I’ve been a bit quiet lately. It seems when I am busy at work my blogging frequency wans a bit. Anyway, I had a column published today, in the Sunday Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Big stuff. I would say it’s arguably my most confrontationally controversial. I have received a few post-worthy comments. Read the article here.
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one step closer 
From S.S. —
Finally someone is putting the shrill rhetoric of the immigration issue in the proper light. Talk to the corporations who have recruited Mexicans since the early 1900’s. I teach Spanish to middle-class white students who take Spanish to get a great business job, but at the same time will argue with me that immigrants come here and take their jobs…I tell them to talk to Mr. Hyatt and Mr. Perdue Chicken about the immigration issue and see when the businesses are going to change their practices.
While in Oaxaca last year, our cab driver received a call to return to Fort Meyers, Florida to his former job landscaping. The driver told us that the money was good, but he missed his family too much. This is a picture of exploitation, corporate profits, and racist attitudes toward complete citizenship. It’s immoral to build a fence and then hire as many as can come. Don’t even get me started on the baseball academies in the Dominican Republic.
From R.L. —
“What’s the immigration answer? Do the work yourself” is very true. I think too many do not know or care enough about those who do the work. The person who runs the corporation and stockholders are happy as long as profits come in. I have nothing against doing manual labor, but you do not get the pay and respect you should. All work is valuable and should be treated as such.
I am mostly caucasion with a small bit of Native American from my mom’s side ( French/Native & Canadian).Though I am not 100 percent certain of my slight Native American roots yet, it has nonetheless altered my beliefs and the way I view myself and people around me.
The thing that bothers me the most about the immigration situation is that Mexico is not a poor country, it has oil and other resources. Mexico borders the richest country in the world. Why doesn’t this country pressure Mexico to change? There is no excuse that living in Mexico should mean you are either a have or a have not.
Mexico,in this age of globalization, should not still be a place people have to leave out of economic desperation.People should be free to choose to be citizens of Mexico or the US, not forced to leave or stay out of economic desperation.
Is the reason the U.S. does not pressure Mexico to change: the powers that be in both nations are happy with a situation that keeps them in high earnings? Low wage workers here and in Mexico deserve better. If factory workers in Mexico organize, the owners move to Asia. Workers needs are not adequately considered in various trade agreements. Sadly the disparity between rich and poor is increasing in the US too.
I think that priorites of our leaders should also include the priorities of all, not just the priorities of their own economic/social class. People being aware of the reality of situations helps them begin to be able to focus on the big picture. Your editorial helps people be aware of many things they should be aware of. I hope people will learn.
From E.B. (brace yourself) —
Your right. We Americans are stupid and lazy. We are so stupid that maybe you should teach us a lesson. Why don’t all of you pack up and go home. It’s obvious you don’t like living amongst us stupids so why prolong your suffering. I’m sure you and your buddy Pilar (fellow community columnist, she is actually Mexican, and immigrated here and is an accomplished university professor) down at Whitewater would be more comfortable back in the homeland and not having us white trash ruin your day.
You can’t do that can you? If you spouted off the kind of crap you did in your column back in the homeland, who knows where your body would wind up, if it was ever found at all. Your own people only want you as a source of money. The white trash of America give you the opportunity to have a job and make money and you hate us. Your own country does not want you and yet in your eyes it is the greatest place on earth.
What I think is really funny is that Mexicans hate Americans of Mexican descent even more than they white Americans. Especially if they can’t speak Spanish. So when you are ready to teach us a lesson and head for the sunny skies of Mexico, make sure you know the lingo and don’t tell them your an American or your life could be short indeed.
You also know that if every Mexican left we white trash would find a way to cope. Always have, and if you don’t know that by now you had better learn it fast.
From John Doe —
You forgot to mention that people writing pro-illegal columns like yours should be boycotted or at least ostracized.
You also forget to mention that illegals depress the wages of hard working American citizens and legal immigrants already here. Why is it that construction wages are 40% lower in the southwest and most employers do not have to offer health insurance to many of these workers? A recent study also infers that illegals have depressed low paid job wages by 8% over the past fifteen years.
Furthermore, you continue to demean the hard0working whites, blacks, and Latinos here legally by continuing to say they won’t do certain types of work. Why do you continue to stereotype the hard working Americans already here as being lazy or unwilling to do what is necessary to support themselves and their families?
A recent LA Times article said 40% of LA county wages are now paid under the table. No social security tax or any other tax is paid on any of these wages. Then consider the costs to the taxpayer in our prisons (federal prisons are now 31% illegal aliens), education system (LA has over 250 different languages spoken in its schools), welfare, food stamps, hospitals going bankrupt, the expansion of our inner cities, the added costs of bilingualism,…
Locking down the border is a beginning; then slowly deport the illegals as we find them. This sure seems like a practical policy which will not embolden more illegals to come here as has happened in the past.
You are obviously advocating for what you consider to be your racial/ethnic group, not for the majority of the hardworking American middle class because immigration policy should not encourage more people to come here illegally, should be fair to willing immigrants who want to come here throughout the world (not just Mexicans or Latin Americans), and it should serve the direct interests of the American middle class.
I guess this is where the comment about “stupid” Americans needs to be dealt with. I am a “stupid” American. And, I am one because I ALLOWED my government to okay NAFTA. As Americans we are so busy pointing the finger and blaming everyone else that we forgot to see what part we all play in this issue.
First, let me start by saying that I work in the ICU at an urban hospital and my patients predominately do not have insurance and are being seen for things like gun shot wounds, running from the police, and drug overdoses/drug seekers, and ALL of these people are Americans who have some for of Government insurance or none at all. That is the same thing if you have no insurance because all of these bills are paid out of the taxes of hard-working Americans.
My question is this: Why as Americans do we continue to allow other Americans to do more damage than any amount of illegal immigrants could do to us but it is okay because you are American. The place of your birth does not give you the right to suck off of others around you. AMERICANS, predominately from urban areas, are more of the reason that we are having money sucked out of our paychecks.
And, back to NAFTA, why don’t Americans pay attention and see what this has done to all of us. You know I don’t even need to explain it because if you have such strong view but don’t know anything about NAFTA then I would say wait to post until you have done your research.
In the end all I can say is that Americans have a very weak backbone, and I am white American with no hispanic blood at all. Our children are being raised spoiled and weakthey offer us very little future and we all look to point the finger instead of taking responsibility ourselves. We NEED those “poor little illegals” to come and do what you won’t do. As one person stated for them to all go home and teach us a lesson. Oh please, we would probably offer amnesty to more from the middle east so they can work at those jobs while attending flight school that we are all paying for at the same time.
GET A GRIP AND LEARN WHO THE REAL ENEMY IS!!!!! We are our own enemy because we are so clouded with ignorance and people from CNN (won’t even say his name) boo-hooing over the illegals instead of being angry of treaties in place in our own country and how our own people can get their rent paid for, insurance, utility assistance, welfare checks, and food stamps all paid for by the working Americans. Oh yeah, and don’t forget that the rich get such nice tax breaks. We don’t have the strength to attack the real problem because then it might make some uncomfortable because certain groups of Americans would have to get called on the carpet so lets attack a group of people who really have no voice.
Why don’t you ask Ford/Volkswagen/Huffy bicycles, etc. why they are paying $3.00/hour or less per employee to have their product made and then it is brought to the US without taxes and then sold to us at the same price as when it was made IN the US.
I just give up on all the ignorance. It would be nice to see some intelligent thought into the issue instead of hearing how they are taking our jobs. You are taking your own jobs because Americans don’t unite against the large corporations who are controlling the US and ultimately are filling your minds very methodically to believe that the Mexicans have created all of the problems.
From E.C. —
A wise man once said that mendacity should always be avoided. This especially applies to complex issues such as illegal immigration when trying to justify the illegal workers by using a straw man argument such as your “Do the work yourself” nonsense.
If the USA really needs the cheap, illegal workers why use Mexicans? They pretty much know our system and what wages to expect. If scummy American businesses really need cheap, illegal labor to increase their profits then let’s import it from Asia and other third world nations. Heck, we could get people from Bangladesh or China or Haiti or India who would work for far less than those from Mexico.
We could replace the reported 10,000,000 illegal aliens now in the USA with 10,000,000 who would work for pennies an hour and have even less to do ourselves. Right?
That’s a facetious and pejorative proposition isn’t it? But it’s certainly not dissimilar to the “Do the work yourself” amphigory in your article. You suggested a “boycott” but it appears that your first boycott was common sense.
From L.S. —
I just wanted to tell you that you that I really support what you wrote in your article.
This country is built on immigrants… and I truly feel that something needs to be done, and done quickly —
I think that a LOT of people do not realize how much our daily lives are positively affected by illegal immigrants.
I truly hope that the House and Senate are able to reach a positive immigration reform bill that will help these immigrants and their families.
I encourage you to use your power of the written word to continue to spread this message…
From B.J. —
Ah yes, the old ‘they do the work Americans won’t do’ argument. Do you have any idea how offensive your smartass column was to people like myself who do the manual labor jobs you spoke of? I believe you used the words “Dirty work”. My family has been proud of working in these jobs since we came here legally. We were invited to this country. We came the right way. We took our oaths of citizenship seriously. We respect the privilege of being American. Maybe I shouldn’t be offended. Maybe your column wasn’t directed towards people like me. Maybe your column was simply aimed at people from places like Elm Grove.
My response — I wrote to Bill — I have a feeling we would disagree on many things anyway, but I did explain that my intention was not to degrade laboring Americans, simply to express that there are not nearly enough of them.
I also received an invitation to a local immigration conference.
You definitely need to use Friend Surfer. Look at the tab headers on your Dashboard – Choose Friend Surfer and type in all of your blogging friends with WordPress blogs. You can go there to see if everyone’s updated rather than clicking on each individual blog. It took me a while to figure out the html address wouldn’t work unless I left out the www part. Let me know if you need any help. It’s a great feature.
Interesting comments.. 😀