially Mexicans and Hispanics from becoming legal or citizens, like your ancestors did.
You make up lies that demonize them to further your agenda because you dont have a leg to stand on.
It’s been done over and over throughout Americas history and the racists have never prevailed. I will add an article following this one that addresses that issue.
I do not have the power to condemn you to hell only your actions do. I can only warn or remind you when I see those actions. That is according to your Bible.
~~~
I merely point out the actual situations and what the laws state. I have no problems with you guys having bleeding hearts, it’s good to know, however do not condemn those of us who don’t.
E
I dont condemn those who dont have a “bleeding hearts” as you put it, psychiatrists do. I only reprint what they publish.
~~~
“Sadists like the policemen who abused this mother.”
How was this ‘mother’ abused by a police officer? She was treated no differently than any other detainee. Instead of arguing for just this one woman, how about then arguing for all women incarcerated in the position of giving birth and treated just like this. You condemn the officer unjustly for merely doing his job, but because he didn’t live up to your moral wish, he is a ‘Sadist’?
E
I never used the word ‘sadist,’ I would have called him an ignorant racists. Ignorant because he didnt understand the law. Racist because of his actions.
According to ICE’s own definition of the 287(g):
What is the program designed to do?
The 287(g) program is designed to enable state and local law enforcement personnel, incidental to a lawful arrest and during the course of their normal duties, to question and detain individuals for potential removal from the United States , if these individuals are identified as undocumented illegal aliens and they are suspected of committing a state crime.
What is the program not designed to do?
The 287(g) program is not designed to allow state and local agencies to perform random street operations. It is not designed to impact issues such as excessive occupancy and day laborer activities. In outlining the program, ICE representatives have repeatedly emphasized that it is designed to identify individuals for potential removal, who pose a threat to public safety, as a result of an arrest and /or conviction for state crimes. It does not impact traffic offenses such as driving without a license unless the offense leads to an arrest.
As stated earlier, Villegas DeLaPaz didn’t have a valid driver’s license but she did have two other pieces of documentation that should have sufficed and garnered her only a written citation: a valid vehicle registration sticker and a consulate photo identification.
With these two pieces of documentation, it should have been enough to let her go with a citation, especially since the officers saw her advanced stages of pregnancy. Yet, in this climate of zero tolerance and zero common sense, they chose to use her lack of a driver’s license as cause to arrest her, though 287 (g) guidelines explicitly say the individual should “pose a threat to public safety” and “does not impact traffic offenses such as driving without a license
~~~
“LOOK AT THIS WOMAN”S FACE AND TELL ME SHE IS NOT A NATIVE AMERICAN.
Mexicans are American Indians – It’s the Border that is Illegal”
Back to his again. I asked before: How long must one live in an area to be deemed “Indigenous”? Even those in Europe are migrants, dating back 40,000 + years ago. The world became populated due to migration, no matter how long ago.
E
Trying to spin the meaning of the word indigenous as used to describe people will not change it’s meaning.
From Wikipedia
The term indigenous peoples or autochthonous peoples can be used to describe any ethnic group who inhabit the geographic region with which they have the earliest historical connection
first peoples
~~~~
For the USA and your argument of “Mound Builders”, what of those that were “Mound Builders” from Europe dating back to before the “Mound Builders” of the USA? Could they be related? What of the White skinned mummies found in the Utah and Nevada caves, carbon dating them back to the time of the Bearing Straight? Could they be my ancestors therefor deeming me and the White Anglos as “Indigenous” as well on this continent? What of the Chinese who discovered the Coast of California in 498 AD. Should they also be considered “Indigenous” to this Continent? What about the Vikings who founded the east coast in 1000 AD?
E
I dont think any of those peoples ever stayed to become indigenous. If they would have stayed we would all know. Like I said trying to spin indigenous to include people who maybe only visited this land is comparable to the lies made up to try and demonize the immigrants. That is how one can tell people who are affiliated with the various hate groups/ SOS, minuteKLAN, all of you have the same argument that makes no sence and everyone is ashamed to admit they belong to those hate groups.
~~~
I ask again, how long must one live in an area to be considered “Indigenous” to that area? How can one then claim the entire continent when they merely passed through and settled where they ended up or there last known final location?
E
It is not a matter of time but a matter of who was first and who stayed. Native Americans believe they originated here and have been here forever. Many theories have been offered as to how they got here but none have been proven.
The entire continent is claimed because the entire continent was inhabited by the Native Americans. They didnt just live in one area. Like the indigenous people of Australia better known as Aboriginal people. They are free to travel all over Australia because they lived all over Australia.
Alex
Liquidmicro, your comparison is wrong, all of us who see the human tragedy on human beings persecuted and antagonized for not being able to afford to have proper papers to work and sustain their families here, do not want their cheap labor. If so, we would like them be remain in the shadows. Actually, we want them out of the shadows. They’ve been here long enough and worked under terrible circumstances that it is human and christian to recognize that they deserve the chance to stay here, working with dignity and without fear of being separated from their families. Is that difficult to understand?
Evelyn
Wow Evelyn, your whole rebuttle was deleted, I guess so much for civility on your side.
E
My rebuttal consisted of about 10 words.
I dont know why my rebuttal was deleted.
I still dont see anything wrong with suggesting people who like living in those circumstances which you describe are free to go live in China, where those practices are widely accepted, instead of trying to change the way we live in the U.S. are dispicable enough to be deleted.
Marisa, Liquid wants to know why my post was deleted. Would you like to explain? Lets see if we get a response liquid.
Oh, I know, I bet it was the way I worded it. I cant remember but maybe it had the word racist in it.
Some people are like Lou Lies, they practice racism and swear up and down they are not racist. LOL!
I have never called anyone a name that they havent called me first. I take the same name and reverse it to the sender.
The only names I do call some people are ignorant and racist because I dont know of another name to call a person who practices racism. Racism is bred by ignorance.
For a year I have been involved in a class on how to aggressively fight racism.
The first action is if one finds racist speech or actions confront the person and let them know his actions or speech are racist. If that doesent deter the person refer to him as racist to make him aware of his racism at all times.
Horace
“Please reread the post, I said that the 287(g) program should be suspended at THAT police department.”
Stop trying to con us Marisa, as it’s pretty plain from your posts that you are dead set against states and cities cooperating with the federal government on enforcing immigration laws.
Evelyn
Are we to believe that you guys all want cheap slave labor and to be called mass’er? Are we to believe that your greed wares the mask of morality based on your accusations of us and the fact that big business and corporations are on your side wanting cheap labor?
Why don’t you guys try arguing the points made with facts vs. spouting ‘racist’, ‘sadist’, and various other forms of vulgarity. Most of all, quit arguing with others opinions, you don’t need to post an entire article, try posting just the relevant or pertenant information.
Laura, you are aware that you are offending the Holocaust survivors and the German peoples by comparing Nazi Germany to what is happening today to the “Illegal Immigrants”, if you are not aware of this, maybe you should be.
E
If you dislike vulgarity dont participate in vulgar behavior(racism).
What makes you think we need your openion or going to listen to what when where how who or why we SHOULD do things by your standards.
This is not China. You are just another little man among many. Could it be the truth irks you. BTW all the spin you added to this post could have been used to tell the truth and make your posts more credible. That is why I ignore most of your posts, wayyy tooo much gibberish!
laura
“Liquidmicro”, you say:
“Laura, you are aware that you are offending the Holocaust survivors and the German peoples by comparing Nazi Germany to what is happening today to the “Illegal Immigrants”, if you are not aware of this, maybe you should be.”
In fact, it is the large mainstream Jewish organizations themselves who are drawing the analogy between hate speech and hate crimes committed here today against Latina/os – and the violence of state organs like ICE against out-of-status migrants – with Nazi Germany. That is why they are calling for a stop to anti-Latina/o violence.
It is Jewish people who have the clearest awareness of history, and how history is repeating itself, here in the U.S.A., today.
Liquidmicro
I read no analogies from Jewish organizations equating Illegal Immigrants to what they endured during the Holocaust. The AJC is for the following:
In 2001, the American Jewish Committee reaffirmed its commitment to “fair and
generous immigration policies, as fundamentally good for the United States and consistent
with Jewish values.†At the same time, AJC stated that it is “committed more than ever to
the need to increase the security of our nation’s borders and to better incorporate
newcomers into American society and culture.†Specifically, with respect to security
concerns, AJC emphasized the need for “improvements in the system that tracks foreign
nationals who enter and leave the U.S.†and “improved enforcement of applicable laws for
those who overstay their visas.â€
As the national debate on immigration has continued to heat up, AJC has endorsed
a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that joins enforcement with a path to
legalization, and ultimately citizenship, for the undocumented, as well as a “more flexible
temporary visa program that provides participants an opportunity for earned legalization
and that realistically reflects our [nation’s labor] needs.â€
They are advocating CIR based on “welcoming strangers”, at no point have I read were any Jewish organization has compared there plight with Nazi Germany with that of the “Illegal Immigrants”. I believe you are assuming what you are saying, prove your statement.
Liquidmicro
“To treat “them” as equal to “us” is to be patriotic and American, as that is what this country is supposedly founded on. Justice and equality.”
Are they not treated like ourselves? They have broken the law and are being punished for it just as I would think any of us would be. For their crime, the punishment is repatriation. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
“I understand your point perfectly. You want to exclude immigrants especially Mexicans and Hispanics from becoming legal or citizens, like your ancestors did.
You make up lies that demonize them to further your agenda because you dont have a leg to stand on.
It’s been done over and over throughout Americas history and the racists have never prevailed. I will add an article following this one that addresses that issue.
I do not have the power to condemn you to hell only your actions do. I can only warn or remind you when I see those actions. That is according to your Bible.”
Like I said, you don’t understand our views. The visa system was put in place for a reason, to protect the rights of those using it. Those not using it are then treated as they are now, slaves. Until you can begin to fathom the many different aspects of this debate, you are but an ant lost in the grass.
“As stated earlier, Villegas DeLaPaz didn’t have a valid driver’s license but she did have two other pieces of documentation that should have sufficed and garnered her only a written citation: a valid vehicle registration sticker and a consulate photo identification.
With these two pieces of documentation, it should have been enough to let her go with a citation.”
The officer ran her name from the Matricular Card, what came up warranted her arrest. A deportation from 1996, thusly making her a “Federal Criminal”. I simply print the laws that you deem racism.
I didn’t spin “Indigenous” I simply asked questions of it. Now, since you claim I or we belong to so called hate groups, please provide evidence of this or is it that you are making assumptions of it? My beliefs are my beliefs, I belong to no group. I have determined from articles and reports that I have read, to believe the way I do.
I can go on and on rebutting everything you say with documents and proof, yet you have given only articles of opinions.
Your rebuttal being deleted for having the word racist? Hell, every post you have has the word racist in it, yet none of them are deleted.
I don’t really care whether or not you think you need my opinion or that you don’t, yet here is my opinion anyway. For the truth irking me…. thats hilarious, nothing you have posted has deterred me or any others from believing our truths. You only think your statements are truth, just like I think mine are. What makes your standards any different then mine?
Frank
Evelyn, that is a bald faced lie! You are the one who has called myself, liquid, Horace, etc. racists FIRST in here and you repeat it over and over with just about every post. And you have the nerve to call us liars?
Liquidmicro
E
I never used the word ‘sadist,’ I would have called him an ignorant racists. Ignorant because he didnt understand the law. Racist because of his actions.
Your right, Laura used the word ‘sadist’. Now, i call you ignorant because you don’t understand the law, Racist because you think just because she was arrested the officer was wrong.
Learn what the law in Tennessee is. Wait, I already provided it. So you see, she was arrested in direct accordance with the 287(g) program because her previous deportation warranted arrest along with driving without a license. Your ignorance only shows your ignorance.
E
“all the spin you added to this post could have been used to tell the truth and make your posts more credible. That is why I ignore most of your posts, wayyy tooo much gibberish!”
Yet you responded to them. I did tell the truth as you have yet to disprove anything I have said about what happened to this woman. Seems the only person here doing the ‘spin’ is you.
Horace
“Liquidmicro, your comparison is wrong, all of us who see the human tragedy on human beings persecuted and antagonized for not being able to afford to have proper papers to work and sustain their families here, do not want their cheap labor. If so, we would like them be remain in the shadows. Actually, we want them out of the shadows. They’ve been here long enough and worked under terrible circumstances that it is human and christian to recognize that they deserve the chance to stay here, working with dignity and without fear of being separated from their families. Is that difficult to understand?”
It isn’t a matter of affording the “proper papers”, but the threat these people pose as catalysts for a burgeoning welfare system. When, due to their poor educations and lack of skills, they will eventually be directed to our extremely costly economic subsidies, and cost the taxpayers billions in an effort to bring them above subsistance survival levels. Hispanics, being at the lower level economic scale, but above the poverty level, will curse your misguided efforts to bring these people into the fold. Higher taxes, and competition between birthright and amnestied illegal aliens for scarce social support resources will eventually cause internal strife between Latinos themselves. One cannot adopt 12 million poor without our nation suffering from the effort. Your children and mine will see the repercussions from this for decades to come. Feeling sorry for the plight of foreigners is a human phenomenon, but don’t expect it to be painless. There are billions of foreigners to feel sorry for, but sacrificing our way of life to make theirs better is one scrifice I want no part of.
Horace
Frankly, Laura, I don’t think that Jews are the best judges of what should be a logical argument based upon solid socioeconomic costs to the the people of this nation. Its like asking a woman who’s the victim of rape how her sex life is.
cayla
Evelyn,
Our Government is not alway in the right, particularly when it comes to covert actions that are completely hidden from the people. However, I really feel that you despise the US on a level that gos perhaps as deep as that of those who attacked us on 9-11. I am also willing to bet that while we shook with rage, you celebrated. If you hate this country so deeply, nobody is forcing you to stay. Go find a country you can love and respect.
Anybody who is in police custody while delivering a child is treated in the same manner described above. Is it the way you dream of bringing a child into the world? Of course it isn’t. If she would have stayed on the right side of the law, she would have had a joy filled birth with family and friends present. This was not the case, she KNEW she had a warrant out. She made her choices and took a gamble and lost. That is often what happens when you gamble with the law.
cayla
According to some here, because I have stated that what happened to this woman was standard operating procedure, I am a racist. Nobody here knows me, nor anything about me. I am married to a legal immigrant. Although I can trace my families roots back to the Mayflower herself, in order to sponsor my husband I had to give up many of the rights that those here illegally are demanding to have. I am not against any race, only those who are here illegally. My sons godfather was born in Mexico. He is a legal immigrant, just like my husband. I would say Vic is on my 10 most admired people list. I think it is unfair and inhumane to those who went through all the legal BS to come here legally when those who ignored our laws are given special rights and privileges that they do not have. It is a mockery and slap in the face to all of those who waited for years, paid the fees, suffered the humiliation of immigration interviews to have their status cheapened by those who have not gone through the system. Can anybody here give me any real logical explanation why those here illegally should be put on a higher playing field than the immigrants who followed our laws? I am listening.
Liquidmicro
Barry Carter – Carter synthesized the Mass Privatization trend — an evolving virtual networked organizing system for the knowledge era, based upon ownership of specific work by the individual performing it. He is the founding partner of WinWinWorld Network, a global Mass Privatization community of interconnected owning partners and organizations with the mission of expanding the Mass Privatization paradigm, thus helping introduce win/win wealth creation and usher in the “Win/Win Era.”
http://www.indigenousway.net/categories/6/the_book_infinite_wealth.html
http://futurepositive.synearth.net/stories/storyReader$14
He’s nothing more than a Globalist using the worker as a commodity to earn a profit.
Now you can’t really think and believe this guy. He latches on to what ever to further his agenda. And you call this ‘truth’, my, my.
Evelyn Chavez
cayla
I find it hard to believe that someone who would say this,
“Our Government is not alway in the right, particularly when it comes to covert actions that are completely hidden from the people.”
could then turn around and say this,
“However, I really feel that you despise the US on a level that gos perhaps as deep as that of those who attacked us on 9-11. I am also willing to bet that while we shook with rage, you celebrated. If you hate this country so deeply, nobody is forcing you to stay. Go find a country you can love and respect.”
without suffering a mental disorder called split personality.
The fact that you tried to demonize me for showing the truth about Americas whitewashed history instead of saying it is wrong, or a lie, or trying to debate certain issues it points out that you can prove are incorrect, you refocused on the fact that I had posted it and proceeded to demonize me. Why?
Could it be you still wish to keep the truth hidden? Why?
Does it prove that people who dont want the same treatment for today’s immigrants afforded to immigrants that came from Europe. That would be equality and justice of which I am a adamant defender.
You ask “Can anybody here give me any real logical explanation why those here illegally should be put on a higher playing field than the immigrants who followed our laws? I am listening.”
Because you seem to be so well informed about immigration laws what playing field does a 22 year old Mexican girl I know have to apply at to come here legally like your husband did? Where does she apply? To what agency does she go? I am anxiously awaiting your answer!
Liquidmicro
E
I dont think any of those peoples ever stayed to become indigenous. If they would have stayed we would all know. Like I said trying to spin indigenous to include people who maybe only visited this land is comparable to the lies made up to try and demonize the immigrants.
…
What if those people simply failed to procreate? What if they were wiped out due to waring neighbors? Don’t we know they were here from what they left behind? I have not demonized anybody as of yet, let alone “Illegal Immigrants”
~~~~
E
It is not a matter of time but a matter of who was first and who stayed. Native Americans believe they originated here and have been here forever. Many theories have been offered as to how they got here but none have been proven.
…
During the Pre-Columbian times, the peoples of the time were no longer nomadic peoples, they were for the most part civilized. Living and building major cities and laying claim to territories. Mesoamerica is the perfect example of it. The Indigenous of now Mexico were there, living and building in that area prior to Spanish arrival. The Indigenous of North America were living more from a nomadic lifestyle as they sometimes moved with the seasons.
Many pre-Columbian civilizations of North America established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies.
As for proving theories of arrival, you might look to mtDNA. It supports the theory of multiple genetic founding populations migrating from Asia. Look to Tierra del Fuego and the Luzia skeleton, or Kenewick Man in North America. Luzia being of Austalin Aboriginy and Kenewick; the skull, which some experts say appears distinctively different from the typical skull shape of modern Native Americans. These prove there where others here, they may not have survived or they may have been blended into the newer arrivals.
Now, if these peoples you are claiming as Indigenous to the continent were living in what is now Mexico, and have for hundreds of years, why should they then be allowed to migrate when there ancestors set down roots and set up there own territories where they did? Do they only do it now because it is economically feasible for them?
Evelyn Chavez
cayla said
“I can trace my families roots back to the Mayflower herself.”
Are Illegal Immigrants Criminals? Not!
by Ken Schoolland, Posted July 15, 2005
I hear it from some of the nicest people one would ever meet. Some dear friends of mine, whom I respect very much, say that all illegal immigrants are criminals because they broke the laws that control who may come into this country. And since these immigrants are criminals, we don’t want that kind of person here.
Such accusations confuse what is legal with what is moral. American history is filled with people who broke unjust laws and were morally justified in doing so.
The American Revolution was fought by men and women who broke the laws of England and of King George III. Had they been arrested, they would have been hanged for treason to the Crown. If breaking the law makes one a criminal, then the Founding Fathers were all criminals. But no one still believes that today.
Dred Scott and thousands of other slaves defied the Fugitive Slave Act and ran away, “stealing themselves†from Southern plantation masters in the early and mid 1800s. Those who were arrested were returned to their slave “owners,†and anyone found trying to help them escape to Canada was prosecuted as well.
Many juries exercised jury nullification. Declaring that the law was unjust, juries often refused to convict participants in the Underground Railroad. No one today would claim that a runaway slave was a criminal.
In the 1930s there were hundreds of Jews who came to American shores aboard the SS St. Louis, forcibly rejected under the guise of immigration quotas, many of whom ultimately perished in Hitler’s concentration camps. Countless potential immigrants watched in desperate disappointment.
But suppose those passengers had defied immigration law and jumped ship in Miami harbor. Would anyone today call them criminals? I think not. Indeed, those who returned Jews to their persecutors might be considered guilty of collaborating with villainy — albeit legal villainy.
Treasures of the earth
It may be illegal for people to seek freedom and opportunity in this country, but it isn’t immoral. I admire the courage of immigrants who leave all that is familiar to them, risking life and limb on stormy seas and deadly deserts, in order to move to a strange land where everything is unfamiliar and potentially hostile.
Most of our ancestors moved for freedom and opportunity, and we are the beneficiaries. Thank God they weren’t arrested and sent packing, as were violators of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Indeed, we might wonder whether we could have mustered the same measure of courage if we had been in their shoes.
In the first case, many immigrants are great entrepreneurs who offer jobs to Americans. Other immigrants take jobs, but they never “take†jobs that are not willingly offered to them by eager employers.
I often ask audiences, “Suppose you are an employer and you know only one thing about two job applicants in front of you: one is native-born and the other is an immigrant. Whom would you expect to be the harder worker?†Audiences overwhelmingly favor the immigrant. Why? Americans are surely good workers. But the very act of migration is seen as proof of vigor, ambition, determination, and courageous self-reliance.
Americans have a moral right to make these choices for themselves — as employees and as employers. Says Robert W. Tracinski, a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute,
The irrational premise behind our nation’s immigration laws is that a native-born American has a “right†to a particular job, not because he has earned it, but because he was born here. To this “right,†the law sacrifices the employer’s right to hire the best employees — and the immigrant’s right to take a job that he deserves. To put it succinctly, initiative and productiveness are sacrificed to sloth and inertia.
The “American dream†is essentially the freedom of each individual to rise as far as his abilities take him. The opponents of immigration, however, want to repudiate that vision by turning America into a privileged preserve for those who want the law to set aside jobs for them — jobs they cannot freely earn through their own efforts…. Any immigrant who wants to come to America in search of a better life should be let in — and any employer who wants to hire him should be free to do so.
To the legalist, however, who places law above moral right, the employer who hires as he pleases is a criminal. The legalist wants stricter penalties against employers who defy state mandates on hiring. He fails to see that violations of certain laws can be illegal but not immoral.
Welfare magnet?
But what of the immigrant who takes welfare? Isn’t this a burden on society that must be stopped?
Yes, it is. But politically powerless newcomers are no more responsible for the welfare system in this country than they are responsible for the tyranny and corruption in the country that they are fleeing. Okay, stop the flow of welfare, but at the same time remove the plethora of (anti-)labor laws that make it difficult for newcomers to be hired.
It is wrong to assume that most immigrants come to America to get on the welfare gravy train. If this were true, then immigrants would be moving away from states with the lowest welfare and into states with the highest welfare.
My research (The Journal of Private Enterprise, spring 2004) demonstrates that the opposite is true. In overwhelming numbers, both the native-born population and the foreign-born population through the decade of the 1990s moved away from states with the highest welfare and into states with the lowest welfare. While there are some high-profile exceptions, most immigrants seek opportunity, not welfare.
The brilliant economist Julian Simon demonstrated that immigrants are a great source of productivity and economic growth. They always have been.
Moral principles
Governments do not decide morality. Governments behave morally when upholding moral action and behave immorally when suppressing moral action. Morality is based on principles far more constant and profound than the variant whims of majority votes.
The people who understood this best were those rebels who defied the law of the day to pen these words:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
To George Washington this meant,
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions, whom we should welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges.
Ken Schoolland is an associate professor of economics and political science at Hawaii Pacific University and a member of the board of directors for the International Society for Individual Liberty.
Evelyn Patrick
Horace said:
. One cannot adopt 12 million poor without our nation suffering from the effort. Your children and mine will see the repercussions from this for decades to come. Feeling sorry for the plight of foreigners is a human phenomenon, but don’t expect it to be painless. There are billions of foreigners to feel sorry for, but sacrificing our way of life to make theirs better is one scrifice I want no part of.
E
Because the 12 million people you speak of are already here and have been for some time, as least more than five years. Show me proof, credible proof that what you say is true and not just more BS.
laura
Dear Cayla,
you say: “I am married to a legal immigrant. Although I can trace my families roots back to the Mayflower herself, in order to sponsor my husband I had to give up many of the rights that those here illegally are demanding to have. I am not against any race, only those who are here illegally. My sons godfather was born in Mexico. He is a legal immigrant, just like my husband. I would say Vic is on my 10 most admired people list.”
I am glad for you that your family is happy and that you have a wonderful godfather for your son.
But please consider that other people’s circumstances may be very very different from yours. I would suggest that before you condemn people for leaving their homes, undergoing unspeakable danger and suffering while crossing the US border, and then suffering horrible loneliness, exhausting working conditions, and crippling powerlessness in a place where they don’t understand the language – before you condemn these people, I suggest you learn something about their circumstances. Do you know how the Maya people of Guatemala are forced to live? Do you know what was done to them by US sponsored dictatorships – since a military coup in 1954, directed against a democratically elected president, fostered by the CIA?
Many of the workers taken by ICE, both in the recent raid in Postville, Iowa, and in last year’s raid in New Bedford, Massachusetts, are Maya. Many don’t speak Spanish. They speak a Maya language.
They go through all the suffering to be here because they cannot provide for their families at home. The reason they cannot provide for their children is because their land was taken away from them.
Again, Cayla, you are lucky and I wish you peace to enjoy your blessings. But please do not extrapolate from the options open to your family, to those of the most victimized members of our communities. The workers that were imprisoned in Postville most certainly do not have the option of applying for a work visa, waiting, and coming when the visa is approved. (Not to mention that there are no visas for slaughterhouse workers).
More importantly and tragically for them, they do not have the option of staying at home and providing enough food and clothing for their children right there, where they want to be, with their families in their own home towns.
As I said, it is worth your time and effort to find out about their lives. (You could read one of Rigoberta Menchu’s books, as just one example.)
And please do not pass judgment before you have done so.
Frank
The “Europeans” found undeveloped, untamed land here. There was nothing here in the way of infrastructure or government. There were no roads, bridges, dams, railroads, schools, hospitals. There certainly weren’t any jobs to be had or any welfare social programs.
The “indigenous” aren’t coming here to “walk across the land.” They are coming here to take advantage of our social, economic, and legal system. They are coming for jobs, social services, and tax-payer funded education for their children complete with free breakfasts and lunches! These amenities were NOT waiting for the Europeans who came here centuries ago.
The Mexican Native Americans ALREADY have their own land! It is called MEXICO/CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA! At least 22 countries!
If OUR country was in the same sad condition theirs is, there would be absolutely NO INTEREST on their part in coming here. In fact, I will go as far as to say that if the U.S. was a failed nation, and those South of the border were prosperous they would be doing everything in their power to keep Americans OUT of the Southern countries.
We have immigration laws in our modern day society to protect what we have built and to protect American citizens and so do the Latino countries. Every country has that right!
Catalina
Evelyn stated:
For a year I have been involved in a class on how to aggressively fight racism.
The first action is if one finds racist speech or actions confront the person and let them know his actions or speech are racist. If that doesent deter the person refer to him as racist to make him aware of his racism at all times.
I find your comments very disturbing Evelyn. It seems you are being “trained” to call everyone a “racist” as some sort of tactical maneuver to cow people, or shut people up who do not agree with your views. The degree to which Americans are being called racist continually just because they want our immigration laws enforced is beyond asinine. I feel your class is an attempt to control and manipulate law abiding Americans.
Evelyn
Cayla
I am waiting your response. tic toc tic toc
Evelyn
All the lies you can conjur up in the world dont change facts. Show credible proof “they are coming here to take advantage of our social, economic,”
Who built roads, bridges, dams, railroads, schools, hospitals? The same people doing it today.
People of color.
There weren’t any in Europe either. If there were why would Europeans want to leave such a wonderful place. LOL!
Most all of you minuteKLAN are old. You’re going to have to prepare yourselves for the day CIR is a reality.
U.S. history shows us racists have never had success in stopping immigration of any of the people they hated.
The funny thing is that if some of the lies you tell of immigrants were true, I would probably be on your side.
Everything will go on as usual. Life will be good again. You and those that believe what you do will be forgotten.
Frank
You wouldn’t accept any “truths” about this illegal immigration mess we are in so why even try anymore. You just can’t stand the truth so you call it lies and pull the race card. Your kind are the ones who are going to be in for a rude awakening in the near future and I can hardly wait!
Alessandra
Evelyn, I must disagree with you here.
While “people of color,” particularly African Americans and a very miniscule population of Chinese did contribute to building infrastructure of this country, the majority of the white citizens built most of this country simply because they were the majority population.
The Chinese worked on the railroads, but so did the Irish. The European immigrants who came worked as pile drivers to build the bridges and also worked the steel mills, factories, and the deep mines under deplorable conditions at the turn of the last century. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire comes to mind.
Insinuating that mainly “people of color” were mostly responsible for building the infrastructure in this country is really not accurate. “People of color” were a small minority in the last century.
Evelyn
Frank :
You wouldn’t accept any “truths”
E
You’ve never told any!
~~~
about this illegal immigration mess we are in so why even try anymore.
E
You and your ilk have contributed to the
“immigration mess”
with all the lies and misinformation you keep insinuating.
SHOW US SOME PROOF THAT ANYTHING YOU SAY IS ANYTHING MORE THAN A LIE!!!
~~~
You just can’t stand the truth so you call it lies and pull the race card. Your kind are the ones who are going to be in for a rude awakening in the near future and I can hardly wait!
E
Yeah, keep dreaming.
Frank
There are viable government statistics out there that show that illegal immigration is not a positive for our nation you just choose you believe your biased sources instead.
The immigration mess we are in is due to greedy employers, our government not securing our borders and the illegals who are taking advantage of those two things. Your regular everyday hard working Americans are not responsible for this mess.
Evelyn
Alessandra
It is not your fault you are not aware of the enormous role Hispanics played in the founding and building of America. I chose to reflect only on Hispanics because you left them completely out of your statement.
You also said,
“Insinuating that mainly “people of color” were mostly responsible for building the infrastructure in this country is really not accurate.”
E
Even though I cannot prove this to be true, I do believe it is. Even today on any construction site the people actually doing the work are of color, those standing around with a clip-board in hand are white. Those who do the most dangerous work and suffer the most construction related accidents are of color.
~~~
You said,
“People of color” were a small minority in the last century.”
E
Indians and Hispanics were already here when Europeans arrived. Indians were cheated and forces to give up their homelands or killed.
~~~
Latino-American History, Chapter 5: Even on HBO, ‘The Black Legend’ Lives
Watching the Founding Fathers and their historic creation of a new nation, even in a dramatization, always makes me feel proud to be an American.
But just when I expected “John Adams” to make me feel proud to be a Latino, too, the new HBO miniseries did a huge fast forward, skipping almost the entire Revolutionary War and leaving the contributions of Latinos totally out of the picture.
It doesn’t surprise me. That kind of omission is precisely what history books have been doing for centuries.
Just as I finished writing a column last week, describing how the positive contributions of Hispanics have been omitted from American history, I saw one more huge omission on my TV.
As I explained that such omissions started in 16th-century Europe, part of a deliberate campaign by British and Dutch writers to malign the image of the Spanish and their descendants in the Americas, I saw that such omissions still occur today.
Just as I noted that the unfair and biased depiction of Hispanics was called “The Black Legend” by Spanish writers who protested against the slurs and omissions, I saw “The Black Legend” on my TV.
In this new re-creation of American history, we saw Adams and Benjamin Franklin in Europe trying to raise money for the American Revolution and getting rejected by the Dutch and getting insufficient support from the French. We heard Adams pleading for help for a Revolutionary Army that was on the verge of disintegrating because George Washington’s men were hungry, ill-equipped and hadn’t been paid.
And then suddenly, swish, flash-forward, the British were defeated, and the Revolution was over. Where they got the money to feed and equip Washington’s Army was omitted, as usual.
Incredibly, just like the history books, instead of citing the places where the Founding Fathers found the money to finance their war of independence, the HBO miniseries cited the European places where Adams and Franklin were rejected or offered insufficient assistance.
In fact, most of the money came from Havana — “the Ladies of Havana,” to be precise.
Although it is well-documented, few are the history books that tell us that Washington, known to conduct himself very properly, threw his hat in the air in a rare display of joy when he heard that the money his troops needed had been raised by Cuban and Spanish women who gave up their jewelry to finance America’s freedom.
Few are the American historians who note that within only a few hours, the Cubans raised what is the equivalent of $28 million in today’s money and that American independence was secured with Spanish silver dollars.
Of course, among these absent-minded historians there are exceptions: “That sum collected (by the Ladies of Havana) must be considered as the ground whereon was erected the American independence,” wrote American historian Stephen Bonsal.
There is even an eyewitness description of the moment when Washington’s troops got the news.
As French Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, an American ally, wrote in his memoirs, “The joy was enormous when it was received, the money from Havana: The contribution of 800,000 silver pounds, which helped stop the financial bankruptcy (of the Revolutionary Army) and raised up the moral spirit of the Army that had begun to dissolve.”
Imagine the wonderful scene that would have made in the HBO miniseries. Imagine Washington and his troops receiving food, ammunition and impetus to march on to victory, especially when they read the inscription on the box containing the donation from the Cuban women: “So the American mothers’ sons are not born as slaves.”
Imagine how much more today’s Americans would understand and appreciate their Latino neighbors if they knew this part of American history.
Yet this nearly forgotten event is just one of many crucial periods of history when American historians — prolonging The Black Legend they inherited from their British ancestors — ignored or diminished the role of Latinos in North America, starting with the United States’ war of independence.
Most Americans don’t know that Hispanics fought and died for the very birth of our nation; that the war against the British also was fought by Spaniards, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Venezuelans and Mexicans; or that they won major battles in places such as Mobile, Ala., and Pensacola, Fla. That’s a subject for at least another chapter in this occasional series on Latino contributions to American society.
If HBO had not done a fast forward at such a crucial moment in U.S. history, we would have seen that the money, supplies, ammunition and soldiers that Spain and the Spanish colonies gave to the 13 Colonies was of utmost importance in bringing about the successful conclusion of the American Revolution.
The miniseries “John Adams” still makes me feel proud to be an American. But after filling the gaps in history, I also feel proud to be a Latino.
Evelyn
Hispanic Contributions
Most Americans believe that the history of the United States began at Plymouth Rock in 1620. But our history text books fail to tell us that when the Pilgrims were struggling to maintain their tiny colony, Spanish towns were already growing and flourishing in Florida, the Southwest and Puerto Rico.
Historians have generally ignored the fact that the first European settlement in North America was San Miguel de Gualdape, founded in Georgia in 1526, 81 years before Jamestown, which was settled in 1607. San Miguel de Gualdape survived only about a year because its founder died and its inhabitants were unable to endure some tremendous hardships. One can only imagine how different the history of the U.S. might have been if this first settlement in our country had become successful and permanent.
Everyone knows that Christopher Columbus, under the auspices of the Spanish Crown, came to this continent in 1492. Some of us have heard that Ponce de Leon explored Florida in 1513. Unfortunately, that is about where our history books generally have stopped as far as the Hispanic involvement in the development of this country is concerned.
But let’s put some other historical facts in perspective. We have learned a great deal about the great explorations of this continent by Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone and Zebulum Pike. But how many of us know about the equally great explorations that Hernando de Soto led in 1539 through present-day Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana? After reaching the mouth of the Mississippi River, de Soto’s expedition continued on through Arkansas and Texas until it reached Mexico. Shortly afterwards, another Spaniard, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, led an expedition through the present-day states of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas.
We admire Henry Hudson and John Cabot, both of whom searched for the Northwest Passage, yet almost unrecorded in U.S. history are the exploits of the Spanish pilot, Estéban Gómez, who explored the Eastern seaboard as far north as Maine in 1525, and the Spanish explorers on the West Coast who reached the site of the present-day San Francisco in 1542, Oregon in 1543, and Denver in 1600.
In 1976, we celebrated the Bicentennial of our independence. How many of us know about the role that Hispanics played in helping us win that independence? For starters, King Carlos of Spain granted a credit of one million pounds–a large sum at the time–to the American colonists. The Spanish towns of Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and others paid a special tax, levied by the Spanish Crown, which went to the Continental Congress to support the war effort.
Later, as the morale and financial conditions of the American army fell dangerously low, the colonists sent a representative to seek funds in Cuba. The money needed was collected in five hours from the public treasury and from private citizens in Havana. It was this money that helped finance the Battle of Yorktown, the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War. A footnote to history is that the women of Havana made this collection possible by contributing their jewelry to the cause.
American history books acknowledge French contributions to the American victory over the British, but they virtually ignore the substantial Spanish military and financial contributions. For example, the books say nothing about the Spanish ports in Europe and the Caribbean that were safe havens for harassed American ships. Little has been done to commemorate the 4,000 Spanish soldiers who died as prisoners of war on English prison ships in New York Harbor after being captured while fighting for American independence.
Not until recently was anything said about the Spaniard Bernardo de Galvez, who earned a special place in the history of the United States. Long before war was declared between the Americans and the British, Galvez, who was the Spanish governor of Louisiana Territory, provided the army of General George Washington and General George Rogers Clarke with gunpowder, rifles, bullets, blankets, medicine and supplies. Once Spain entered the war on the side of the Americans in 1779, this dashing young officer raised an army of Spanish and Cuban soldiers, Choctaw Indians and black former slaves, which beat off the British attack in 1780 and gained control of the Mississippi River, thus, frustrating a British plan to encircle the American colonies.
Later, a multinational army of over 7,000 black and white soldiers under General Galvez’s command captured Pensacola, the capital of the British colony of West Florida. An American historian called this battle “a decisive factor in the outcome of the Revolution and one of the most brilliantly executed battles of the war.” Another historian said that Galvez’s campaign broke the British Army’s will to fight just five months before the last battle of the war at Yorktown.
After the war, because of the generous assistance that Galvez gave some Anglo Americans who wanted to settle Texas, they named their city after him, Galveston.
This early dedication to the American cause has continued as Hispanics throughout our history have participated in the defense of the United States.
David Glasgow Farragut, a Hispanic who was the first Admiral of the U.S. Navy, played a decisive role in the final outcome of our Civil War and was credited with the battle cry “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” His father, Jorge Farragut, born in Minorca, Spain, joined the American Colonies in their War of Independence, where he was outstanding, both on the land and on the sea. He also commanded a gunboat during the War of 1812. Every time Jorge filled his hands with soil on his plantation near New Orleans, where he died, he said that he was happy to have dedicated the best years of his life to the freedom of the United States of America.
David, although taken under the care of Commodore David Porter as a young boy, remained fluent in the Spanish language and proud of his Spanish heritage. He saw his first military action at the age of eleven during the War of 1812, when a ship he was on was captured by the British.
Later, during the Civil War, on the Union side, Farragut distinguished himself for his outstanding exploits. For example, a fleet under his command blockaded the South, sailed up the Mississippi River, destroyed rebel ships in New Orleans and bombarded the city until it surrendered to the Union. This accomplishment and his performance during the battles of Port Hudson and Vicksburg earned him Abraham Lincoln’s praises and a promotion to rear admiral. Afterwards, he led the taking of Mobile, for which he was appointed vice admiral and given a hero’s welcome in New York City. After the war, Congress created the title of admiral to honor Farragut more fully.
Several times, Admiral David Farragut visited his father’s birthplace, where he was also treated as a hero. He died in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on August 14, 1870, after almost sixty years of service to the United States of America.
Highlights of other Hispanic contributions in our country’s wars are:
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War of 1812
A battalion of Hispanics from the Canary Islands and New Orleans were among General Andrew Jackson’s troops who defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
Mexican-American War
Captain Juan Sequin and other Hispanic Texans fought at the Alamo against General Santa Anna’s soldiers.
Civil War
In addition to David Farragut, about 10,000 other Hispanics fought in this war, on both sides of the conflict. Among them was Cuban-born Loretta Janet Velasquez, who fought for the Confederacy disguised as a man. Before she was discovered and discharged from the Army, she fought in several battles, including the Battle of Bull Run. Afterwards, she became an effective spy for the South.
On the Union side was Cuban-born Federico Fernandez Cavada, who fought in the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg and was sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Later, he wrote a book about his experiences, participated in Cuba’s 10-Year War and attained the rank of general.
World War II
Over 400,000 Hispanics served in the U.S. armed forces during this war. Twelve were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In August 1995, Secretary of Defense William Perry participated in a ceremony to honor these people, whose acts of heroism under fire were awe inspiring.
Korean War
Thousands of Hispanics served here. The 65th Infantry Regiment, made up of Puerto Ricans, took part in nine major campaigns. Nine Hispanics were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. There was also Colonel Manuel Fernandez of Florida, who became an ACE for shooting down many MIG fighter planes.
Vietnam War
Thousands of Hispanics were involved here, too. Among them was Everett Alvarez, a decorated pilot, who spent eight and a half years as a prisoner of war, the longest confirmed POW of this conflict.
Hispanic representation in the fighting forces in Southeast Asia was double what it was in the civilian population at home. Several earned the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Gulf War
About 25,000 Hispanics served in the U.S. military during this war in 1991.
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Writing in “Hispanic Heritage Month 1996: Hispanics – Challenging the Future,†Army Chaplain (Capt.) Carlos C. Huerta of the 1st Battalion, 79th Field Artillery stated that “Hispanics have always met the challenge of serving the nation with great fervor. In every war, in every battle, on every battlefield, Hispanics have put their lives on the line to protect freedom.”
It should be noted that up to and including the Vietnam War, Hispanics had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor 40 times, far out of proportion to their numerical representation in the civilian population in the United States.
The Hispanic commitment to the defense of this country is undeniable.
Spanish was the first European language spoken in North America, and today, the U.S. is the fifth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. In addition to the names of rivers and mountains, there are 2,000 or more cities and towns in the United States with Spanish names, which appear in every state in the union. The state names of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Montana and Florida are Spanish. Geographical terms, such as arroyo, sierra, canyon and mesa are of Spanish origin, as are meteorological terms such as hurricane and tornado. Many plants in the Southwest have never had a name other than those the Spanish gave them, such as mesquite, chaparral and alamo. Also, Anglo Americans borrowed many terms related to the type of architecture they found in the Southwest, e.g., portal, adobe, ramada, cabana, hacienda, patio and presidio. Many animal and insect names, such coyote, mosquito and jaguar, originated in the Spanish language. And then there are the many words of Spanish origin that have been “naturalized”: vigilante, filibuster, avocado, barbecue, corral, tobacco, vanilla, hammock, cigar, canoe, cougar and tapioca. The lingo of the cowboy, that symbol of American vitality and product of the Mexican vaquero, is directly traceable to the Hispanic original.
Perhaps more important than the potent symbolism of the cowboy is that the Mexican gave birth to the cattle industry of this country. It was the Mexican who took the cattle, sheep and horses, which the Spaniard brought to this continent, and transformed and passed on the concept and art of ranching to the Anglo American. Who can estimate the significance and value of this contribution?
America has been called the “breadbasket” of the world because our grains and produce have fed people throughout the world when they have been unable to feed themselves. But who first made this possible? Have we recognized the original leading role that Hispanics played in this essential area of food production?
Some statistics will help put this subject in perspective. About 80% of the world’s food plants originated in the New World. Of the 112 species of plants found north of Mexico, all but 9 were developed, cultivated and improved in Latin America, of which the potato and corn are probably the most important.
America prides itself in having pioneered the principles of equality of all people, which we commonly trace to the works and pronouncements of Thomas Jefferson. But do we know that 200 years before Jefferson was born, Hispanics were laying the foundation for the legal and moral traditions of the new world? In the mid-1500s, Friar Bartolomeo de las Casas was energetically defending and espousing the dignity and equality of the native inhabitants of North America. Two centuries later, Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California missions, became a pioneer in the fight for human rights for the Native Americans.
While the Spanish were among the Europeans who enslaved Africans, they were different in the following ways: Spanish laws held that slavery was against the laws of nature. Slaves were never merely chattel property. They had the right to personal security and legal recourse against a cruel master. They had the right to hold and transfer property, to initiate legal suits and to buy themselves out of slavery. Although Spanish laws were sometimes ignored, the emphasis on a slave’s humanity and rights made it possible for a significant free black class to exist in the Spanish world. Runaway slaves from English plantations in the Carolinas sought refuge among the Spanish. When the English retaliated by attacking St. Augustine, African Americans fought bravely in its defense. In 1821, when Spain ceded Florida to the U.S., the Spanish community left St. Augustine for Cuba. Most African Americans went with them. Those who stayed behind were relegated to the status of chattel property, losing the opportunity to be free.
The Spanish opened St. Augustine School in 1787, the same year that our Founding Fathers were drafting the U.S. Constitution. This school laid the foundation for integrated public education in the United States. Up until then, education was available only to white children from families that could afford private schools.
St. Augustine School was supported by funds from the royal treasury and was free to all children, including black children.
Hispanics have also influenced the systems of law. For example, the concept of community water rights is derived from the Court of Valencia. This legal basis established the system of water distribution, which played a key role in the economic development of California and the Southwest. The concept of community property in which the wife is considered a partner in wealth and holdings of the family, especially in income and property ownership, is derived from Mexican law. It is interesting that a society often accused of “machismo” would contain this legal precedent when neither Roman nor English common law establishes such rights for women.
In medicine, Dr. Walter Reed is generally credited with originating the theory of yellow fever transmissions by mosquitoes. The truth is that he only confirmed this theory. Carlos Juan Finlay, a modest Cuban physician, was the one who actually originated it. Up until the time that Dr. Finlay began his research into yellow fever, the medical research profession worldwide believed this disease was transmitted through the air or produced by a putrid substance from dead marine organisms. In 1879, Dr. Finlay suspected this theory was wrong and began his research, which lasted two years, after which his findings convinced him that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes. For the next 22 years, American scientists, including Dr. Reed, repeatedly rebuffed Dr. Finlay’s attempts to convince them that his theory was correct. During this period, yellow fever killed more American soldiers than died in the Spanish-American War and claimed the lives of 52,000 French workers constructing the Panama Canal. It wasn’t until 1901 that the North American scientists, following the lead of their colleagues in Mexico, Cuba and Europe, finally confirmed Dr. Finlay’s theory. One can only wonder how many lives would have been saved if more people had listened him earlier.
In 1933, in Dallas, Texas, the world paid homage to Finlay, when leaders of medicine from the Western Hemisphere named December 3, his birthday, as the “Day of American Medicine.”
In the arts, Hispanics have also made lasting contributions. They have influenced Mediterranean and, of course, Spanish-style architecture so popular in the design of many houses. Also, the latest advances in earthquake design have come to us from Mexico City. North American interest in mural art has been stimulated by the Mexican muralists Rivera, Orozco and Siquieros. The works of Whistler and John Singer Sargent were influenced by the master Velasquez.
A contemporary sculptor is Marisol, a U.S. citizen of Venezuelan descent, whose works are on display in many of the world’s great museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Clearly influenced by the art of the Aztecs, Maya and other Indians of Central and South America, her sculptures are a cross between popular and folk art.
American literature has also felt the Hispanic influence. We can remember the “Tales of Alhambra” by Washington Irving. The works of O. Henry have stimulated our imaginations with the stories of the Cisco Kid and Zorro. It has been said that to understand Mark Twain best, you must read Cervantes. The literary ploy of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza is recreated in the relationship between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Ernest Hemingway was obsessed with the virtues and contradictions of Hispanic society and won world recognition in portraying them in “The Sun Also Rises, ” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and the insightful “The Old Man and the Sea.”
A current writer is Pulitzer Prize-winning Oscar Hijuelos, who became a literary star with his novels “Our House is the Lost World” and “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.” His writings reflect his interest in Latin music and are inspired by his uncle, Pedro Tellerina, a member of the Xavier Cugat Orchestra. Hijuelos’ second novel was so popular that it became the basis for a movie, “Mambo Kings,” released in the early 1990s.
In science in 1968, Luis Alvarez won the Nobel Prize for his work with subatomic particles. As a teacher and researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, he helped develop microwave beacons, a ground-controlled landing approach for aircraft, and a new theory for why the dinosaurs became extinct. Also, in 1995, Mario Molina, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with two other scientists, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for research that helped the world confront the threat that chlorofluorocarbons pose to the earth’s protective ozone layer.
In space exploration, there have been ten Hispanic astronauts, including Franklin Chang-DÃaz and Ellen Ochoa.
Dr. Chang-DÃaz, who joined the space program in 1981, was a crewmemberon seven space flights and logged over 1,601 hours in space, including 19 hours and 31 minutes in three space walks. He was the Director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center from December 1993 to July 2005. He has received many honors for his outstanding work, and is now Adjunct Professor of Physics at Rice University and the University of Houston.
Dr. Ochoa, in 1990, was the first Hispanic woman to become an astronaut. Her space flight experience has included: Operator of RMS (a key robotic arm used during a space walk) on the space shuttle Discovery in 1993; Payload Commander on the ATLAS-3 mission in 1994; and RMS operator on Discovery in 1999 and on Atlantis in 2002. Dr. Ochoa has also received numerous awards. She is now the Deputy Director of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate.
Another woman who should be singled out for special attention is Dr. Antonia Novello. She,who was the first Hispanic and first woman to become Surgeon General, the nation’s chief doctor.
In education, Jaime Escalante, born in Bolivia, may be the nation’s most notable math teacher, who transformed Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, California, from a school whose students’ math test scores were always in the lowest percentile in the country into a national symbol of academic achievement. His dedication and classroom triumphs, which continue to inspire students and teachers nationwide, were portrayed in the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver.”
In music, the style and substance of country and western are derived from the Mexican ranchera. What would ballroom dancing be without the mambo, rumba, tango, merengue and cha-cha-cha? Today, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras are giants in opera and Fernando Bujones and Faustino Diaz are stars in ballet.
An Hispanic whose singing many of us have enjoyed is Gloria Estefan, who defied the experts who believed that a Latin-oriented band would never hit the top of the U.S pop music charts. With such hits as “Conga” and “Anything for You,” Estefan and the band Miami Sound Machine won several American Music Awards, including best Pop/Rock Group of 1987. Estefan is also a humanitarian, recognized for her work with hurricane relief, the United Way, and the Community Alliance Against AIDS.
Among the many Hispanics who have improved the quality of our lives through their acting talents are: Anthony Quinn, who made over 100 films and won two Oscars. Ricardo Montalban, who has made many popular movies and starred in the popular 1980s television series “Fantasy Island.” Edward James Olmos, who received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for his performance in the play “Zoot Suit” and an Oscar nomination for best actor in the outstanding movie “Stand and Deliver.” And Chita Rivera, who has acted and danced in Broadway musical productions, winning the Tony Award for her 1984 performance in “The Rink.”
Hispanics have also affected sports. They have long traditions in horse racing, soccer, baseball and boxing. In tennis, former champions Pancho Gonzalez, Pancho Segura and Monica Seles have perfected this game of strategy.
Chi Chi Rodriguez and Lee Trevino have helped popularize golf, making it more accessible to the common folk. Nancy Lopez was the first Mexican-American golfer to compete in the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She has won almost every major championship title and broken almost every record set at the amateur, collegiate and professional levels. In 1987, Lopez achieved the ultimate in women’s golf induction into the LPGA Hall of Fame.
In football, Hispanics have also had some outstanding figures, e.g., Joe Kapp, former quarterback for the New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings, was voted “Most Valuable Player of the National Football League” in 1969, and Jim Plunkett, former quarterback for the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders, was the American Football Conference’s Rookie of the Year in 1971.
One can only speculate on why historians have failed to acknowledge Hispanic contributions to the United States. What is certain is that this neglect must be corrected. Hispanic Americans, especially the youth, are entitled to know about these contributions. This knowledge can serve to increase their self-esteem and cultural pride and give them a better appreciation of their heritage. It may also increase their love for the North American institutions which their ancestors helped to create.
These facts about Hispanic contributions to the United States remind us of the inscription in the National Archives Building, where our nation’s most precious documents are stored, which says, “the past is prologue.” That statement was made with North America in mind, but it also applies to the Hispanic-American community, which has within it all the elements for giving even greater service to this country than it has in the past.
It is in the solving of social problems that Hispanics can be of significant service to the United Statesl. From the earliest times, they have been a blend of races, cultures and colors. One of the greatest attributes of Hispanics, therefore, is their willingness to mix, and, by doing so, they have created new human relationships, life styles, cultural forms and values. Because of this experience, they can help find solutions to the barriers, prejudices and stereotypes that have divided us as a nation along racial and ethnic lines.
Evelyn
http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=20&cid=4#N_1_
Larger immigration resulted partly from economic development in the Southwest. From 1900 to 1920 California orange output rose more than 400 percent. Southwestern lettuce, cotton, and other crops increased fabulously. Just clearing the brush and trees for new fields took much rough labor. Demand for labor was so high that employers and their agents went to border towns to hire immigrants and also sent notices into the interior of Mexico. More employers realized how nearly ideal Mexicans were for their needs. They were close by, worked hard, accepted low, wages and poor working conditions, and would take seasonal employment and move on when it terminated. The seasonal workers who left after planting and harvesting seasons relieved strains on the purse and conscience of Anglo employers . The low wages early in the twentieth century often meant about one dollar a day, usually less than that paid to any group for similar labor. But that was more pay than in Mexico and was often supplemented by the toil of wife and children as well. Furthermore, living costs were little more than in Mexico.
Western mines, railroads, and construction projects also depended heavily on Mexicans, who supplied over 70 percent of western railroad labor between 1900 and 1920. The railroads sowed Mexican communities throughout the West and Midwest, as workers settled along the lines they built or maintained. Mexican-American communities expanded in Los Angeles, San Antonio, and other towns not far from the border; but they also were formed or enlarged in the far interior–in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago, where slaughterhouse, iron mill, and factory operators found that Mexicans worked as well as European immigrants
Evelyn
Frank :
There are viable government statistics out there that show that illegal immigration is not a positive for our nation you just choose you believe your biased sources instead.
E
SHOW THEM TO US! PROOF! No more spewing of lies!
Frank
Posting more garbage about the “contributions” of Hispanics to the U.S. That whole screed is just to try and prove how the Spanish were so much better and superior to the Anglos. Can you imagine if we had posted articles on how much more superior Anglos were? You’d be screaming, “racist! racist! racist!” And what ever happened to the “evil Euro-Spanish??” I thought only the “indigenous” were noble and altruistic? In the articles posted, the Euro-Spanish were the paragons of vitrue and egalitarianism, even with their slaves! LOL! Make up your damned mind!
First of all, nobody ever said that Hispanics or other minorities made no contributions. You are the one who insinuated that white just sat around on their collective butts while “people of color” did all the work building up this country and that is simply FALSE and I am not about to let that go by!
The facts are, and you cannot change these facts, is that until after 1965 whites were the OVERWHELMING majority in this country. Therefore, while that 2% of Hispanics in the 1800s and up to the mid-1900s made their contributions, there is no way that anyone could say with a straight face that the over 90% of white population just sat on their a$$es while “people of color” built the infrastructure. Nice attempt to degrade whites once again!
It’s funny that when you want to demonize this country and its population, you have no problem laying the blame all at the feet of white Americans. But, if it is to give credit for any of the positives in the country, all of a sudden, it’s only people of color who are responsible.
I believe it was liquidmicro that posted a government source that showed the negatives of illegal immigration. If I find it and others I will post them again.
Frank
As I have said and will continue to say is that the negatives vs the so-called positives are irrelevant anyway. The issue of illegal immigration is about our laws. You can never argue with that point so instead you pick apart any stats you don’t like that others post and call them lies. You are dead in the water with your arguments in regards to our laws and that is what really frustrates you.
Marisa Treviño
Frank, you’re way too defensive to make sense. You so easily choose to see that every major media outlet celebrates every day the worthy accomplishments of Anglos all the time. Yet, you can only find fault when we, as Latinos, choose to celebrate the under-reported accomplishments of fellow Latinos. I don’t draw the line at color or sexual orientation or religion when celebrating the accomplishments of those who deserve to be noticed. The world is getting too small for that.
arturo fernandez
“The issue of illegal immigration is about our laws.”
When laws get in the way of morality, laws need to change.
Frank
What is immoral about having immigration laws? Every country has them and for good reasons.
Evelyn
Frank said
The facts are, and you cannot change these facts, is that until after 1965 whites were the OVERWHELMING majority in this country. Therefore, while that 2% of Hispanics in the 1800s and up to the mid-1900s made their contributions, there is no way that anyone could say with a straight face that the over 90% of white population just sat on their a$$es while “people of color” built the infrastructure.”
E
PROVE IT, SHOW THAT WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE!
Frank :said
As I have said and will continue to say is that the negatives vs the so-called positives are irrelevant
E
Yeah right! Every time someone shows Hispanic accomplishments they show that those who demonize Hispanics by saying they are illiterate, welfair moochers, that come here to commit crimes and sit around doing nothing, are lying.
The truth about hispanics makes lyers out of all
“Ignorance Breeds Racism” crowd.
That is why you turn into the demon on the exorcist when you see anyone tell truth about them.
Frank said
The issue of illegal immigration is about our laws. You can never argue with that point so instead you pick apart any stats you don’t like that others post and call them lies. You are dead in the water with your arguments in regards to our laws
E
Laws that go unenforced become against the law. Immigration laws were not inforced for 20 years therefore at this point they are against the law.
and that is what really frustrates you.
arturo fernandez
“What is immoral about having immigration laws? Every country has them and for good reasons.”
The American people (the entrepreneur, but more important the consumer) have welcomed an estimated 12 million people in the past couple of decades. This was 12 million the law prohibited. So in this case the law got in the way of what the people wanted. When that happens the law needs to change.
Liquidmicro
“When laws get in the way of morality, laws need to change.”
Morality is a system that tells you how to act. What happens when morality gets in the way of laws?
To say that morality is an informal system means that it has no authoritative judges and no decision procedure that provides a unique guide to action in all moral situations. When it is important that disagreements be settled, societies use political and legal systems to supplement morality. These formal systems have the means to provide unique guides, but they do not provide the uniquely correct moral guide to the action that should be performed. That morality is a public system does not mean that everyone always agrees on all of their moral judgments, but only that all disagreements occur within a framework of agreement.
Here is the difference. Morals, to be sure, are rules and standards that we are told we must “conform” to when deciding what is “right” behavior. In other words, morals are dictated to us by either society or religion (or Alex or Laura or Evelyn).
We are not free to think and choose. You either accept or you don’t! We are taught by society and religion that you “shall not lie” or you should “give to the poor” or you must “love others as you would have others love you” or you must do something because it is “your moral obligation.” The key issue with “morals” is that you are expected to “conform to a standard of right behavior” and not question that “conforming” or you are not a “moral” person. But again, where do these “morals” come from to which we are expected to “conform”?
Some cultures think that it is fine to steal if you need food; other cultures think that stealing is stealing and is never morally justified. Some cultures think that “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” judgment is fine; other cultures think that this type of moral thinking is barbaric.
When you leave MORAL THINKING to society and religion, there is no such thing as “absolute morality.” So, is there any such thing as a 100% MORAL PERSON? I think not, at least based on the criteria, culture, society, and religion telling us what our morals should be.
I believe in keeping the laws of the land, however, I am not living my life based on the rules of society and religion, but solely based on a pragmatic and ethical way of living.
I don’t refrain from stealing because I’m afraid I might go to jail. I don’t steal because I have decided not to steal based on my ethics. I don’t have to be commanded to give to the poor.
……
Therefor, there is no group that I belong to and no morals of yours that I believe. As I stated previously, your convictions, do not hold me accountable for.
……
Now, Laura, show any Jewish Organization equating the Holocaust to what the “Illegal Immigrants” are going through. You made the statement, prove it.
Evelyn, others articles and opinions are not fact, every study of benefits of “Illegal Immigrants” has been countered, sometimes by themselves within there own reports.
Frank
Oh, I see because of the crooks in our government and the greedy law-breaking employers, the rest of America aka regular American citizens are supposed to just roll over and pretend that our immigration laws don’t exist or not insist that they be enforced now that illegal immigration has reached critical mass? Your reasoning or lack thereof is astounding!
Frank
I should “prove” that the percentage of population of Latinos in the U.S. prior to 1960 was miniscule or that the over 90% of white Americans just sat on their behinds and had no part in building this country? You have really gone off the deep end on this one! Read history, look up the facts!
The document I am linking to is a very detailed PDF report by the PEW HISPANIC CENTER (hardly anti-Hispanic!) on the Hispanic population in this country at intervals of 1960, 2005, and projected for 2050.
As you will see, the working-age Hispanic population made up only about 2.9% in 1960. The vast majority of that population resided in the Southwest. (Page 18, Fig. 19). So, again how would you like to explain how 2.9% of the Hispanic population, who resided almost totally in the Southwest, build all of the infrastructure of the U.S.?? And here’s my question to you: YOU prove that the almost 90% of the white population sat around on their behinds and didn’t do anything, you idiot!
Honestly, your deep-seated hatred of whites is short-circuiting any objectivity you have and is causing you to to make a fool out of yourself over and over.
I am really sick and tired of your anti-white racism. Trying to make it out like 90% of the entire population of the U.S. before 1965 (by then the infrastructure had been completed–roads, bridges, dams, railroads, electrical grids, sewers, water lines, gas lines, schools, hospitals, etc.) just sat around doing nothing while the other 10% did all the work cannot be interpreted as ANYTHING OTHER than completely delusional, hateful, and racist.
We are not claiming that the small percentage of Hispanics prior to 1960 did not contribute anything. But, you are saying that the vast majority of white Americans–90%–did not contribute anything! WHO IS THE RACIST HERE?!
What a vile POS you are! And a hypocrite, too. As racist and hateful as they come, but always accusing everyone else of racism.
http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/85.pdf
Michaela
Arturo said:
“The issue of illegal immigration is about our laws.”
When laws get in the way of morality, laws need to change.”
I’m not sure what you mean here Arturo. Are you saying our immigration laws, which btw ALL countries have immigration laws, are immoral to Hispanics. And I’m only assuming you mean Hispanics. I do not consider Mexico’s immigration laws immoral to whites.
Frank
Arturo, why do you keep repeating the same old lies that regular law abiding Americans who happen to be the majority in this country have “invited” these illegal aliens here???
Evelyn
Frank :said
I should “prove” that the percentage of population of Latinos in the U.S. prior to 1960 was miniscule or that the over 90% of white Americans just sat on their behinds and had no part in building this country?
E
This is what I said.
Who built roads, bridges, dams, railroads, schools, hospitals? The same people doing it today.
People of color.
~~~~
You say
WHO IS THE RACIST HERE?!
What a vile POS you are! And a hypocrite, too. As racist and hateful as they come, but always accusing everyone else of racism.
E
NOW WHO IS THE VILE HATEFUL LYING DESPICABLE HYPOCRITE POS? YOU ARE THAT’S WHO
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! YOU NEVER LEARN THAT LYING ISN’T PRODUCTIVE!
Frank
Are you still saying that only “people of color” built the infrastructure in this country, NOT ONLY IN THE PAST, BUT ALSO TODAY!! WTH?
No, what I asked was: YOU prove that the 90% of white Americans which existed prior to 1960 didn’t built most of the infrastructure in this country. You can’t do it! All you can do is spout your hateful, racist untruths with NOTHING to back them up. You hate whites so much that you are not going to give them credit for being the group mostly responsible for establishing and buildling this nation, with help from a small minority of non-whites. Your hatred is so extreme that you don’t care if you look like a complete idiot while trying to deny the obvious!
Maybe where you live that’s who works on the roads and bridges (and some are probably illegal aliens who stole these jobs from Americans) but in the predominantly white areas, especially back east it is mostly whites who work on the road crews, in the rock quarries, in construction, roofing, laying down blacktop, building houses, working the deep mines, etc. WHAT PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON???!!!
You are getting so beyond absurd that I’m actually almost (but just almost) beginning to feel sorry for you! And since I admitted that Latinos did contribute in some way to building this nation, and you obstinately refuses to give the majority of the white population credit for ANYTHING, this proves that YOU are the hateful racist!
Your response was truly pathetic. No mention of the Pew Hispanic report which I provided. A complete non-response. You’d have been better off not replying at all since it is clear that you didn’t HAVE an intelligent response.
Frank
It is a misleading statement to say that people of color built our roads, bridges, etc. because it wasn’t ONLY people of color who did that or are still doing it today!!
It is those who are advocating the illegal entry of those ethnically like themselves into our country and then seekig a reward in the form of amnesty for them that are the racists!! We are opposed to ALL illegal aliens in our country, so how can that be racist?
You are the one who started to call anyone whose views are unlike yours a racist from the get go in here. You use that word at least 6 times in just about every post you make. We are merely retaliating against your vile name calling in here!
I haven’t lied about anything. I am merely for the rule of law and there are no lies in that!
If I were Marisa, I would throw your vile a@@ off of this blog! You add nothing but hatefulness to it!
Evelyn
Frank :
Are you still saying that only “people of color” built the infrastructure in this country, NOT ONLY IN THE PAST, BUT ALSO TODAY!! WTH
E
????Did you see the word only????? Whats wrong with you???
No, what I asked was: YOU prove that the 90% of white Americans which existed prior to 1960 didn’t built most of the infrastructure in this country. You can’t do it!
~~~
E
You cant prove they did because white Americans were NOT 90% of the population of the U.S. in 1960!
All you can do is spout your hateful, racist untruths with NOTHING to back them up.
~~~
You hate whites so much
E
I dont hate whites, I hate racism.
~~~
that you are not going to give them credit for being the group mostly responsible for establishing and building this nation, with help from a small minority of non-whites.
E
Allessandra left Hispanics out of those minorities who played a hand in the building of America. That is why I focused on them.
You seem to be shocked and mad to find out all the accomplishments and the role Hispanics played in the Building of America. What I showed is just the tip of the iceberg. I do believe that Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics built more of the infrastructure of this country than white people.
Your hatred is so extreme that you don’t care if you look like a complete idiot while trying to deny the obvious!
~~~
Maybe where you live that’s who works on the roads and bridges (and some are probably illegal aliens who stole these jobs from Americans) but in the predominantly white areas, especially back east it is mostly whites who work on the road crews, in the rock quarries, in construction, roofing, laying down blacktop, building houses, working the deep mines, etc.
E
I have traveled extensively all through the U.S. and I live in the Heartland the reddest of red states and the whitest of white people. Wonderful White people that will take the shirt off their backs if they see you need it.
Lots of Germans who say they identify with the work ethics of Hispanics.
Some people here are racist but they are minority. Everywhere I have been the majority of the crews in construction and more have been people of color. The whites are always the supervisors standing around with a clip-board in hand or talking on a cell phone. WHAT PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON???!!!
You are getting so beyond absurd that I’m actually almost (but just almost) beginning to feel sorry for you!
~~~
And since I admitted that Latinos did contribute in some way to building this nation, and you obstinately refuses to give the majority of the white population credit for ANYTHING,
E
Thats not true I give white people some credit, I just think people of color worked more then white people did in the actual building of America.
The fact that you say Latinos did contribute in some way but leave out other people of color
proves that YOU are the hateful racist!
Your response was truly pathetic.
~~~
No mention of the Pew Hispanic report which I provided. A complete non-response.
E
I looked at the pew report. It is funny how they knew how many Hispanics were in America in the 60ties because the census didnt start counting Hispanics until the 70ties.
You’d have been better off not replying at all since it is clear that you didn’t HAVE an intelligent response.
Evelyn
Frank : said
It is a misleading statement to say that people of color built our roads, bridges, etc. because it wasn’t ONLY people of color who did that or are still doing it today!!
E
Did you see the word “ONLY”? If you did I suggest you see a doctor!
~~~
It is those who are advocating the illegal entry of those ethnically like themselves into our country and then seekig a reward in the form of amnesty for them that are the racists!!
E
If you havent read the bill of rights I suggest you do so ASAP.
Especially the part that says ALL people have the right to advocate change!!!
~~
We are opposed to ALL illegal aliens in our country, so how can that be racist?
E
I have never heard you mention an illegal Irish Immigrant, or an Illegal British Immigrant, or an Illegal Canadian Immigrant, or an Illegal Asian Immigrant. The fact that you dont want Hispanics here makes you racist!
~~~
You are the one who started to call anyone whose views are unlike yours a racist from the get go in here. You use that word at least 6 times in just about every post you make.
E
Most peoples views on the subject of illegal immigration are just like mine, the difference between Most Americans like me and racist is that we dont attack Hispanics or Hispanic immigrants using lies to demonize them and we dont applaud or encourage others who do.
~~~
We are merely retaliating against your vile name calling in here!
E
Embracing racism is one of the most vile behaviors there is. You can retaliate all you want. Until you STOP acting like racist the names wont stop! If it’s not me someone else will call you racist just like they already do.
I just do it more.
~~
I haven’t lied about anything. I am merely for the rule of law and there are no lies in that!
E
BULL ***T, yeah only when it will further your racist agenda of getting rid of as many Hispanics from this country as you can.
If ‘rule of law’ benefits Hispanic immigrants then you ignore it or even go as far as oppose it or want to change it!
If I were Marisa, I would throw your vile a@@ off of this blog! You add nothing but hatefulness to it!
SPIN THIS ALL YOU WANT I’M OUTTA HERE. HAPPY SPINNING! dont get too dizzy@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Michaela
Evelyn stated: Everywhere I have been the majority of the crews in construction and more have been people of color. The whites are always the supervisors standing around with a clip-board in hand or talking on a cell phone.
Well Evelyn, you need to visit El Paso, Texas where, yes, the majority of crews in constuction are “peoople of color” but ALSO the “majority” of supervisors are “people of color.”
Evelyn
As matter of fact I have been to El Paso on many occasions.
My sister worked at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo for a few years before she started training to work for Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
She met her husband on base and now he works in the El Paso, Alamogordo, Las Cruces sectors with Border Patrol. They live in the area and I visit often.
What you say is true. All over New Mexico that is also the case. Crews and supervisors are Hispanics.
I find it to be more prevalent anywhere near border towns.
That just reiterates what I stated “most construction crews and more are made up mostly of people of color.”
Michaela
Evelyn, “What you say is true. All over New Mexico that is also the case. Crews and supervisors are Hispanics.”
And if they are good, honest hard working legal Americans, good for them! So what is the problem?
Evelyn
I have no problem because of your hostility I can tell you do! LOL!
Did you fall out of your bed?
Michaela
You are the hostile one here Evelyn. I did not appreciate the first remark you made about the people of color doing all the hard work and the “white” supervisors just standing around talking on their cell phones. I had an Hispanic crew put a new roof on my house and the Hispanic supervisor pretty much just stood around too talking on his cell. I didn’t find it necessary to make a petty, critical remark about that observation just because he was Hispanic. You did though about the white supervisor.
Evelyn
Thats funny you get mad because I tell the truth. Follow the thread from the beginning and you will see why I said what I did.
You are Hispanic aren’t you? I was defending the fact that Hispanics and other people of color played a big role in the construction (building) of America. LOL!
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