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

Our Founding Illegals

"Meanwhile, illegal pioneers began moving across the Alleghenies and into the upper Ohio Valley, violating the king’s 1763 proclamation and a few more besides. (George would today be accused of softness on immigration; he kept shifting the line westward.) Immigrants from such déclassé spots as Germany and Ireland violated the laws and settled where they pleased. The upper Ohio was rife with illegal immigrants, ancestors of people who, in country clubs today, are implying a Mayflower ancestry."

read full article in the New York Times

Nobody wanted to send her 'home'

The Winter 2006 TCU alumni magazine contains a round-up of opinions about immigration from different people connected to the university. Here are short excerpts and links to a few of the pieces:

"Those who are here and who are coming here are, after all, family and neighbors. Be careful how you treat them. Be careful how you counsel your congressional delegation."
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/articles/2006-04-FE3.asp

"We don't need a wall or more border patrol agents. My recommendations:
• Staff to screen out criminals and terrorists.
• Easy and quick processing of immigration documents.
• Working with other countries to determine why so many people are coming to the United States and then resolving those issues.
• Allowing people here illegally to become permanent residents and get on the path to citizenship.
• Talking with immigrants, documented and undocumented, to learn more about immigration issues."
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/articles/2006-04-FE4.asp

"Many illegal immigrants do not know how to speak out against everything that surrounds them. I wanted to speak for those who are limited because of their legal status."
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/articles/2006-04-FE5.asp

" Nancy Najera was from Juarez, Mexico. She was not supposed to be here.
She came for college, and stayed. Fort Worth loved her. Nobody wanted to send her 'home.' I think of Nancy whenever I hear someone bash Mexico's people, or call immigrants a burden, or complain about the Spanish language that Tejanos share with our cousins south of the border."
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/articles/2006-04-FE7.asp

And the ones who didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive.

West Wing, Season 1, Episode 1: "Naval Intelligence reports approximately 1200 Cubans left Havana this morning. Approximately 700 turned back due to severe weather, some 350 are missing and presumed dead, 137 have been taken into custody in Miami and are seeking asylum. [pause] With the clothes on their backs, they came through a storm. And the ones that didn't die want a better life. And they want it here. Talk about impressive."

Upsidedown Luddism: The Case of Immigration

"Cox's grasp of rights theory is all the shakier in the following quotation:"

The fact that your grandmother, or great-grandmother, or you yourself, originated in some foreign clime … what exactly is this supposed to establish — that there should be unlimited immigration for all time to come? When I moved into my present neighborhood, the population was scant and prices were low; that's why I moved in. Then the population increased, prices went up, and it became very difficult for people like me to do what I did in 1986. Is that a moral problem? Should I try to pass a law guaranteeing that people like me should always be able to move in here?

"The confusion here is simply shocking. Cox is right that there is nothing immoral about the situation in his neighborhood, but it accords perfectly with the stance of his opponents. Open borders libertarians don't want to pass a law that foreigners should be able to move in; they simply oppose laws preventing people from moving in."

"So to go back to Cox's anecdote, it would be as if he moved in back in 1986, and then didn't like the people that moved in afterwards and so got his city council to pass a law preventing further newcomers, even though they could afford the rents and weren't violating any of the contractual provisions signed by the previous owners. And yes, if that's why people weren't moving in to his neighborhood, it would indeed be immoral."

"All the open border libertarians are claiming is that the politicians shouldn't be able to overturn the voluntary arrangements reached between foreigners and particular land owners (and employers) in the United States."

When Congress Checks Out

When Congress Checks Out

"Foreign policy has dominated the attention of Americans since 9/11, and especially since the Iraq war began. Major issues have included the formulation and execution of terrorism policy, the invasion of Afghanistan, prewar intelligence, the invasion of Iraq, the conduct of the Iraq war and its aftermath, the NSA's surveillance program, reform of the intelligence apparatus, homeland security, the treatment of detainees, and U.S. borders and immigration. And yet, Congress has failed to ask how policies in these areas have been carried out, how faithfully laws have been executed, how reasonably taxpayer dollars have been spent, how well the executive branch has stayed within its constitutional bounds, and how vigorously malfeasance or nonfeasance by public agencies and private contractors has been handled."

"Congress' failure to oversee the Department of Homeland Security has been crushing. Realistically, only Congress can prod such a massive department and determine whether when mad cow disease strikes or self-initiated Minutemen patrol the border, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or the Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service), both part of the DHS, are able to manage the problems. The same is true of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which lost its robust independent status when it was subsumed in the DHS; it has been roiling with confusion ever since."

A Crackdown on Newborns

A Crackdown on Newborns - New York Times

"[I]f building new barriers to basic care ends up filling emergency rooms with ever-sicker immigrants — and their citizen children — then the effort will have been a sorry example of self-defeating spite."

To avoid political catastrophe, the Republican party must rapidly reverse the dehumanization of millions in our midst

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