Hispanic Fanatic

On this Independence Day, let’s acknowledge a truly patriotic viewpoint. Yes, regardless of our political orientation or cultural viewpoint, we can all agree on one thing: most Americans are stupid.

People on the left think that of people on the right, people on the right think it of people on the left, and we all have disdain for the wimps in the middle. Because most people don’t agree with us on a given subject, they are stupid.

Of course, if we really think about it, it could not possibly be true that a majority of our fellow citizens are mouth-breathing neo-Neanderthals. But even the most kind-hearted among us has, at one point or another, bemoaned the inability of the thick-headed masses to comprehend our opinion.

The exception to this rule is when we find, to our surprise and joy and even alarm, that the majority concurs with us. Then we’re quick to say, “Hey, most people agree with me, so back off.”

The fact that we so easily fluctuate between praising and rejecting other people’s opinions should tell us something. But all it really does is entrench our positions. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

The reason I bring all this up is because that infamous tool of totalitarianism – the public-opinion poll – shows that more Americans support Arizona’s new anti-immigration law than oppose it. In Arizona itself, the law is popular with an overwhelming 70 percent of the population.

Well, that should do it then. The law stands. The debate is over. We live in a country of majority rule, after all.

There’s just one problem: We don’t vote on rights.

Either Arizona’s law is unconstitutional or it’s not (frontrunners for its eventual overturning are the Fourth and Sixth Amendments). In either case, it’s not left to a popularity contest.

The truth is that America is more about minority rights than majority rule. I know I tread on dangerous ground when I invoke “the Founders,” but I will do so now. The framers of the Constitution were pretty damned touchy about the tyranny of the majority. That’s why they came up with that pesky Bill of Rights.

As such, we can’t just deny rights to groups we dislike, be they Latinos, gays, or Nickleback fans (actually, that last one may pass Constitutional muster). This concept seems difficult for Americans to understand. So let’s go with a historical example.

No doubt, in 1950, most Americans would have voted against letting black people enjoy the privileges that the majority culture enjoyed. Change came about not only because people got educated and the younger generation took control, but because of things like Brown vs. Board of Education. The Supreme Court, in what can only be called an activist decision, said that basic rights are not dependent upon the generosity of the majority.

Again, we don’t vote on rights.

But setting aside that basic concept, let’s look at the reliability and immutability of public opinion itself. Remember that on the eve of the Iraq War, polls showed that upwards of 80 percent of Americans supported George W. Bush’s policy of “regime change.” Somehow, I doubt that decision garners this kind of enthusiasm today.

That was way back in 2003. What will Americans of, say, 2017 think of our opinion?

I can’t keep track of the threats to our country sometimes.

At first, I heard every illegal immigrant was coming here to steal American jobs. However, according to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, most illegals aren’t crossing the border to pilfer an American’s livelihood. They are actually drug mules.

I was surprised to find this out. And it’s not like the beloved spokeswoman for SB 1070 to exaggerate or skew the facts, so it must be true.

But then a spokesman with the National Border Patrol Council said Brewer’s assertions were “clearly not the case” and that they “don’t comport with reality — that’s the nicest way to put it.”

Indeed, if most illegal immigrants were holding drugs when they were caught crossing the border, the prosecution rate for that offense would be much higher. And while drug barons do use mules, the overlords prefer to transport massive loads of the stuff all at once – as seen in this bust, where twenty tons of narcotics were jammed into a truck. Even the most obese and dedicated drug mule is unlikely to swallow 38,000 pounds of pot.

So we’re back to the right-wing talking point that illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs. Fortunately, talk-show host Stephen Colbert has found a way to undermine these cunning thieves.

Colbert has teamed up with the United Farm Workers of America to get citizens back to work. The new program, Take Our Jobs, encourages unemployed Americans “to apply for some of the thousands of agricultural jobs being posted with state agencies as harvest season begins.”

Every legal resident who fills out an online application is guaranteed a spot in the fields. Finally, we can put to rest the claim that undocumented workers do jobs that citizens don’t want.

After all, there are thousands of spots available, and I’m sure they will go quickly to any American who is willing to “expect long days” courting heat exhaustion while being “excluded from federal overtime provisions.” Well, it’s also true that “small farms don’t even have to pay the minimum wage” and that “fifteen states don’t require farm labor to be covered by workers compensation laws.” But that’s a small price to pay for a gig that “consistently makes the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ top ten list of the nation’s most dangerous jobs.”

At long last, undocumented workers performing the enviable task of picking lettuce will no longer be taking an American’s job.

Of course, they’ll probably just become drug mules.

I’m not big on symbolic acts. For example, candlelight vigils, no matter how noble the cause, tend to annoy me. And when I was Catholic, I could never figure out how abstaining from meat on Fridays was anything other than a mild gesture that was unlikely to appease an omnipotent being.

So when I heard about the Dream Walkers, I was dubious. Now I certainly didn’t doubt their sincerity and courage, but I questioned whether their strategy would lead to anything meaningful.

The Dream Walkers, in case you don’t know, are four Latino college students from Florida who pledged to walk the fifteen hundred miles from Miami to Washington DC in order to raise awareness for the Dream Act (see my previous post on this). The students also want the government to step up on immigration reform.

Besides getting them some exercise, I wasn’t sure this interstate marathon was going to be too productive. However, the students have thus far completed their trek to DC, met with Valerie Jarret (one of President Obama’s top advisors), garnered publicity and conducted multiple interviews to educate people about the Dream Act, and even coaxed a hug out of Sherriff Joe Arpaio. That last one freaks me out.

Currently, the Dream Walkers are on stage two of their campaign. They are travelling to immigrant communities, where they will document the horrors of our messed-up immigration system. They will collect testimonials about botched deportation procedures and terrifying raids, then return to Washington DC to present their findings.

I don’t know where the students will end up, or how long they will be on the road. I also don’t know what the result of all their hard work will be.

But so far, the four of them have accomplished a hell of a lot more than even the largest candlelight vigil.

I’ve written before about the demographic change taking place in America. Specifically, ethnic minorities, led by Latinos, are reproducing at a faster pace than white Americans are. As such, in the near future, the United States will be a minority-majority country.

This has caused much teeth gnashing and wailing among overt racists, of course. But many other people who deny prejudice or ethnic animosity have also expressed their concern. Their deep-seeded fear, masked as logical concern, is that Latino teenagers have the highest dropout rate of any ethnic group. As such, they’re afraid that at some point, a legion of uneducated Hispanics will take over the nation and send us into an abyss.

Their solution – let’s try to kick out as many Latinos as we can now – is bigoted of course. But more than that, it’s impractical. No matter what they do, white people will one day be, if not minorities themselves, no more than a plurality.

One would think, therefore, that instead of simply bemoaning the fact that too many Hispanic teens aren’t finishing school, the majority culture would strive to make sure that the largest subgroup of younger Americans will be better educated.

To continue reading this post, please click here.

The good people of Arizona are counting the days. In just a few weeks, SB 1070 kicks in. At that time, every illegal immigrant in the state will be rounded up, processed for deportation, and kicked out.

Well, at least that’s the thinking among the anti-immigrant crowd.

However, Arizona citizens might be dismayed to discover that banishing all their undocumented workers will not cause rainbows to magically appear all over the state. Those who supported the law for economic reasons (ie, “Illegals get a free ride and cost us too much”) may receive a particularly unpleasant surprise.

According to the Arizona Republic, implementing the law will strain the state’s legal system and overburden the jails. If the same number of illegal immigrants are processed as in previous years, it will run Arizona at least an extra million bucks or so annually to take care of them. Keep in mind that “local police will presumably find more illegal immigrants than before.”

This estimate is just the direct cost of SB 1070. The Arizona Republic also reports that foreclosures may increase, because there will be fewer immigrants renting apartments and buying houses. That will not be good news for the state’s stagnant housing market.

Also keep in mind that many studies have pointed out that illegal immigrants often add more to the economy than they take. Adding these factors to the equation makes the new law seem fiscally insane.

However, maybe Arizona will still come out ahead. For starters, they may not be on the hook for all those processing and deportation fees after all. According to USA Today, SB 1070 “may be prompting a mass dispersion of Hispanics — both legal and illegal — from the state.”

Apparently, many Latinos aren’t in a big hurry to see if they get pulled over in Phoenix for looking suspiciously brown. So they’re taking off for someplace else right now.

Supporters of the law must be ecstatic at his news, anecdotal as it is, because it proves that all one has to do to get rid of a loathed ethnic group is pass a draconian law targeting them. Then they’ll flee.

Yes, it moves Arizona closer to the day when the state will consist entirely of old conservatives (mostly white), and rattlesnakes. I guess that’s the way they want it.

But wait, because there’s another kooky development on the horizon.

According to Newsweek, all this screaming and yelling is unnecessary, because the whole fistfight over illegal immigration will soon take resolve itself.

This is due to the fact that the birth rate in Mexico is declining rapidly. Along with the decrease in illegal immigration (and it has gone down, no matter what you’ve heard), it means that illegal immigration in the future “won’t be nearly as overwhelming as the deluge of the 1990s and early 2000s.” In fact, Gordon Hanson, an economics professor, says in the article that “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arizona starts pleading for Mexican workers who can help them in their retirement homes.”

And that’s the final twist in this ugly tale.

There’s a perverse irony to the idea that states such as Arizona will, years from now, be clamoring for young Latinos to immigrate. At that point, there will be a lot of “What SB 1070? We were just kidding.” It’s sort of like that scene in the otherwise shitty movie The Day After Tomorrow, where Americans rush into Mexico to escape the killer cold.

So Arizona, and the rest of us, can relax about immigration… at least until we get old and there are not enough young people (Hispanic or otherwise) to fund our Social Security and clean up after us.

But it’s best not to dwell on that one too much.

I want to thank Chris, Rose, and Ankhesen Mie for their recent comments, as well as everyone who responded to my most recent article for the Huffington Post. The 160 or so comments I got on HuffPo are the most I’ve received for one article. And only a few people there were nuts and/or unruly.

That post, of course, was about the shooting death of a teenager, which clearly is a depressing topic. So these days, I’m looking for a sliver of optimism out there. I may have found it.

Now, I’ve written before that I’m a fan of PostSecret. This is despite the fact that too many of the secrets are actually just sappy affirmations. And I also think it’s odd that the creator of the site includes at least one image of a female breast in every week’s batch (that’s not a criticism; just an observation).

In any case, PostSecret may have achieved a goal that all we bloggers have, which is to save a life. This accomplishment has, for some reason, eluded me on this site.

But PostSecret may have done it. A few weeks ago, the site ran the following:

Yes, for some inexplicable reason, the illegal immigrant who made this card feels that Americans would be happier if he just dropped dead. I don’t know where he got that idea… unless it was the nonstop barrage of right-wing media outlets blaming the undocumented for everything from the economic collapse to imaginary crime waves, with rage-filled commentary that implied individuals without papers are less than human.

But really, I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

So did the illegal immigrant jump to his or her death? No one knows.

With hope, however, this person saw the response that the secret provoked, and maybe this changed his or her mind.

“Time” magazine reports that, because of the postcard, “within 24 hours, nearly 20,000 people had signed up for a Facebook group titled ‘Please don’t jump,’ which was … linking in thousands of supportive comments.”

PostSecret adds that in the week since the secret was posted, “over 50,000 of you joined an online community offering encouragement and help” and that earlier this week, “hundreds are meeting on the Golden Gate Bridge to take a stand against suicide.”

I have to admit that this is quite a showing of support for one scared illegal immigrant. The outcome serves as a much-needed antidote to the hateful comments about the shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca (again, see my previous post).

Does this mean that there is still a kernel of compassion left in the increasingly jingoistic American soul? Is it possible that many people see the undocumented as fully human rather than as pests to be exterminated?

Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?

I’ve learned a lot of things by following the debate over illegal immigration. For example, I’ve found out that illegal immigrants routinely break into people’s homes and carjack Americans with impunity. I mean, there are scores of horror stories on internet message boards and cable tv news programs about what happened to good, God-loving (or do I mean God-fearing?) communities once a day-laborer moved in next door.

Apparently, it’s not a small percentage of troublemakers who commit these crimes either, but each and every undocumented worker. Therefore, we cannot consider a pathway to citizenship for any of them. They are all guilty. So let’s raze their neighborhoods to the ground.

To read the rest of this post, please click here.

Thanks, as always, to Macon D and Ankhesen Mie for their support. And thanks to all of you who checked out my new gig at Change.org (although, as Ankhesen can attest to, there is more serious crazy among readers of that site than I assumed there would be).

In any case, let’s talk about our favorite people: the architects of Arizona’s anti-immigration law.

The law’s backers believed that their get-tough approach to illegal immigration would garner them nationwide praise and respect. Indeed, many states have proposed enacting a similar version of the law, proof of its effectiveness at riling up conservatives.

However, the law’s supporters must have thought that the only individuals who would object were illegal immigrants themselves and a few bleeding hearts. That hasn’t been the case.

First, the initial public outcry has already been effective in changing the most odious portion of the law. Under the revision, police cannot stop people for the sole reason of questioning their immigration status (in theory at least). The fact that the law’s backers thought everybody would be fine with a cop frisking people at random shows how invincible they believed their position to be.

However, that revision hasn’t prevented further protest. We’ve seen tens of thousands gather from Los Angeles to New York to demonstrate against the law.

More important, talk of boycotting Arizona and/or its corporations has intensified and cannot be dismissed as empty threats. About thirty organizations, and untold thousands of individuals, have pledged to avoid the state. In addition, more than twenty conventions, conferences, and meetings have relocated out of Arizona because of the law.

To get that many people to flee the area, one usually has to announce something truly horrific, like “We start filming Battlefield Earth 2 here tomorrow.” But all that it’s taken is one misguided law.

Recently, St. Paul jumped to the front of what might prove to be a long line of cities banning official travel to the state of Arizona.” Those crazy lefty towns of Los Angeles and San Francisco have also decided to skip sending anyone to Arizona for the foreseeable future.

The cities of Tucson and Flagstaff won’t be on that list (considering its rather difficult to boycott their own state) but their respective city councils plan to sue to get the law changed. Elsewhere in Arizona, people are starting to worry that Major League Baseball will pull the 2011 All-Star Game from Phoenix, as pressure increases on MLB to hold the game somewhere else. Commissioner Bud Selig has insisted that the game will take place in Arizona.

But speaking of the sports world, the Phoenix Suns recently played some games in jerseys altered to read Los Suns to, as player Amare Stoudemire put it, “let the Latin community know that we’re behind them 100 percent.”

Multiple MVP Steve Nash has endorsed the idea, as has former basketball great Charles Barkley. In fact, Barkley says that pro sports teams should actively boycott Arizona (and he lives there).

The funny thing is that Barkley is a well-known Republican. In rethinking his allegence to conservatives, Barkley is not alone. Apparently, even some Republicans don’t think the law is such a great idea.

This feeling is especially strong among conservative Latinos “who have become an increasingly important Republican constituency in a number of Southwestern states [and] are considering bucking their party.” It’s as if Republicans actively wanted to drive Latinos out of the GOP, and thereby verify the allegation that they care only about the well-being of Southern white people.

To be sure, most Americans – and certainly most Arizonians – favor the law. But if the law’s backers thought that only meek objections would greet their decision, they were seriously mistaken.

When you’ve managed to anger the country’s largest minority group, entire municipalities, members of your own political party, and a major sports franchise, you’ve really underestimated the opposition.

We’ve heard the stories. The border with Mexico is out of control. Mayhem is spilling over into America’s cities. Recently, illegal immigrants murdered an Arizona rancher. What more evidence do you need?

The escalating violence is a big reason that most Americans support Arizona’s new anti-immigration law. However, perhaps they would not be so enthusiastic if it were better publicized that “law officers on the state’s border report that claims of epidemic drug violence in their jurisdictions are overblown.”

Yes, despite all the political posturing, some Arizona cops say “the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure” and that despite increased violence in Mexico, “there is remarkably little spillover” in Arizona, where overall violent crime has actually dropped in recent years.

And as tragic as the death of Robert Krentz is, the Border Patrol says, “the slain rancher is the only American suspected to have been killed by an illegal immigrant in the Tucson sector in at least a decade.”

Does this mean that we have nothing to fear from Mexico’s worsening crime situation? Well, that’s a shaky conclusion.

The better question, however, is whether cynical politicians are playing to their base, exaggerating threats, terrifying their constituents, and targeting an ethnic minority to serve as rallying cry and scapegoat… but come on, what are the odds of that farfetched scenario?

Regardless, the inability of Americans to distinguish real violence from horrifying anecdote has been pointed out before. For those who need a primer, however, director Robert Rodriguez has stepped in.

I’m a fan of Rodriguez’s films, which include “From Dusk Til Dawn,” “Sin City” and “Desperado.” His latest, “Machete” is unlikely to be confused with a Merchant-Ivory production. It answers the cinematic question “What happens when you fuck with the wrong Mexican?” To see the mythical “illegal” trailer, check this out. Otherwise, you can see the original below. Regardless of which version you watch, I think you’ll agree it’s unlikely that we’ll ever reach this level of cross-border violence.

With oil slicks spreading across the Gulf of Mexico and Tennessee going underwater and moronic terrorists continuing their obsession with New York City, it’s understandable if the whole shriek-fest over Arizona’s new law has passed from your conscious thoughts.

As you may recall, the law targets illegal immigrants, but many people (including me) are concerned that it will just lead to Hispanics being pressured for nineteen forms of ID whenever they walk down the street.

In any case, one thing that advocates on both side of the debate agree upon is the need for strong federal action. Of course, that doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. Neither political party wants to move quickly on this.

Perhaps we should blame Republicans for wanting this issue to continue festering in order to keep their base riled up. Maybe we should blame Democrats for displaying, once more, their well-honed cowardice. Or perhaps we should just be honest and blame ourselves for profiting from the hard work of the undocumented and then getting self-righteous about their presence.

Still, at some point, immigration reform will happen. But it will be ugly, and everyone will be at least a little disappointed, so don’t get your hopes up. This is because, while we all agree that illegal immigration is a problem, we have contrasting solutions to the problem.

Hell, we can’t even agree on the severity of the crime. Conservatives view the act of illegally immigrating to a country as one notch below murder. In their opinion, the behavior of the undocumented is so egregious that no penalty short of permanent deportation can make up for it.

In contrast, liberals see illegal immigrating as one notch below shoplifting. Surely, they say, we can work something out.

This is, to put it mildly, a discrepancy. Perhaps it cannot be bridged.

So we continue to demonize each other as, respectively, ignorant racists or softheaded appeasers. We also engage in dicey behavior. As Hector Tobar put it, “Opponents of legalization draw crude caricatures of the undocumented, while supporters aren’t fully honest about the challenges to U.S. society.” In such an atmosphere, simplistic answers are what we will continue to hear.

Regardless of what immigration reform ultimately looks like, I hope it will benefit people like Ekaterine Bautista, an Iraq War veteran who served honorably for six years. An illegal immigrant, she faces deportation rather than a citizenship ceremony.

What should we do with her? Should we kick her out or acknowledge her service? Can we even debate it, or are we too far gone for that?