<p>Could it be reasonable to look at Mexico and think there goes us if it weren’t for the developement of a middle class? </p>
<p>I think 2d is right about the resources being there, but is the system in place to maximize it? Would we be the country we are under a different social system?</p>
<p>“That said, I don’t think it is our responsibility to solve Mexico’s problems by providing all kinds of services to that portion of its populace that happens to find itself on this side of the border”</p>
<p>That’s how I feel as well. For those of you who’ve heard this from me before, I apologize for boring you, but for those of you who don’t “know” me, I’d like to let you know that I’ve been a literacy volunteer here in NYC for about 20 years. I work with lots of people I know to be illegal, particularly from Mexico and Ecuador. So I do know many personally, like them and care about them. But I think their presence hurts our country and my locality. That said, I have a small (probably worthless) observation. For many of those 20 years, the people I worked with were absolutely the hardworking immigrants of our popular lore. They were often female, but the men were a bit older, frequently married and wanting to make a life for their wives and children. In the last few years, the numbers have changed a lot. There are very few people like that who take advantage of the services my organization offers (literacy, food, childcare, etc.) because the vast majority of the people we see now are very young, single men. Please understand that I’m not bashing men here, but there is a difference between an older family man and a young, wild guy looking to have a good time in a place with no family and no women to provide boundaries. These young men often (here, I won’t speak for everywhee, ok?) travel in predatory packs and do a lot of damage to people and property. There has also been an explosive increase in gang activity coming from Mexico and Latin America. Again, I’m not hating and I’m not picking a fight with anyone here, but I don’t think our common myth of the illegal immigrant has kept pace with the direction taken by reality and I think that’s very dangerous. I’ve also seen a huge increase of immigrants who not only don’t speak English, but don’t speak Spanish, either (Indian dialects) and have no history or ancestry of literacy in any language. My personal opinion (which I understand others may not share) is that these people are very close to unassimilable.</p>
<p>" I’ve also seen a huge increase of immigrants who not only don’t speak English, but don’t speak Spanish, either (Indian dialects) and have no history or ancestry of literacy in any language."</p>
<p>That’s true - they come from southern Mexico, a direct result of U.S. policies. And there are many, many younger people - that’s also true - as families can no longer support their children - another DIRECT RESULT of U.S. policies.</p>
<p>That said, at least in eastern Washington, younger farmworkers cost even less to the state - no need for food or childcare, less need for health care - and they are better physically equipped to do the work. </p>
<p>Think Irish of 1848.</p>
<p>
Our area has seen this as well. It used to be more families coming into the area or men who work here and send money home. Now a great proportion of our drug arrests and for some reason DUIs come from this sector. I have friends that run small businesses, the change they have seen over the last decade is that the “newer” illegal immigrants don’t want to fit in to the culture here–many do not want to learn English and expect the businesses to offer Spanish speaking personnel for their convenience.</p>
<p>and the entire eastern portion of our state becomes a ghost town.</p>
<p>With three state universities, more wineries than I could count, and several small colleges?</p>
<p>Tourism is pretty hot as well- we spent the majority of our vacation time last year in eastern wa - interestingly both far south @ the Columbia Gorge & north in the Methow valley
<a href=“http://www.washingtonstate.worldweb.com/[/url]”>http://www.washingtonstate.worldweb.com/</a></p>
<p>But Mini, I believe the Irish came here legally and once here did attempt to assimilate to their new country.</p>
<p>Again, you should check some of your history of the “young men” who came in the last part of the wave. Gangs, mobs, violence, riots, crime rings. </p>
<p>The lack of assimilation was so extreme that in 1881 (almost 35 years later), in Massachusetts, the militia was called out to march Irish children off to public schools because the parents refused to allow them to go.</p>
<p>Zoosermom,</p>
<p>I respect your comments because your opinions come from experience, and you have so much to add to the table.</p>
<p>Mini, you are brilliant and always have insightful comments.</p>
<p>It is such a complicated problem, and I have no idea what the answer is. We do have to remember that they are fellow human beings who many times through no fault of their own (U.S policy, corrupt Mexican government) find themselves in a regretable situation. They deserve our respect.</p>
<p>“With three state universities, more wineries than I could count, and several small colleges?”</p>
<p>The three state universities would shrivel. There would be virtually no health care. No one to work in the wineries. The largest small college is Whitman - guess who does all the maintenance?</p>
<p>The biggest industry that would remain is the state pen.</p>
<p>Thank you curiousmom. I appreciate the kind words. It really is a tough problem and one wants to help the people who can contribute and be good citizens, but protect everyone else from the criminal element. I also think a strong and vibrant Mexican economy would be the best thing for the entire region on so many levels.</p>
<p>"Let 'em come here! I will promise jobs in the cherrypicking season for any and all able and willing to do the work - averaging $15/hr and up. (Most won’t last two days.)</p>
<p>Employers are smart: they learn over time who is most able and willing to do the work, and work hardest, and produce the best bottom line. Their biggest problem is that there aren’t enough undocumented workers to go around."</p>
<p>I support mini.</p>
<p>In Houston I have seen/read stories about Katrina transplants complaing about lack of jobs in Houston area.</p>
<p>There also was a story that in NO area 10,000 undocumented workers are helping the rebuild efforts.</p>
<p>In one town in LA, even McDonald is paying signing bonuses !!</p>
<p>“It is such a complicated problem, and I have no idea what the answer is.”</p>
<p>Well, I think there are two first places to start. The first is to eliminate the “us vs. them” mentality. “Them” is “us”. My other set of grandparents were landless laborers thrown off their land in virtually the same way those in Mexico have been. When they came (like virtually every other immigrant group), they worked hard, and were exploited. And let’s not overromanticize - like every other hardworking, exploited low-income immigrant group, they had more than their share of criminals, and etc. (Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky had a history!) The school people said they were incorrigible and unteachable - the president of the American Psychological Association and head of the Psychology Dept. at Princeton in 1920 said that 88% of American Jewish immigrants were “mental defectives” and uneducable. They fought discrimination and were thought to be unpatriotic as a result. But they tended to work harder than most other native folks, at least until they found their place in the sun. And the economy prospered as a result. You find the same story among the Chinese, the Poles, the Italians, the Puerto Ricans, the Cubans, the Vietnamese.</p>
<p>The second is to note that what is good for American business is NOT necessarily good for Americans or for folks abroad. I think NAFTA makes that abundantly clear. (and I have my personal WTO stories from India that make the case even more emphatically.)</p>
<p>Just starting places.</p>
<p><a href=“http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/hidden_cost_of_.html[/url]”>http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/hidden_cost_of_.html</a>
^^^^
Someone mentioned in an earlier post about identity theft</p>
<p>One thing that promotes the “us” vs “them” is the language issue. With all the other groups that immigrated did the government have issues on ballots as to what would be the official language, did they start to print signs on highways in another country’s language? Just asking–I honestly don’t know. But I do know that in our area, that is one of the biggest issues that irritate “locals”.</p>
<p>We have Chinese signs in and around Chinatown, and have for a very long time. Now, in our international district, street signs are also in Japanese in many places. Labor documents in eastern Washington are translated into Spanish because 90% of the workers that employers want to employ are Spanish-speaking, and the employers want to make their own paperwork burden easier. </p>
<p>The original European language of America was Spanish. The founding fathers, in their wisdom, debated having an official language, and decided not to have one (though there was a very significant move to make it German.) The only folks these days who want to put “official languages” on ballots are those who speak English! (and you can bet that is very irritating to locals whose first language is not English.)</p>
<p>In the cities the Irish -unable to find work, read/write, join society are the Super-trash of the day. Violent, unwashed, crude and much hated. earlier in history the young men were the slaves who rowed the galley ships-taken away for their working life. The majority of early slaves here and in the Caribbean were Irish. The culture was in a shambles when the famine hit. The Irish were not welcomed at all-to put it mildly.
My impression is that a number of irish, italian and eastern european folks here on the East Coast came in illegally. Free classes at churches and synagogues helped them learn the language, though many adults did not ever speak English. I know some of our dear readers families came here from Lower Slobovia with 2 used bagels and a rotten potato, learned English in one year and worked their way up with NO HELP and became a Great American Story. In fact such a great story that their children and grandchildren have no clue that there was a vast network of folks helping the newcomers. At least that’s what many of my neighbors think happened.
Never mind making the irish kids attend school - check out the riots in NY when they tried to delouse Eastern European and Jewish children. (washing was thought to be dangerous)
For a great mystery read and a strong factual history behind it, read Owen Parry’s mysteries set in the Civil War. Lots on the Irish and others.
I’m Irish, Scots (those thrown out into southern Carolinas) and Welsh-thrown out of there too. America is just an amazing country. I don’t know if we are a melting pot but I do love the patchwork we’ve turned into.</p>
<p>“It’s how my grandfather, from Lithuania, got here.”</p>
<p>Mine, too. Coming from the equivalent of Lower Slobovia, he spent two years in Cuba, sleeping on the roof of the store where he worked, and got a Cuban immigrant visa. With the benefit of his third-grade education (conducted in Yiddish and Hebrew, of course), he started a business. By the time his children were in elementary school, he employed twenty union workers.</p>
<p>I’m actually a fan of keeping English as the lingua franca of this country, because I believe it’s good for immigrants as well as the rest of us to have a language in common. My grandparents viewed the opportunity to grow up as native English speakers as a great gift to their children; I agree.</p>
<p>To return to the original topic of the thread, I don’t agree with punishing children for what their parents did. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect children to stay behind when their parents immigrate illegally, and I also don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the children to go “home” at age 18 when they’ve grown up in the U.S. and this is the only home they know. (My sister has a client who was brought illegally from Ukraine at age two and speaks only English; where is she supposed to go back to?) I think that if the students were brought to Arizona as children, grew up there, and graduated from local high schools, they are state residents and should get in-state tuition. It’s not their fault that their parents gave them citizenship in one country and a life in another.</p>
<p>“It’s not their fault that their parents gave them citizenship in one country and a life in another.”</p>
<p>That’s absolutely true and what makes it heart-wrenching is that there just isn’t unlimited money to pay for everything that anyone thinks would be fair and nice for some group of people. It’s so tough to decide something that will hurt people who are already here, but like other things financed with tax dollars, boundaries do have to be set.</p>
<p>use of other languages. I wrote a paper back in the dark ages, no clue where it is or if my sources were correct but if I recall correctly in Chicago some public schools taught only in Polish, and similar situations existed around the country at times. It does make sense that those ludefisk eating Norwegians probably didn’t jump into English any faster than Mexicans or Italians. I forget the rest of the factoids but use of other languages is not so unusual. I used to own a book called Jersey Talk (anyone finds it, let me know!) about language and accents in NJ. Originally English was the second language according to the author. People spoke a patois of Dutch, African, Native American and English that faded away as more English speakers arrived.
I am currently reading Made in America by Bill Bryson, a history of American English. Wildly interesting and funny. (who knew?)<br>
We have a more complex and interesting history than we are taught. Not as pretty and shiny and 1950’s school books though.</p>
<p>I find these conversations, which share different experiences and different observations absolutely fascinating and they are one of the main reasons why I choose to frequent this board.</p>