saywhatkid

Well, you must be assuming that all these illegal people with darker skin and Spanish dialects are Mexican. I offer you this, based on personal experience, that many are from Central and South America as well. That is "Hispanic" where I come from. I assume you know there are more than 3 races. If not, recheck your census form.

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Deafness

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Steinhauer

I was simply referring to the country of origin that the majority of the illegal population is jumping the border from. I did not mention race, you did.

Jiro

yea I know right? not sure what's he trying to say.

In fact - I know more Spanish language or ASL than Korean language.

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kokonut

Yeah, I noticed that, too.

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"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Jiro

and what border is that?

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kokonut

I noticed it.

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"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Steinhauer

Here is what I am "trying" to say. And I am sure it will be misinterpreted into something I am not saying (i.e. racist or xenophobe).

Firstly, I am a Son of Liberty. What this means, is that in my family tree, my ancestors fought the American Revolution. They also fought in the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraq and currently in Afghanistan. It essentially means, that my ancestors, at one time were British subjects in the Colonies.

It does not make my status any more important than any other American. However, it does mean something very important and significant. It means that my parents were not foreigners. It also means that my grandparents were not foreigners and so on.

I have never had to experience any significant "cultural" change. Neither did my parents, my grandparents, etc.

Now, in many American families, the situation is different. Of course, if your grandparents were from Norway, Ireland, China, etc., they are very proud of their heritage (I assume). You would be considered a 3rd generation American if your grandparent emigrated legally. You would be a bit more adapted to American culture than your grandparents were, and even your parents.

Suppose you were born in East Europe and you and your parents meet with a neighbor at a park. Suppose your dad jumps up from the picnic table and runs after a duck swimming in a pond, breaks its neck and yells "Ha! Dinner!"

Would this be acceptable in America? It is perfectly normal and acceptable in parts of Eastern Europe. If you are a child mainstreamed in American culture with American friends ... this event would more than likely embarrass you.

That's just an example (and a true story that happened to a friend of mine ).

I have NEVER had to experience cross cultural differences in my family - I have NEVER had to experience more than one language being spoken in my home (other than sign). Yet, many American families experience this.

Yet, immigrants will say ..... "but this is normal in Europe", or even "its the way we do things in China".

America is NOT Europe. It is NOT China. America has its own way of "doing things" and guess what, you live here now. The same rules that apply to me, also apply to you. I cannot jump up from a picnic table and chase a duck in a park and kill it. Sorry, that is simply not the way "we" do things here. No matter how great your duck killing urges may be, it simply is not done that way here. Sorry. You must first get a hunting license, make sure the duck is in season and only hunt in areas where it is permissible. A public park just isn't permissible ..... anyway, this is simply an example.

Another example ..... suppose it has been the "tradition" of a large company to hold "dinner on the grounds" for years and years on Saturday for their employees (another true example). This is a very "American" tradition, where employees will bring a covered dish from home and contribute to this. Green beans, mashed potatoes, corn, country fried steak etc. etc. Suppose this company just hired a bunch of "illegals" unknowingly (remember, this really happened) which, as chance would have it, were from Mexico. Suppose the "dinner on the grounds" festivities had to stop, not because the illegals didn't bring anything (which they didn't), but because instead of using portion spoons and tongs, they grabbed the food in dishes with their hands and put them on their plates. They then took the dishes, which didn't belong to them, home.

Imagine how pissed off people got. Would you eat green beans if the person in front of you reached in the pot with their bare hands (dirty from work) grabbed a handful and plopped it on his plate?

Now, imagine if management tried to correct this behavior and the offenders viewed this "correction" as Racist and insulting.

Well, apparently these "traditions" were very normal where these folks came from. They are not "normal" in America.

Many immigrants try to bring their customs and culture to America from their home countries. That's perfectly fine. It creates diversity.

Some things were meant to stay in their home countries.

When an immigrant comes to America, they must EMBRACE America. They must be a part of America. You cannot be a part of your home country and America. It simply does not work here.

This is just insight from someone who can identify exactly where your from in the country by the way you talk, your mannerisms, dress, general overall appearance. Some traits are far more distinctive than others. I can usually tell if your a 2nd or 3rd generation American as well.

These nuances do not matter really. An American is an American ... period.

CJB

What you described are some instances of cultural clashes, but all of those could happen just as easily happen for other reasons. Cultural differences also arise things other than nationality, such as religion, socioeconomic status, political background, and even regions within the same country. There are major cultural differences between the North and the South even within the U.S. Military culture is completely different from hippie culture which is really different from yuppie culture, but they are all part of American culture.

The beautiful thing about America is that American culture is made up of many subcultures, ethnic as well as other types, and these subcultures, relatively speaking, coexist quite peacefully. How many countries can you go to where you walk down the street and see people from all sorts of backgrounds? How many countries can have a conversation about what you want for dinner: Italian food, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, French food, or maybe just a burger and fries?

It would be unacceptable for someone to grab a duck and break its neck in America and no we don't eat food with our hands, but we have a lot more flexibility in terms of cultural differences than a lot of countries and I think that's something to be celebrated, not suppressed.

Steinhauer

There may be cultural differences between those who live in the north and the south, but when I visit my family in Brooklyn, they speak English. When I visit my family in Georgia, they speak English. When I visit my family in Arizona, they speak English. When I visit my family in Florida, they speak English.

They are all here legally. Now, as far as cultural differences, my family in Brooklyn speak with a very obvious "New York" accent. They eat more bagels than I do. Their religion - Catholic. Professions, attorneys, paralegal, barbers.

Georgia - same thing with accent. They are a bit less pale than my New York relatives. Religion - various protestant, wiccan, atheist ... no catholics. Professions - very various from comic book store manager to pizza delivery to talk show host to construction labor ..... etc.

Florida - not as pronounced of an accent - wear more sunscreen than my NY relatives. Religion - Protestant - strict adherence. Professions - retail.

Arizona - almost a "Yankee" accent mixed with a southern drawl. Religion - various including Navajo spirituality. They wear a lot of sunscreen and drink a lot of water. Professions - law enforcement, RN at VA and Veterinarians.

There is no discussion of "the old world" or any discussion in a foreign language. I do not have to interpret to my friends what my parents are saying, or what my grandparents are saying.

saywhatkid

Not surprised that race is not an issue to you two. Not a whole lot of blue-eyed redheads coming in. See, you don't think race is an issue because you pretend there is nothing racist about giving the police discretionary power to stop people. Ain't it great to be a white male?

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kokonut

The focus has been on the word, "illegal," (as in illegal alien) and not about race. You are making it about race by making presumptions when the law already made clear that racial profiling is illegal in the first place.

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"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
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"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Banjo

Maybe they should just hand America back to the Native Americans.

Foxrac

Highest number of illegal immigrants are Latino, that how they figured out via racial profiling.

[deleted]

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Reba

"Mexican" is a nationality. Mexico is made up of more than one ethnic group.

saywhatkid

Racist!


Kind of shoots that "Sons of Liberty" thing full of holes...Whose liberty was he talking about? Must be the white portion of the population.

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kokonut

So should central and south America as well when the Spaniards took the rest of those countries and wiped out many of the indigenous Indians over time.

__________________
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After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

kokonut

Doesn't matter. It's about "illegal aliens" regardless of their ethnicity or nationality.

[deleted]

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Reba

Sounds like standard campus parking situation. I work on a campus with horrendous parking, so this kind of situation could easily happen.

So far, it seems she did get a break because driving without a license could have been charged right then and there, with her car getting towed.

There is no such thing as "an undocumented citizen." If a person is "undocumented", then she is not a "citizen."

She was arrested for not having a valid driving license, period.

BTW, if she's been living in the States since she was a kid, why did she have a Mexican driver's license? She didn't bring that with her when she was seven years old.

kokonut

Right. That's what I was thinking, too. A red flag if you ask me.

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

Brian

Mod's Note:

OK, I have decided to reopen this thread.

Please let's play nice or this thread will be locked.

Thank you.

darkdog

That's simply not true. The law gives the police no more power to stop people than they already have. However, I can't blame you for misunderstanding. So many people, all the way up to the President, have blatantly lied about what this law does.

When people say stuff like this, I hear the following: I have no idea how to debate your point, so rather than consider that you may have a point or think about a substantive response, I'm just going to smugly paint you as a racist.

I'd like to think we could get through the immigration debate without accusations of racism, but we couldn't even make it through the health care debate without that. Oh well. It's not as if racial divisiveness has never torn apart entire countries and led to mass slaughters...

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CJB

I never understood the psychology behind calling someone a racist when they recognize a racist situation for what it is.

If I overheard a white person calling a black person the N word, and I called them out on it, would that make me a racist, and if so, why?

CJB

I think what saywhatkid is trying to say here is that many people who have never experienced racism first-hand don't think of the multitude of situations where racism plays out, especially subtle ones where it's harder to pinpoint the racist attitudes in play.

deafdrummer

Before I jump into this, I want to say that I was living in rural south Texas (Carrizo Springs) in the 70s/80s as a child. I remember one illegal coming through our property from the ranch bordering our south fence line. I remember the haggard expression on his face (it was summertime, getting late in the morning) when I happened upon him. I went to my stepmom, who came out and first spoke in English, and then he said something. She started speaking in español. It turns out that he was hungry, thirsty, and was looking for Cotulla, which was directly to the east on the other side of I-35, where a lot of illegals were picked up for work or moving north in those days. The man was white, blue-eyed, mostly dirty-blond-colored hair, most of his front teeth missing... I never forgot that look on his face, wondering how he got into that situation.

Mexican is a nationality.
Hispanic is an ethnicity.
Indian is a race.

It becomes important to understand these dinstinctions.

I was about to say something to the effect here. Prior to your post, kokonut, there has been NO statement about its 500-year history of bloodshed and oppression here.

This is how I see it. The Europeans/Spaniards invaded the Americas and took the lands from the Indians. I believe one reason we do not have the migration from our country to another like México does is because we allow all to have the opportunities at life (though there are inherent inequities, such as politics and money that allow one to start at a higher position as a child than another person would). The Europeans/Spaniards do not for the most part. They have tried to "purify" México into a New World extension of the Spanish world of Europe by making life so difficult for the Indians still alive today such that the Indians become our problem by way of migration out of the country.

Have you noticed on spanish television stations like Univisíon the race of the people and the roles they play on TV as well as how they are positioned in society? You'll see most if not all of the white/white-looking mestizo actors and actresses in positions of power, responsibility, money, while most laborer, country/pastoral, poor character roles are often filled by Indians or dark-skinned mestizos. I don't think there are nearly as many exceptions to that rule as you would see in developed industrial nations like the US.

Perhaps the Indians are but a pawn in the greater game of cultural/religious conquest that is still being played out 500 years later. Maybe the illegal immigration is but a symptom of a much greater problem - oppression of the Indians. I predict that if the carteles are confident enough, they may attempt to instigate civil war against the European/Spaniard/white-looking politicians running México within 1-2 years. Until two weeks ago, I thought they might try within 2-4 years. Recent activity indicates they're stepping it up rapidly, and the government may not be able to counter it quickly enough to keep from losing the country. They're stealing houses in some of the border towns! There has been no word that police forces have gone back inside and reclaimed the houses for the homeowners...

There will be revolution, and the Mexican Revolution that started in 1910 between fighting factions of EUROPEANS will be nothing compared to the upcoming Mexican Revolution, especially when the Indians feel payback is long overdue, and one of theirs is a BILLIONAIRE on the Forbe's List - Joaquin Guzman Loera;

---------------------
Guzmán, one of four brothers, was born in a Sinaloa mountain hamlet known as La Tuna, which sits in Badiraguato county, the birthplace of most of Mexico’s famous drug lords. The reason for Badiraguato’s notoriety is its location at the gateway to Mexico’s “golden triangle,” a remote, mountainous intersection of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua states where opium and marijuana have been grown for generations.

Badiraguato, one of Mexico’s 200 poorest counties, offers its young few jobs other than the drug trade. As a child, El Chapo’s family was so poor that when he was a baby, his mother converted an old wooden crate used to pack tomatoes into a cradle for him, says a local official who has seen the photograph.

The mountain folk of Badiraguato are widely seen as macho, close-mouthed people of tight-knit clans, given to intense loyalty, bloody vendettas and honor killings. Many of the fathers and grandfathers of today’s capos are buried by the side of Badiraguato’s dusty roads or on hillsides with views of the crumbling adobe homes where they were born. They lie in grand marble mausoleums built like mock colonial cathedrals or Greek temples.

Many of the new generation of capos, including El Chapo’s son Édgar, are buried in spectacular graves in nearby Culiacan. Judging by photographs or paintings of the dead displayed on the tombs, Badiraguato’s native narcos often die young. “Better to live like a rey [king] for six years than as a guey [ox, or fool] for 60,” is a common saying here.
---------------------

Remember that quote... That could become the slogan of the coming Revolution. Him and several other drug lords have enough money between them to finance the bloodiest, most successful takeover of a country via revolution if they remain low-key in their money/strategic/weaponry acquisition plans. Once they've taken over México, will they stop there, or begin mounting attacks on other countries to the south? I don't think they'll hit the US next, because the US is the best place for making money as laborers and selling drugs, and they want that money to finance the Indian Revolution before having the whole of Indian America turning against the US in the final push via sheer numbers to cleanse the Americas of the white influence. You may not see the southward push for several years as they continue to operate under the table in other countries for a while longer. They already have been successful in Venezuela and Bolivia through elections rather than the gun (though Hugo Chávez tried in a 1992 military-civilian coup). There is Nicaragua to consider as well.

Mind you, I'm pretty white-looking, but I have to consider things that I see and read on a daily basis, online or around me right here in Texas. NOT looking forward to it, but what can you do?

CJB

It might not be a different language. But what about all the other English-speaking countries in this world? Are we all the same culture and country as them cause we all speak English? Language is not the only indicator of cultural differences.

I can show you some pretty vehement forum discussions about uses of dialectal words like "y'all" vs. "you guys" and more frequent use of "sir/m'am" in the South than in the North. Same language, sometimes even very slightly different usage, lots of strong oppositional feelings. Even though we speak the same language and share a dictionary, that doesn't change the fact that two people from this same country can and often do feel worlds apart.

CJB

Not making this distinction is precisely why the law risks leading to covert racism. With the exception of people who identify with any of these groups, most people don't think of "Mexican" and "Hispanic" as a nationality versus an ethnicity. Same thing happens with "Muslim" and "Arab" (religion versus ethnicity) because the average person is careless about national/ethnic/racial distinctions if it's not in regards to their own nationality/ethnicity/race.

darkdog

I'm not sure how that relates to my post. For one, I never called anyone a racist. I pointed out the dangers of making accusations of racism where there is no evidence. It has become more of a bludgeon than an attempt to actually deal with any actual racism.

From what I've seen, those who talk about covert racism and subtle racism haven't exactly been treading carefully in throwing around the accusation. Oppose illegal immigration? You're a covert racist. Oppose Obamacare? You're a covert racist. And don't even try to deny that you're a covert racist. Denial itself is a sign of covert racism.

Why should I believe that people dense enough to say such things are experts on what's subtle racism and what's not?

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CJB

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying you will smugly paint anyone as a racist. I have come across the "you pointed out racism, you're racist" line of thinking though, so that sentiment isn't completely out of the blue, even though I realize now it's not what you said.

Recognizing racism is part of dealing with it. How can anyone deal with anything if they can't even recognize it when it happens? If anything I'd say not recognizing it makes it impossible to deal with.

That's because it happens all the time. And why do people feel so attacked when their racism is called on? Usually because they're guilty of it. Otherwise they would just recognize it, catch themselves in the future, and work on their prejudices through self-education and awareness.

Why should I believe the multitude of rationalizations people come up with to cover up and deny any racist attitudes they might hold?

darkdog

I'm all for recognizing and dealing with racism when there's actual evidence. The problem is that a lot of people recognize racism when there is none to recognize. There should be evidence of actual racism before recognizing it. How can anyone deal with anything if they keep making accusations without evidence, conveniently against those on the other side of an issue?

Could it be that being called a racist is one of the worst things you can be called in this society? If someone feels attacked, it's because they are being attacked, right or wrong. You forgot the third option- if they have no racist motives to begin with, they would determine they are being attacked by a reckless racial demagogue.

Perhaps because you wouldn't be able to so easily dismiss valid points that you disagree with?

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Steinhauer

Isn't it nice to make racist comments against white people without reprisal ?