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 Why I stand up for Latinos and other immigrants April 23, 2007 12:20 AM

Hi!  I just joined this group.  I am for immigrants' rights because immigrants built this country, starting with European immigrants (back when the land belonged to Native Americans, who were not asked permission) and continuing on through a wide variety of ethnic origins. 

We kid ourselves when we pretend that we don't have immigrant roots.  All of us do at some point in our genealogy.  We are a young country that was built by successive generations of immigrants, new and old. 

I live in a state that was built by immigrants, without whom my state would fall flat on its face.  In my state, immigrants are the pillars who hold up our state's economy, which depends on agriculture, with Latino immigrants doing the lion's share of picking crops. 

Latino immigrants also do all the jobs that we depend on for everyday living in our state.  They build our houses, fix our roofs, mow our lawns, bus our tables, wash our dishes, clean our homes, and so much more.  They work very hard and are paid very little, in a nation that pays millions to its players, talkers, and jokesters, while paying rock bottom minimum wage to the people who work the hardest at jobs we can't live without. 

I am against separating families based on immigration laws.  I am against rewarding hard workers with raids and deportation.  I am against causing those who benefit us to live in fear of arrest and deportation.  And I am against pulling the floor out from under ourselves by deporting our most valuable workers. 

I also wonder why Republicans, who are the main backers of harsh immigrant laws and bills in Congress, want to get rid of their primary base of family values.  No other segment of the US population has stronger family values than Latinos! 

Furthermore, when I go to see a doctor, very few of the names on the doors are white American.  Most of the doctors names are immigrants- from China, India, and other parts of Asia, from Eastern Europe, or Latin America.  And the same is true for nurses.  When I am in the hospital, half my nurses are immigrants, or daughters of immigrants. 

It's time we valued people for what they DO, not whether they fit a  white Anglo-Saxon protestant stereotype of who is truly "American."  In the end, WE ARE ALL AMERICA.
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Why I stand up for Immigrants April 26, 2007 11:29 AM

Excellent post, Marie! I hope people will continue this thread about their supportive views for immigrants. Next, I'll go:

Living in So. Cal., I've seen the poor way Latinos are treated by rascist comments and behavior and anti-immgrant legislation and movements (the MinuteMen, in particular). Racism seems to be building, and not against just Latinos, but also people of Middle Eastern descent, as if every Muslim and everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist. I believe the powers that be want to turn the frustration of the shrinking middle class who don't have all the benefits our country should be  providing (due to the greed of the power elite) and have us blame Latinos especially. The line is: they're taking our benefits.

Here are a couple key reasons we are experiencing a large immigrant influx:

1) NAFTA and "Free Trade" multinational corporations exploit poor workers and seek to pay the lowest amount possible (note: WalMart):

Touted as a means to lift Mexico out of poverty, NAFTA has actually driven it further into poverty. According to the Economic Policy Institute’s 2001 report, “Mexican wages have decreased 27 percent since NAFTA, while hourly income from labor is down 40 percent.” Free trade did not benefit the Mexican economy because by definition free market trade includes privatization, which in turn eliminates state subsidies and controls, and almost never includes redistribtion.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1851.shtml

2) Also important to the influx of immigrants is the fact that the US using paramilitary groups massacred  entire villages throughout Latin America in the 80's and earlier.  Lives, homes, villages, economies destroyed, people hoping to help their families survive come to the U.S. looking for work.

And yet we offer no reparation, and only condemn "guest workers" as sycophants to our countries benefits. It's hypocrsy, it's immoral, it's just plain wrong!

I support immigrant rights because it is the moral thing to do. Fanatical patriotism in ignorance is just the type of mentality that stirred Germany in the 30's. Educated patriotism would look like this: Open up the records of the wrongdoings of the US, offer reparations, ask forgiveness (humility is a sign of strength, not weakness), ask for help from our nieghboring countries to start a FAIR TRADE AGREEMENT, one which would allow workers a LIVING WAGE, and, for God's sake,  stay out of other countries' democratic processes. We've screwed up so many democracies, in order to install favorable disctators, it's scandalous.  [ send green star]
 
 April 30, 2007 5:32 AM

I agree, Sharon!  I'd like to add to your reference to Hitler's Germany.  Hitler created a scape goat class of people to distract the German people from their financial depression.  He took a class of peaceful citizens, the Jews, and labeled all Jews a problem.  He used rhetoric to turn the German people against them so that they would not protest or resist when he began rounding them up and deporting them to work camps. 

Already, Latino immigrants are being rounded up at work, and at home, even at the mall, and being detained without trial, with indefinite detention.  The American people are being told very little by the media, but anyone can learn what is happening just by searching the net.  For the most part, I think the American people, like the Germans in Hitler's day, don't care to know what is happening. 

I read a story about a young girl who was brushing her hair in the morning, getting ready for school when a SWAT team broke into her house and rounded her parents up at gunpoint.  They had done nothing wrong and had their papers in order.  This must have been very traumatizing for a young schoolgirl. 

Kids are being left alone as their parents are rounded up for unlawful detention without trial.  Our government, headed by HOmeland Security, a term borrowed from Hitler, is tearing innocent families apart.  I hope that anyone who reads this and cares about their fellow human beings will join a protest or vigil on May 1st to protest our country's entrance into the world of Nazi-like raids of innocent families. 
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 January 02, 2009 8:20 AM

I agree with marie on the immigrants, with one difference, when our ancestors came here to this country they were proud , they took the american way of life, they learned our language, and our way of life but the new immigrants want us to take their way of life  learn their language, and their ways, if this happens we might as well kiss this country goodby  you go into a store all you hear are them talking their language, to their children and families not even trying to learn our ways  and our language,, and asking for spanish speaking employees    it's time they learn our ways ... to become American, or go back to their country if they don't want to accept and learn  our ways  and language  

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