Speak Out

jack: 28th Mar 2006 - 15:16 GMT

ok calm down. people who hate are a very small minority. ordinary people tend to keep silent on many subjects. this country is free for all peoples. but the laws must be obeyed. if you don't have laws you will have chaos. immigration is a touchy subject. people are brought in and work at ridiculous wages or sometimes no wages. this effects the working class of low to moderate income workers who are constantly being laid off. this hurts business' that has to close their doors due to the fact they cant compete against the cheaters. america is the melting pot of the world. americans fear the immigrants will change the lifestyle of america. in the early 1900's many people came here from all over the world. they had to adapt very quickly to a new language and way of living, and they did it. they were not angry. they became americans through a legal process and contributed to continuing the american way of life just as many new immigrants do today. americans see their neighborhoods changing to a foreign style and language. go to 4th avenue in brooklyn and you think your in hong kong. when you come to america be proud of your heritage and bring your customs with you to share in this country. educate yourself. read as many books as you can on real americans that were industrious and creative. i love mexico and i have always felt the mexicans were a great nation with a great history. my mojado friend become a proud american.

Rigoberto Mendoza: 28th Mar 2006 - 17:16 GMT

My parents are Mexicanos & proud to be. I was born in Edmonton, Canada but I too love my Mexican heritage I speak both english & spanish. My parents went to Canada because the migra (immigration feds) were chasing them around in the early 80's because down in Mexico there was nothing but a poor cheap economy, corrupt leaders & other things so like other Mexicans & Latin Americans they crossed the river paid big bucks then ended up in Houston where they got jobs by a cheat way, I know cheating your way in to success isn't right but they had no other. So come october 1988 my folks were chased by the feds because they found out they were working with fake documents & so the went up to Canada were this Jamaican dude recommended my folks to become Canadians ... I mean their system is quite different than America's. Now that I'm here in Houston, In America these protests do have a purpose & it should be heard, it should be done,I too am a mojado.

Peter: 28th Mar 2006 - 18:26 GMT

i am growing very leery of how insular, provincial and xenophobic america is becoming... it smacks of fascism and... dare i say it... prewar germany. after all, every single one of us living in america is either an immigrant, of sorts, or directly tied to one. as a caucasian person, i know that i didnt just spring forth from the non-white natives who inhabited this land before "america"... as a matter of fact, i know that my family immigrated here from europe. yes, it was many generations ago, but still... their circumstances in coming here weren't any different from any other immigrant, legal or not, brown, black or white. they didnt have to go through some complicated bureaucratic melee to earn their citizenship. they walked off a boat, filed some papers, and pledged to be good citizens. thats about it.

this sense of uber-entitlement is becoming so deeply trenched in the collective american psyche, and it really rubs me the wrong way, and embarasses me on a global scale.

it smacks of the know nothing movement of the 1850s, this xenophobia. its the same old ironic, hypocritical form of antiquated, closed-minded non-global thinking that america is becoming increasingly infamous for.

and america is forcing its own citizens to become more and more insular... more conservative and distrustful of oursiders, and it makes us look like a bunch of idiotic, warmongering racists who cant get with modern times, who are scared of "all them dirty wetbacks that come to steal our jobs"... how terrible.

and this talk about a 700 mile wall on the mexican border? geez. give me a break. youd think this was east berlin or something, beruit perhaps.

there are families- yes, in this case mostly latino- that are risking life, legality and prosterity to sneak into a country and take the demeaning jobs that others wont... simply because even doing that, miserable as it is, is better than the options they have in their own locales... and thats really profoundly sad.

america, as a modern 1st world republic, owes it not only to our own heritage and future, but to the net compassion/humanitarian efforts of the world at large to allow these people a chance to get legal and flesh out a life here just as i do, as countless millions of other people do- not to make it harder on them!

i say if a human is willing to work, willing to go against their entire heritage simply to have an opportunity to scratch out an existence in another, more prosperous country, they deserve that chance, and they deserve the right to go about it legally. they deserve this right even more than me, i would even wager to say... all i had to do to have this opportunity was to be born here.

so for all of you that live in fear, illegally or otherwise, who are being judged just because of your nationality or on what sort of work you do or what ethnicity you come from... more power to you. those of you that are protesting, do it loudly and proudly. its teh american way, and you have every right to speak up.

and on behalf of america, as a white american citizen, i am so sorry that the rights i seem to enjoy without a second thought are so hard to come by for you. thats just not fair. not fair at all. if a cuban sails to florida and sets foot on land, they are allowed to stay and become nationalized... but if a mexican crosses the border and sets foot on american soil, they get arrested and returned. fair? no!

im sorry that america seems to have its head up its ass, again, as usual.

Elicar: 29th Mar 2006 - 00:33 GMT

If America has almost closed her borders, Canada has opened hers. Not only do we accept qualified immigrants with open arms, we have legislated that certain groups be given (more) equal chances in the public service. We have the Employment Equity Act of 1998 www.chrc-ccdp.ca/employment_equity/default-en.asp that ensures that the 4 members of the designated groups are equally represented: Native Americans, Visible Minorities, Women and People with Disabilites. Having immigrated 17 years ago myself, I am 2 for four: Visible Minority (Filipina, as some may have sumised with some of my postings)and a Woman.

The spirit of the Act is, to promote qualified members of the designated groups in identified Employment Equity gaps. At work, we just appointed "qualified" women, because that is where the identified gap is. A qualified white male person said and this is so true, "I will be the last to be appointed!"

Being a visible minority and a woman, I do not believe in the Employment Equity Act. While the Act is well-intentioned, it creates more problems than the benefits. For me, no civilized nation should have to legislate for equality. While I was being interviewed for my current job (a promotion), I was asked about employment equity. I gave the panel a piece of my mind that could have costed me my promotion. I told them that I do not believe in it; that my promotion would be more meaningful without it because I would be assured that I got the job because I am the one best suited and not because of the colour of my skin or the shape of my eyes.

But sad to say, some of us would use the race card so freely.

Last year, I wrote a letter to our community paper, The Beach Mirror, because their editorial (March 25, 2005) on account of Black History Month (February) did not sit well with me. The title of the editorial was "More Tolerance Needed".

Here is the letter in its entirety:

"I belong to a visible minority, but I do not need your tolerance. I have bestowed that special honour to my family and friends who tolerate all the annoying habits that I may have.

Just like any other human being, I desire to be accepted: accepted for who I am, beyond the colour of my skin or my accent.

I understood your message. In fact, I laud your efforts. However, noble your efforts maybe, the message was obscured by your choice of words. (poor to describe choice was edited)

Tolerance may be the antonym of intolerance, but I certainly do not want anybody to "suffer" in my presence.

I have been in Canada for 16 years. During that time, I can only remember two isolated incidents that come close to "discrimination". Did I feel offended? It was not meant to hurt; it was out of ignorance.

I firmly believe that membes of visible minorities such as myself should take responsibility in educating people.

We came here. It was our choice. They were gracious enough to accept us as a neighbour. a friend, a co-worker. Crying foul everytime an insensitive comment is made will not help us move forward.

We have different cultures and backgrounds. Share your culture, educate them about your beliefs. Ignorance maybe bliss but not not when it comes to acceptance."

I got a phone call from a stranger congratulating me and inviting me to visit her home because of this. The paper requires a full name and the woman just looked me up in the phonebook. That had me worried for awhile.

EvilGentleman: 29th Mar 2006 - 01:51 GMT

On May 5 of 1989, I was in the middle of a long road trip with my best friend, Mike. We were in San Diego, California, after having driven 5000 miles through two Canadian provinces and twenty states in the previous week. We decided to park the car at San Ysidro and walk across the border into Tijuana, Mexico.

How surprised we were when we started following the crowd towards the Mexican Customs building, that there was nobody to stop us. We just walked in and the next thing we we knew, we were on Revolution Boulevard, "The Most Visted Street in the World", as the sign so succinctly put it.

As far as I could see down the road, there was nothing but a long row of nightclubs, all of them blaring Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina" onto the street. Almost every person I saw was either a member of the US military on a weekend pass (all four branches were well represented, as was the Coast Guard), or a Californian college kid in search of a legal drink, since you have to be 18 to drink in Mexico, as opposed to California's 21. The few genuine Mexicans I saw were either working in the bars or on the street selling their hot dogs, fast food, knick-knacks or their own bodies. The whole setting had this air of Apartheid-era Cape Town to it, with the Mexicans relegated to the back seats while the Americans played on their land.

We had a few hours of bar-hopping (I drank my one and only beer of the whole trip here, and it was the only Corona beer I have ever had in my life. I often tell people I only drink Corona in Mexico, LOL) and then we decided it was time to head back to our journey, and the car we left in San Ysidro.

As we walked back towards the border, more and more real Mexicans (i.e. - people who are really from Mexico, not Americans who just refuse to go home) became noticeable, leaning against the sides of the buildings lining the path through the no-man's-land to the US Customs building (The city of Tijuana gave in to US pressure and evacuated a whole neighbourhood that was deemed "too close" to the US border, and was a prime location for "illegal" border crossings). The number of Mexicans lining the sides of our path increased until they were all shoulder to shoulder with one another, all of them sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the walls of the abandoned buildings. The most unnerving part of walking this gauntlet was that every single one of them seemed to be glaring at us as though they wanted to kill us, yet none of them moved in any threatening manner, they merely tore us to shreds with their icy stares.

As we crossed the border and entered the US Customs building, the wall of silently glaring Mexicans seemed to intensify, if anything, then taper to a halt at the point where the lanes to the individual customs agents were defined by ropes. None of the Mexicans seemed to be attempting to enter the "official" part of the US, although they were clearly on US soil at this point. I was still so unnerved at the outright hostility I saw in those silent icy stares.

Then suddenly, I heard some drunken kid say "Look at all the fucking wetbacks", and it hit me. I was coming from enjoying myself in their country, which I entered without a single person so much as speaking to me or challenging me in any way, I was surrounded by drunken American kids who were leaving a trail of vomit and garbage that stretched all the way back to the clubs on Revolution Boulevard, and yet these Mexicans, to whom crossing this simple line could mean the difference between their families starving to death or surviving, were not permitted to cross. It was obvious they all knew this fact, as none attempted to approach the Customs wickets. No wonder they were glaring at us. All I had to do was show my driver's license, and I was happily walking into California. Yet they could have had all the documents in the world, degrees from accredited universities in Mexico City, records detailing the lack of criminal charges in their families going back for generations, where they were baptized, everything you could think of, and that would not have changed the fact that they were unwelcome in America.

This was such a humbling experience, to realize that although I take my freedoms for granted, not all people share the same rights or opprtunities, despite it being so inherently unfair. Since that day, I have viewed immigrant families in a very different light, as I now have the smallest idea of what it was that they had to go through to get here. I can only have respect for people so determined to improve their lives.

EvilGentleman: 29th Mar 2006 - 02:19 GMT

And lest someone accuse me of America-bashing because the antagonists in the previous story were so clearly all Americans, Canada is no better. A year and a half later, in December of 1990, my American fiancee, Suzanne and I were crossing the Canada-US border going from Detroit to Windsor, during our trip From Rockford, Illinois to Montreal via Greyhound bus. When we got to the Canada Customs building, we were told to stay on the bus unless otherwise directed by customs officials. Suzanne and I were sitting in the last row at the back of the bus. Two customs agents boarded the bus and started questioning the passengers, asking for papers, etc. One of the agents reached a Salvadoran family sitting in the fifth row and asked them "Where are you from?" When they just shook their heads in confusion, he repeated, but louder, "Where are you from?" When they started cowering in fear, he shouted "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" At this point, I got frustrated and yelled from the back of the bus, "Yell it louder, maybe they will learn English if you say it louder!" Suddenly, Suzanne was heading towards the front of the bus, saying, "I know some Spanish. Maybe I can help?" She translated for the family, passed their information on, and they produced passports and visas which were promptly stamped and they were admitted to Canada. Both the Customs agent and the Salvadoran family thanked Suzanne profusely for her help. But I can't help but wonder, what would have happened had she not stepped in? Would they have been sent to jail or deported? We will never know. But it showed me that Canada, too, has problems dealing effectively with other cultures and nationalities, and many Canadians assume that if someone cannot speak English, they are either deaf or stupid. There is still so much to fix...

Peter: 29th Mar 2006 - 03:23 GMT

wow, eg, what stories.

and... for what its worth... i, also, have been turned back by the rcmp at the windsor/detroit footbridge. actually, the exact statement was "go back to america!" due to my expired ID/info.

hmm.

EvilGentleman: 29th Mar 2006 - 19:01 GMT

Now what would a nice Tennessee boy like yourself be doing crossing from Motown to the Canadian version of Tijuana? Small world, ain't it? I have also been held by US Customs on drug charges, until it became apparent that I honestly had no clue that my bonehead friend had a joint in his pocket. At that point, they released my car back to me. I hung around to drive my idiot friend home after his family bailed him out, cuz that is the kind of guy I am.

Peter: 29th Mar 2006 - 19:14 GMT

heh. i was trying to sneak into canada to catch a Richie Hawtin show. i ended up meeting some interesting folks in greektown though, and had a great time, albeit a decidedly american one...

jack: 29th Mar 2006 - 19:33 GMT

just one more note, if this country makes it legal for mexicans to enter and work and live here and americans to be free to go to mexico and build factories and industries then this continent and mexico could become one nation. we could vacation in mexico, have summer homes there and the america's the true america's would be the most powerful and free entity on this planet. that would be great.

anon (cyfairisd-062.phonoscope.com): 31st Mar 2006 - 18:25 GMT

No, Hell no ! I wouldn't want for neither Mexico & the U.S. to come together and become one nation ...that's american globalization of the world. Why ? well both nations have their beginnings & history, their traditions, culture,ways of life and different opinions of describing life on both sides of the border. I wouldn't like if the U.S. began to boss around Mexico like if it were another state nor for its people to begin thinking they can rule Mexico like if they're so powerful to rule the entire world. In reality there should not be any borders in this world but its the world's law to have them so. I would agree if the U.S. gave guest workers a temporary permit to be working in the U.S., not forever but for the necessary time needed. If wave my green, white & red it's to be proud of where I come from not to signal it as an offense making anglo or black americans we wanna or re-take over, this nation is made up of many nationalities. Many.

cerniagigante: 22nd Apr 2006 - 08:43 GMT

Why does everyone call these people "Hispanics". Hispania, is Latin for Spain, part of the Iberic peninsula in Europe.

Look at their faces, look at their eyes. These people have (at leat in part) the Mexica, the Aztecs, the Maya, the Olmecs, the Apache and the Sioux in their veins. These people were here before Colombus was even born. Their ancestors discovered "America" 30.000 years before Europeans re-discovered it. These people have a much more legitimate claim to the land than any single waspy Euro-american. Furthermore, they are the one that keep "contact" with the land.

Stop calling these people Hispanics and call them the Real Americans. (Unless you start calling yourselves Anglonics.)

INS: 28th Apr 2006 - 20:56 GMT

That is the lamest BS I've heard. This country was founded many years ago. We have laws in place to punish people who break them. Every illegal should be sent back to their country and apply to enter " OURS " the legal way. What would the Mexican Government do if the roles were reversed

EvilGentleman: 29th Apr 2006 - 01:51 GMT

ATTENTION INS:
It has been brought to the attention of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) Department of Immigration and Hospitality that you have been residing in our nation illegally. As our Constitution has no provision automatically granting citizenship to locally-born children of illegal immigrants, we must ask you to present yourself at the Onondaga Longhouse near Syracuse for your deportation hearing on Wednesday, May 3, 2006. Failure to appear will result in all your assets being confiscated and immediate deportation to the European country of your maternal lineage's origin. You have the right to appear with legal representation, but it is advisable you book an elder quickly, as there are very few still available for the date of your hearing.

In peace and respect,
Sorokowane
Director of Immigration and Hospitality
Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy
sorokowane@haudenosaunee.gov