Why O.C. Hates Mexicans
O.C. can you say ... 'anti-Mexican'? - Los Angeles Times
I thought this was a really good op-ed piece by regular O.C. Weekly writer, Gustavo Arellano, on the general county psyche towards Mexicans. He doesn't argue that Orange County is the only place where people don't like Mexicans, nor does he say all white people hate Mexicans. He just explains why it seems every movement against illegal immigration in this state, like the Minuteman project and the unbelievable Prop 187, starts in Orange County.
He also mentions the fine line between hating illegal immigrants and hating Mexicans. Those people who are very adamant against illegal immigration are really racist. Gustavo said, "And even if immigration stopped tomorrow, Orange County would still look down on Mexicans." I hate slippery slope arguments--the idea that if one thing is true, then the extreme version of that thing also has to be true (i.e. if you allow gay marriage, then you must allow incest). I think people have more sense than that. But for some reason, I think what Gustavo said is true. If illegal immigration stopped to a halt, Mexicans will still be seen as dirty, dumb folk (a sentiment I think exists very prominently south of the 55 freeway).
Every time I hear, watch, or read opinions from those who are hardcore against illegal immigration (like in the O.C. Register Letters to the Editor), it just seems that those people are sadly hanging onto their own nostalgic vision of America. They may say we're losing a lot of taxpayer's money and that illegals are mooching off of us. To me though, it seems that what they're really saying is, "I don't want my money going to brown people" and to an extent, "I don't want brown people here."
Then again, maybe those people aren't racist. They just hate cheaters, like I do. But illegal immigrants cheat not to win, but to survive.
I thought this was a really good op-ed piece by regular O.C. Weekly writer, Gustavo Arellano, on the general county psyche towards Mexicans. He doesn't argue that Orange County is the only place where people don't like Mexicans, nor does he say all white people hate Mexicans. He just explains why it seems every movement against illegal immigration in this state, like the Minuteman project and the unbelievable Prop 187, starts in Orange County.
He also mentions the fine line between hating illegal immigrants and hating Mexicans. Those people who are very adamant against illegal immigration are really racist. Gustavo said, "And even if immigration stopped tomorrow, Orange County would still look down on Mexicans." I hate slippery slope arguments--the idea that if one thing is true, then the extreme version of that thing also has to be true (i.e. if you allow gay marriage, then you must allow incest). I think people have more sense than that. But for some reason, I think what Gustavo said is true. If illegal immigration stopped to a halt, Mexicans will still be seen as dirty, dumb folk (a sentiment I think exists very prominently south of the 55 freeway).
Every time I hear, watch, or read opinions from those who are hardcore against illegal immigration (like in the O.C. Register Letters to the Editor), it just seems that those people are sadly hanging onto their own nostalgic vision of America. They may say we're losing a lot of taxpayer's money and that illegals are mooching off of us. To me though, it seems that what they're really saying is, "I don't want my money going to brown people" and to an extent, "I don't want brown people here."
Then again, maybe those people aren't racist. They just hate cheaters, like I do. But illegal immigrants cheat not to win, but to survive.
16 Comments:
David deftly picks up where Tammy left off.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 2:49 PM
What can I say? I was bored.
By
David, at 5/08/2006 2:51 PM
I did some light research. I have heard of illegals paying taxes before, but I haven't seen any numbers. I *do* know that the IRS does supply tax identification numbers to illegals, though, but of course, how many do and don't use it is unknown.
The general gist I got was that many illegals are interested in paying, but are unaware that the IRS has faciliated the means to do so (indeed many legals don't even know that the IRS has done so). That, or they are afraid that the IRS will rat them out, which apparently the IRS is not interested in doing.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 4:00 PM
Your nonno.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 4:07 PM
Having said that, I dispute that illegal immigrant taxpayers are anywhere near 90% of the pool. I'd be surprised if it were even 50%.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 4:11 PM
I also propose that we begin a tradition of referring to our grandparents in a foreign tongue. For example, Damon's No-No.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 4:13 PM
Jihaaaaaad
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 9:05 PM
My problem with the whole liberal vs. conservative thing, or for that matter any side vs. another side, is whenever people fail to empathize with the other side.
With the whole illegal immigration thing, whenever somebody brings up the issue of illegal immigrants not paying taxes, and our taxes are going to pay for those "criminals", I get a bit touched off. At least sympathize with the other side before insulting people like that.
Statements like, (sorry to quote from you Chris) Our social system can't hold up forever under the stress of such a large illegal immigrant population. Realizing this fact doesn't make you "anti- Mexican" it makes you sensible and intelligent., as nice as they may be, are slightly one-sided to me.
I disagree. Am I unintelligent? I think we can afford it; why can't we spend $1 billion less on the military budget? We're spending $6 billion on the new helicopter for the President, so he won't have to duck anymore, so, as Colbert put it, Bush can "come back with perfectly staged photo-ops". We're not overcrowded. America is HUGE, and one of the least densely populated areas of the world.
Whenever people (consciously or unconsciously) accuse another group of wrongdoing without sufficiently providing enough information (read: provide enough information to satisfy me) it makes me feel like they are closed-minded.
You can provide all the information you want to support your side of the story. Yes, it is illegal to cross borders. Yes, there are more Mexicans crossing our common border than poor Chinese and Indian students. Yes, many immigrants entered the country the right way. If you haven't analyzed the best arguments of the other side of the story, and conclude that your points of view are still stronger, you won't convince me of anything.
This is what I get ticked off about Fox News and conservative radio shows. To this day, I've yet to see a "liberal" news network.
What could be considered "liberal" news networks are, to me, run the fairest, least biased, and most intelligent people committed to bringing the news without big graphics, without viewer totals (biggest loser: Drudge Report), like NPR, BBC, the NY Times, and PBS.
Conservative talk show hosts tell you their opinion. They will throw you many examples of why they think their opinion is right, and it's a dangerous thing. I remember when I started watching Bill O'Reilly, I actually liked the show. I found his points interesting and I would find myself agreeing with them. I wasn't a "conservative" but during that month or two, most of the issues going on were not very liberal/politically biased.
After a while, however, I realized I was being spoon fed his opinions. After listening to NPR, I was amazed that I would never hear anybody yell, I would often hear news directly from the source (experts actually in the field, not political commentators), and they would never ever make an opinion, leaving me to decide what was right and wrong from the points they presented.
And I agree with David's last point. Whatever happened to "bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses"?
Everybody reading this is an immigrant. How would your ancestors have liked it if, when coming across the boat to America, at the Statue of Liberty they were turned down, because they had to go through a complicated process involving years of paperwork, visas, etc.? This country was built on poor, uneducated immigrants.
Also this whole thing about Mexicans... this land, not much more than 150 years ago, was Mexico. We basically invaded Mexico (ahem, found an excuse to invade Mexico... iraq anybody?) and took over California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and Texas.
These last few points are biased, I'll admit it, but they're meant to provide a counterpoint for discussion against the very good anti-illegal immigration points introduced above. Don't forget that the Irish were discriminated against, much like the Mexicans were, about a century ago.
One last point, people fail to realize the benefits of Mexican labor. Ask any economist or entrepreneur what the effects would be if we suddenly exported all of our illegal immigrants. Our economy would collapse. Fast food industry; bye bye, food industry in general? cya; hotels? expect a large price increase; construction? same thing. These views, on top of the personal and family issues discussed above, all need to be considered before anybody makes any sweeping proposals to criminalize all these manual laborers. Doesn't matter how good or bad your life may be, how much you pay in taxes, and how smart or stupid you or they are.
By
Tony, at 5/08/2006 11:26 PM
You guys all bring up good points, coming from various sides. As someone who's relatively uninformed (and on the fence), I'm interested to hear your comments on various things, as I comment in kind.
Kathy mentioned the vicious cycle of education in California. Unfortunately it seemed to make a lot of sense to me. However, a major problem is inherent in the awards system. Why exactly would you pile more money into schools that are performing well? If you wanted to equalize things, you'd assist the schools that are doing poorly. So yes, it seems to me that the schools do get worse and worse as illegals pour in, because it's already pretty well established that minorities (illegal or not) perform more poorly compared to whites...but, it's because of the awards system. A ship is carrying on water and is sinking. But then you install the Water Pump 5000 with the BlingMaster Upgrades onto a ship that's working fine.
And I'd also like to point out though, that just simply pouring in funding into schools does nearly nothing, well, after a certain point anyway. I have a feeling those poor underfunded schools are far below the threshold before noticeable diminishing returns set in.
On the other hand, it does seem really unfair that legal immigrants have to pay a large amount of money and wait a huge amount of time to get in (although illegals pay a lot to the blackmarket to get smuggled in as well, but they don't have to wait so long). But Damon pointed out that we could rework the immigration system to allow more legals entry.
I've also got to stay that I'm not sure I can dismiss the limited resource argument. According to the US Census, there are 35 million citizens living at or below the poverty line. Could assistance be more readily routed to those folks if there was less illegal immigrants? I don't know. I somehow suspect it wouldn't matter. We'd probably just lower the welfare budget in proportion.
The violence and gang bit is a stretch for me. Of the x millions of illegals, the number of gangs seem to be a negligible percentage of them. There's plenty of black gangs, white gangs, etc. And there's a ton of hardworking, non-violent illegals.
And yet, maybe there is merit to it. Japan is one of the safest places in the world, and also one of the most institutionally racist (there's a reason that everyone still looks the same). Of course they have their own set of problems, so it's not really fair to compare nation to nation, and there does seem to be give and take. I'd rather live in a less racist country with a bit more crime.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 11:28 PM
I'd also like to point out to Jimmy that from what I've heard (and I'm sure he was exaggerating as well), the current idea of the welfare mom is largely an exaggeration. Welfare payments don't give you enough to raise multiple children anyway (and barely one decently imo). So I guess you can then theorize that they're selling crack. But you can also theorize the other way, too, at that point.
By
Ron, at 5/08/2006 11:37 PM
Okay, maybe Al Franken's show is liberal, but I haven't listened to it. My point is what's considered "liberal" by conservative news networks are often things like NPR and PBS, which are really educational, professionally-made shows.
By
Tony, at 5/08/2006 11:47 PM
oh and "I agree with David's last point should = I agree with Damon's* last point"
By
Tony, at 5/08/2006 11:56 PM
I say let them come and mooch all they want, yeah? If illegals can mooch so easily, then it should be really easy for me as a lazy legal to mooch off the system. Which way to the welfare office? Ummm, what else, let's see, I'm all for the England comment. I think INGERLUUUND!!! should rule more than half the world. Especially the backwards places like Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Teach the heathens to drink tea and speak English, damn it! If statistics don't count the undocumented, where are the mooching stats coming from, eh? I remember my days as an illegal. It was way back in 2005, when I didn't have my Chinese work visa. What did I do about it? I yelled at my boss and told him to get me one. And because I am obviously a much more valuable human being than all these damn dirty Mexicans, I got it. America beeeyatch! For Amerikaaans! YEEEHAAAW!!! yipeee-kay-ay motherfuckers. People all over the world are worth the same, and that's the shit that comes out of our asses. No more, no less.
By
napehtrap, at 5/09/2006 12:52 AM
Sorry guys, I hate to keep beating on a dead horse.
I'm not an expert on immigrant politics/policy (nor am I usually interested in it since nobody is actually really willing to promote a policy that would actually improve the situation nor will any kind of significant legislation that is proposed will actually pass); however, I am curious as to how illegal immigrant "mooch" off the system. I'm also curious as to what programs that immigrants mooch off of that are restricted to immigrants-only. Do they mooch welfare? Mooch on public education? Mooch on food stamps? Mooch ER Hospital visits?
Also, understand that an mooch mooch mooch moochy mooch mooch. Sorry, I stopped caring half-way through writing that last sentence. I think I was going to say something about the ... "Tragedy of the Commons" and how it applied to various social services that both State and Federal levels of government provides or something like that. I don't really know anymore.
Sorry, its late.
By
Robert, at 5/09/2006 2:29 AM
I know what I'd do. I'd deport my ass. Focking ungrateful illegales.
By
napehtrap, at 5/09/2006 7:12 PM
You changed "magic bridge" to airplane. -5 points.
By
Ron, at 5/09/2006 7:48 PM
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