I’ve been reading a book of late called The Other Face of America by Jorge Ramos. A timely piece as it turns out given the recent fiasco over the immigration bill. In fact reader Jim Hank Duncan, Walnut Creek, CA recently asked my opinion of the immigration bill. Well I suspect that as an American blogger of Mexican descent, I should favor you all with my wit, wisdom and keen insights with respect to the problem of illegal immigration. Since I’ve had to read this book recently and since I’ve been giving the problem a lot of thought I decided that I would ask you all, my loyal readers a simple question. What is America to you?
I’m serious, look over on the left, find the “contact Smilin’ Paul” link on the sidebar and click on it and fire me a quick e-mail telling me what you think makes America unique or exceptional. We are endlessly told that we are a nation of immigrants. Certainly that is true but as Senor Ramos points out in his book, other waves of immigrants to this country assimilated to the dominant Anglo culture. Ramos does not stop there though, as he goes on to state that Latinos in general and illegal immigrants specifically are not going to assimilate for a variety of reasons. First of all it is no longer necessary to do so. Americans have coddled immigrants from all nations not just those of Latin America. We have funded at lavish expense, education and benefits and services in languages other than English but most especially Spanish. I shouldn’t have to tell you that most of these programs are the brainchildren of liberals and you can probably infer that since they were liberal ideas to begin with, they have utterly failed to achieve their objectives. We have failed to secure our border. We allow illegal immigrants to immerse themselves in isolated pockets of their native cultures and we do this by enabling them to remain ignorant of English and our legal practices. Feel good measures by misguided social workers and politicians have led us to pander to those who have no legal standing. Perhaps the most outrageous offense is that some in our country are perfectly willing to assign Constitutional rights to those who broke our laws just to enter the country.
Los Angeles is the second largest Spanish speaking city in the world and has been for some time. So what are we to do? The reality of 20-30 million illegal immigrants currently in this country can not be solved by immediate deportation. Not only is it physically impossible, it would devastate the economy and no matter how hard core about the illegal immigration problem you are, I doubt that you would be personally willing to suffer a recession in order to affect immigration reform. This does not mean that I endorse the incredibly flawed reform shot down last week in the Senate. It simply means that I am a realist. We must secure our border before the 20 million illegals becomes another 30 or 40 or 50 million. Once the border is secured we can figure out who is here and who can remain. I would even be in favor of drastically increased immigration quotas for those from Latin America. ONCE OUR BORDER IS SECURE!!
There are few things more contemplative in this world than riding a good horse under a wide open sky. I had a chance the other day while riding our mare to survey the Nevada landscape and think about this issue. At one time, the ground my horse and I trod on was occupied by those who spoke Washoe, Shoshone or Paiute, later came the Spanish speakers and then came the English speakers. Now we are returning to a time when the Spanish speakers are ascendant. Short of aggressively pursuing immigration reform that mandates the government build a wall first and then process immigration requests, I do not see how the Western United States can be prevented from complete transformation into a de facto province of Mexico. Unless of course we begin to take the necessary legislative and social steps required to make immigrants, legal and illegal, assimilate to our society.
In my mind America was made great by immigrants but our greatness is not limited to that. This nation is also great because it is fundamentally a nation of laws and built upon a Constitution that provides some semblance of equality to each citizen and an unparalleled amount of political, economic and religious freedom. As long as future immigrants understand that and make no effort to subvert the Constitution, as long as they continue the pursuit of those freedoms I mentioned, they will only continue to make America great and it won’t really make a damn bit of difference whether they speak English, Spanish or Swahili, as long as they acknowledge the precious and exceptional gifts bestowed upon this country by God and by our English speaking forefathers.
Smilin' Paul Villa U.S. Senate 2010
cyber-Congressman, R-Reno
Proud Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and 2 SUV Family
I’m serious, look over on the left, find the “contact Smilin’ Paul” link on the sidebar and click on it and fire me a quick e-mail telling me what you think makes America unique or exceptional. We are endlessly told that we are a nation of immigrants. Certainly that is true but as Senor Ramos points out in his book, other waves of immigrants to this country assimilated to the dominant Anglo culture. Ramos does not stop there though, as he goes on to state that Latinos in general and illegal immigrants specifically are not going to assimilate for a variety of reasons. First of all it is no longer necessary to do so. Americans have coddled immigrants from all nations not just those of Latin America. We have funded at lavish expense, education and benefits and services in languages other than English but most especially Spanish. I shouldn’t have to tell you that most of these programs are the brainchildren of liberals and you can probably infer that since they were liberal ideas to begin with, they have utterly failed to achieve their objectives. We have failed to secure our border. We allow illegal immigrants to immerse themselves in isolated pockets of their native cultures and we do this by enabling them to remain ignorant of English and our legal practices. Feel good measures by misguided social workers and politicians have led us to pander to those who have no legal standing. Perhaps the most outrageous offense is that some in our country are perfectly willing to assign Constitutional rights to those who broke our laws just to enter the country.
Los Angeles is the second largest Spanish speaking city in the world and has been for some time. So what are we to do? The reality of 20-30 million illegal immigrants currently in this country can not be solved by immediate deportation. Not only is it physically impossible, it would devastate the economy and no matter how hard core about the illegal immigration problem you are, I doubt that you would be personally willing to suffer a recession in order to affect immigration reform. This does not mean that I endorse the incredibly flawed reform shot down last week in the Senate. It simply means that I am a realist. We must secure our border before the 20 million illegals becomes another 30 or 40 or 50 million. Once the border is secured we can figure out who is here and who can remain. I would even be in favor of drastically increased immigration quotas for those from Latin America. ONCE OUR BORDER IS SECURE!!
There are few things more contemplative in this world than riding a good horse under a wide open sky. I had a chance the other day while riding our mare to survey the Nevada landscape and think about this issue. At one time, the ground my horse and I trod on was occupied by those who spoke Washoe, Shoshone or Paiute, later came the Spanish speakers and then came the English speakers. Now we are returning to a time when the Spanish speakers are ascendant. Short of aggressively pursuing immigration reform that mandates the government build a wall first and then process immigration requests, I do not see how the Western United States can be prevented from complete transformation into a de facto province of Mexico. Unless of course we begin to take the necessary legislative and social steps required to make immigrants, legal and illegal, assimilate to our society.
In my mind America was made great by immigrants but our greatness is not limited to that. This nation is also great because it is fundamentally a nation of laws and built upon a Constitution that provides some semblance of equality to each citizen and an unparalleled amount of political, economic and religious freedom. As long as future immigrants understand that and make no effort to subvert the Constitution, as long as they continue the pursuit of those freedoms I mentioned, they will only continue to make America great and it won’t really make a damn bit of difference whether they speak English, Spanish or Swahili, as long as they acknowledge the precious and exceptional gifts bestowed upon this country by God and by our English speaking forefathers.
Smilin' Paul Villa U.S. Senate 2010
cyber-Congressman, R-Reno
Proud Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and 2 SUV Family
posted by Smilin' Paul Villa | 5:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home