More on the immigration issue

Just a few scattered ideas about immigration and protests:

1. One of my arguments is that we need to ease restrictions on allowing people to come into the United States to work. In my view, there is no reason to keep someone from coming here to earn a better life. If you want to see what the procedures are to come here legally, check out this government website. Did you go to the site? I did and it was confusing as hell. Now, here's my thoughts. When writing about the whole wiretapping scandal, one of the arguments that Republicans made was that the process to get a FISA warrant was too difficult, which meant that they could go around the rules a bit. Well, now that this process has become too difficult, these immigrant workers are just going around it. Didn't they say that was OK? Hmmmm...?

2. A point that I had made in my first post about this issue was that carrying a Mexican flag to one of these protests defeated the true purpose of the protest. Having said that, it has come to my attention that the organizers of the Downtown L.A. protest told people to wear white and to bring American flags. It seems to me that the people that are really fighting to protect their opportunity for a better life do want to be part of this country.

3. And you know what? Being part of this country does not mean you have to dump your old culture. Remember the whole "our country is a melting pot" idea from elementary school? Well, that has been changed from melting pot to a salad. In a melting pot, each individual ingredient loses its characteristics and becomes one homogeneous goo. In a salad, the ingredients retain their individual qualities and combine flavors to make a delicious light meal. What is "American culture"? To me, its the combination of every place our families come from. So I welcome the cultures from Latin America, Asia, Europe (even France), Africa, etc. We don't criticize people that speak Italian or Dutch or German in our streets, but we are quick to say that Spanish-speakers need to learn English.

4. My solution to the problem? Let people come here to work. Work with the Mexican government to make sure that people coming over are not criminals, drug dealers, etc. What gives me the right to be an American citizen? I was born here. What part did I play in that? None. I did nothing to earn my citizenship. At some point my parents' families came over from Scotland, Denmark, Germany, etc. and started living. So what makes me special. Well, now I pay my taxes, vote, and follow the laws (mostly). Why not let people earn their way here by working. Give them a chance to be citizens without having to go through a huge amount of bureaucracy. Most of us didn't have to.

5. The students that were part of the protests Monday who left school just for the sake of leaving school did something pretty stupid. However, the people that use these students as an example of why immigrants are bad are just as stupid. Do you really want to base your argument on immigrants on the decisions made by teenagers? Every conservative radio host (Rush, John and Ken, Elder, Bill Handle, etc.) that used these kids (yes, kids) to show how careless immigrants are really need to look at who they are talking about. When I was teaching at Redlands, I had a student who used a Dorito bag to pull his friend's turd out of the toilet and threw it into the pool so he wouldn't have swim practice. Is he a good example of how white citizens behave? Hell no. He's a good example of a dumb teenager. Find someone your own age to pick on.

That's it for now.