Conservatives for better immigration bureaucracy

What Is This "Crime," Really?

From the Ornery American:

A fifteen-year-old boy -- let's call him David -- has been yearning for his driver's license for a long time.

But today all thoughts of waiting for his license are out the window, because his little sister cut herself and he can't stop the bleeding. His family's phone service was cut off long ago. His parents aren't home. They live far from any neighbors. But they do have one uninsured car that David's been tinkering with. It runs.

So David puts his sister in the car and, holding a towel on the wound to apply pressure, he drives the car one-handed out onto the road and goes as fast as the car can go, heading for the nearest medical emergency center.

The trouble is, a state trooper sees him driving too fast and pulls him over. David tries to explain that he's only driving illegally in order to save his sister's life, but the trooper doesn't listen.

He drags David out of the car and handcuffs him and yells at him that he has no business driving a car without a license, besides which he was speeding and the car is not insured. "You will never get a license, we will confiscate this illegal car. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and you have forfeited that privilege by taking it prematurely."

David can't think about any of this. So he screams, "My sister is bleeding to death! Let me get her to the hospital!"

But it's as if the trooper is deaf to anything David has to say. "Don't scream it me, you miserable pipsqueak! Until you have a license you don't even have a right to be heard on these highways!"

Read more here

Photo by La Germanita

Immigrants live with, identify with each other regardless of legal category

"[A] majority of illegal immigrants live in the same communities as legal permanent residents – and in many cases the same houses – they often act in solidarity when either group feels threatened."

from Legal immigrants seek American citizenship in surging numbers
Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2007

Tamale treasure

Mack at Coyote Chronicles visited a Middle Tennessee tamale kitchen and found treasure in the time spent with his neighbors:

Through the goodness of the Gods, I met an angel in the grocery store. Her and her mother were buying groceries, and from their selections I just knew momma was a first rate cook. I engaged them, and soon we agreed on a price for home-made tamales. (my current tamale connect is reliable, but the product has been sub-standard of late) So, yesterday, I arrived at their home with a good friend of mine in tow. The area of town that they live in isn’t particularly nice. It is mere steps from the railroad tracks, and this road is chock full of renters so many of the houses and yards are in a constant state of dis-repair. We knocked on the door, and Maria opened it, smiled broadly and invited us into the kitchen, where her mother and Aunt were just removing tamales from a large pot on the stove. There was food everywhere. The sights and smells were at once familiar and comforting. I was in my mother’s house again. There were four children present, sitting in chairs by the open back door, and speaking a beautiful mixture of Spanish and English, drawing or coloring and laughing most of the time. Their girls had their jet black hair brushed and braided and they had shiny things holding it in place. Their faces were scrubbed clean, their clothes pressed. The house was orderly and chaotic at the same time. The women smiled at us and made us sit at the table, and sample the tamales. Alicia took hers, freshly “shucked”, and sprinkled it with chopped lettuce, then ladled some fresh salsa over it and handed it to my friend. She warned that it was “hot.” I though she meant “stove hot,” but no, as my friend soon discovered, she meant hot in the way that hot can hit your stomach, then work it’s way back up through your lungs and ultimately engulfs you in a perfect capsicum laden cloud, causing your metabolism to accelerate, sets your heart to racing, and ends with you wiping your brow on your shirtsleeve. That kind of hot. Perfect. As I was enjoying this dish, I was struck by those faces over by the door. Each of them had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Large, oval and it may sound corny, but I saw the whole world in them. The oldest was born in Mexico, but came here when she was one yr old. Her brother and sisters were born here in the States. I was glad that my friend Andy was there, but I so wanted Kleinheider to be there as well. I wanted him to see this family. I wanted him to taste this food, I wanted him to gaze at these children, and then, I wanted him to explain to me what would be gained by him “walking them back over the border.” The preservation of the rule of law? Unjust laws are, and have been challenged throughout this Nation’s history. It’s intrinsic to the American experience. Welcoming and celebrating the presence of these people seems intrinsic to the Christian experience. I so want to challenge Adam to accompany me to this home, talk to this family, share a meal, and learn about what its like to live in the shadows...

Full story here

Photo by Steve Bridger

Who's an american?

Letter to the Editor
University of Chicago Magazine
March/April 2007, Volume 99, Issue 4

Who’s an american?

My family came to America at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1609 and at Plimoth Plantation, Massachusetts, in 1620. As old immigrants (“Fenced Out,” Jan–Feb/07), we offer the following credo to the new immigrants from then, to the present, and into the future:

No matter where people come from, if they behave themselves, work hard, and respect our history and culture, they are Americans. And if we behave ourselves, work hard, and respect their history and culture, we are Americans too.

James A. Rogerson, AM’69, PhD’80
Charlotte, North Carolina

English Already First in Immigrant Families, But to the Detriment of Bilingual Skills

According to various studies, immigrant families promote English internally, believing that it will create more opportunities for future generations. However, the 1st generation does not merely drag the 2nd and 3rd generations kicking and screaming to learn English. According to a 1998 study of 8th and 9th grade students in San Diego and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (cited by Lucy Tse in Why Don't They Learn English?, p. 31), two-thirds of 2nd generation immigrants favored using English over their parents' language. The causes of that preference include the powerful cultural and popular pulls of English, limited exposure to and less opportunities to learn the language of family heritage, parental and school misconceptions based on fear, and peer pressure.

So, without any government coercion, immigrant families push themselves to learn English. But there are also casualties that may be further harmed by local government mandating English. One of those casualties is bilingualism or the ability of 2nd and 3rd generations in immigrant families to utilize two languages at once. In the study of 8th and 9th graders, while researchers found that the students knew English well, they were progressively losing their bilingual skills. Among the Spanish-speaking students, fewer than half were fluent bilinguals.

Full post here.

Purcell's backbone on 'English First' is rare in these times

Purcell's backbone on 'English First' is rare in these times

By WALTER T. SEARCY III
Read full article here

This storm, like others before it, shall ultimately subside as we again, albeit grudgingly, welcome the enriching qualities of difference. We will embrace them and incorporate them into the ever- changing canvas we call America the beautiful, as we have ultimately done with every immigrant wave, whether through Jamestown or Ellis Island, through Miami or San Francisco.

Have we forgotten how and why this country was built and on whose backs this construction occurred, notwithstanding the displacement of those who were here before us? Of course, our effort to slam the door shut, now that we are in, is not new.

Every group has been critical of those who have arrived later than they did. The politically persecuted Anglo-Germanic populi were not very sensitive to those who fled withering grape and olive vines in Southern Italy or potato famines on the Emerald Isle. Nor did Italians and Irish think that those from Eastern Europe, Jew or Gentile, were good for anything but ready targets for billy clubs or fleecing scams. Unity among them came only in their opinions of those of us, the Africans, in our second migration, this time from the fields of woe behind the cotton curtain to teeming urban centers.

This has not been a great season for leadership in the polyglot of our country. We have favored fences over bridges and appear to the world as a spoiled bully with gunboats in too many ports. But in Nashville, silence was an option and a leader stepped up and spoke out. So to the mayor of Nashville who has chosen to resist the rush to the rear, the sound and fury that signifies nothing: Atta boy!

It's about lives, not just about English

By MICHELLE BRAEUNER
Full article here

"As I spoke, I noticed tears in her eyes. I sat down with Maria and asked how everything was going. Apparently, her grandfather had been ill, and their regular doctor had recommended a specialist. Unfortunately, the specialist didn't speak their language. Additionally, even though the family had lived in Nashville for more than four years, neither Maria's parents nor her grandparents knew enough English to talk to the doctor, and they didn't trust a translator."

"Instead, they took Maria out of school to translate between her family and the doctor. So it happened that, after a tedious day of testing, it was Maria who had to tell her grandfather that he had only months to live. She was eight."

...

"What no one in this English language debate seems to want to discuss is that there are real people being exploited in this city. They live in destitution because our poverty is better than the hardship they have been accustomed to. Kept segregated by language, they are unable to utilize the opportunities around them."

Real motivations behind 'English first' aren't pretty

By Dwight Lewis
Full article here

I had an interesting phone conversation Wednesday with Guadalupe (Wally) Rendon, a 2003 graduate of the Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University, which trains mostly people of color seeking a newsroom career.

He said there is a deeper motivation for people who push a law such as the one to make English the "official'' language here.

"For all these years, white people have been in control of most things in the United States,'' Wally said. "I grew up in Texas, not far from San Antonio, and the politicians were white, the sheriff was white, but now it's just the opposite.

"Some people are fearful of such changes, and they use the English only issue as a way of getting back at people, or to subside the trend of Hispanics moving ahead.''

It is true, Wally said, that many immigrants from around the world come to the United States not able to speak English but most of them attempt to learn. Unfortunately, he said, this does not happen overnight.

"Go to the places where they teach English as a second language, and you will see that most of them are full or have a waiting list,'' Wally told me. "These people have the will to learn it, but it's not going to happen overnight.''

Jackie Mason: we have English and they've got bubkes

There may be those among you who support including Spanish in our national language. I for one am 110% against this! We must preserve the exclusivity and, above all, the purity of the English language. To all the schlemiels, schlimazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, shlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are out there pushing Spanish, I just want to say that I, for one, believe that English and only English deserves linguistic prominence in our American culture. To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I'm fit to plotz. This whole Spanish schmeer gets me broyges, especially when I hear these erstwhile mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about needing to learn Spanish. What chutzpah! These shmegeges can tout their schlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country, but I, for one, am not buying their shtick. It's all so much dreck, as far as I'm concerned. I exhort you all to be menshen about this and stand up to their fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn't be kosher to do anything else. Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they've got bubkes! The whole mynseh is a pain in my tuchas!

Jackie Mason