Don't Shoot ... That One's My Yardman!

I am pretty much swamped once again this afternoon. I am going to be in the library for the better part of evening putting the finishing touches on my theology art paper, which is due tomorrow morning at 9:35am, and begin work on the Western Civilization 002 paper which is due this Friday. The fact that I might be coming down with something (mainly it has been only a stuffed up nose and dry, scratchy throat, but no temperature, which can be attributed to allergies – I will just have to wait and see) doesn’t help matters much. Getting a goodnight’s rest, prior to midnight that is, would definitely be good for me, but with so much stuff to do, it is going to be pushing my schedule a bit. I am definitely taking off work on Thursday in the worse scenario that little work has been accomplished on the history essay at that time, which I hope will not happen. In any event, I am going to attempt to make this response entry as short as is possible for me right now before I have to head back to the dorm hall, eat dinner, and spend the rest of the evening putting the finishing touches on my theology paper.

The following is an e-mail message sent to me by Alex Parets, a fellow student at Marquette University, is a response to the last weblog entry where I referred to illegal aliens as wetbacks …

Do you understand that the Latin Americans that cross the border make up the majority of the population of janitors, landscapers and housebuildrrs in this country? Without these people the United States wouldn’t survive. Your use of the word "wetbacks" is a disgrace to all Latin Americans like myself. How about you become tolerant of other people and see that these people are the most important economic group in the United States. I am Cuban-American and we Cubans have a higher probability of graduating college and earning more then $100,000 than white Americans have. Don't be surpirsed if a Cuban, which 80% are conservatives, takes the job you are looking at very soon. All I ask is that you respect and not insult my people. I read your blog in order to see your insight on certain issues but today you have crossed the line between being a readable blogger and a racist. Grow up and see that there are other people in the world.

First off, for as much I have been feeling like crap over the past few days due this exasperating cold (or allergies … whatever it may turn out to be), the opening two lines of this e-mail message life my spirits to be quite honest. Right, the entire United States economy would collapse because some yahoo in New Mexico or Arizona can’t make his own hotel room bed or take care of his/her children without a Latino maid there to do it for them. Seriously, put down that copy of A Day without a Mexican and face reality … illegal aliens are not essential to our economy. They never have been and they never will be. It is people like you who make the excuse for allowing illegal aliens into this country claiming they do the jobs we White Americans don’t want to do. That is flat-out wrong. The more accurate observation would be that illegal aliens do the jobs we White Americans don’t want to do for the current wage rates. True, if all illegal aliens were to mysteriously vanish one morning, there would be a disruption. I have no doubts about that. But it would not last long. Companies would adjust the wage rates or else invent some way for machines to fill in for the migrant worker. Is it not easier and cheaper to have a machine pick grapes in a field then an illegal alien? And again, our economy would not collapse because illegal immigrants are not making hotel room beds. How many illegal immigrants do you find working at a hotel in Iowa or Kansas? Few, if any at all.

Secondly, if you are a Cuban-American (in other words, an American), why are you getting so upset over this? The term “wetback” is a reference to “an illegal Mexican immigrant or worker who crosses the Rio Grande into the United States, sometimes swimming to get across”. Therefore, it does not apply to you.

Third, stop this hyphenated American rubbish. This should not apply only to you but to every immigrant within the United States. You are not an African-American (a majority of which have never been to Africa), a Cuban-American (why you would ever want to remind yourself of the place you escaped from is beyond me), or a Mexican-American … you are an American, end of story. Immigrants to the United States should learn to acclimate themselves, not only in respects to speaking English properly, but also ethnically as well. I do not see the reason taxpayers should be burdened with the costs of bilingual education because some Mexicans down in Arizona or New Mexico don’t want to learn how to speak English.



And to those who claim we should have a diverse ethnic culture within the United States, let us turn to countries such as Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Bosnia, and India where such practices are prominent. Is that what is to come of the United States in the near future? Oh boy! I can not wait!

And lastly, based on those numbers you presented to me about Cubans who immigrate to America, I have no idea how accurate those are or where you retrieved them from (the claim that a graduating Cuban in America is making $100,000 seems a tad high to me – the US Census in 2000 had a Cuban family making $39,000 on average but I have idea what it may have been an individual level – that would still seem unlikely to me, though they are the most successful of the Latino groups in America), nor do I have the time to research those facts at this current time. Again, if you go back and re-read the weblog entry I was referring to illegal immigrants crossing into the United States, not those who come here legally and contribute to the prosperity of this nation’s economy. Those, for example – the Cubans, who are willing to acclimate themselves into American society and culture and contribute to the United States economy, they are more then welcome here. Those illegal immigrants on the other hand who leech off taxpayer money and do nothing to contribute significantly to the United States economy are not. Every nation has the right to defend its borders, which includes the United States, from unwanted foreign invaders, whether they are future Mexican housekeepers or terrorist plotting our destruction.