Ederlyn waxes lyrical and says more and better than I ever could on the hypocrisy of complaining about immigrants not knowing English. I did not leave a note there, my thoughts are only tangential to hers. She is certainly right, many are just as she describes. On top of that, many come here so that their children will have a better chance, and then the school system lets them down so badly. It has no expectations, and is more concerned with their "emotional health" and "racial identity" than their education, and ability to succeed later in life. The children, left in a vacuum as their parents struggle to support the family, or sink into despair in the face of our dehumanizing welfare system, join gangs, create violence and problems that then backlash against their communities. The immigrants take jobs that by and large we would not, President Bush is right on that one, and get treated like dirt for it. I thrill to see in the comments of one of her posts that Ederlyn is teaching them about minimum wage and job interviews. And yet, I do not think that authorizing illegal immigration is right either. We are not overrun by immigrants, given time, given effort on their part (doubtlessly present in many if not most cases) and effort on our part (mostly lacking), we could assimilate these immigrants just as the European immigrants went from ethnic enclaves in the cities to being so assimilated that we have, as a culture, forgotten the racial problems we once had. This will happen over time effort or not. And we, the native born, will be changed in the process. Do you think it will be the first time? Read history again. The Irish certainly changed us. The influx of eastern Europeans did as well, look at the prevalence of beer and the relative drop in hard ciders. The Italians? What area is without it its Italian restaurants? What is "American" food? It seems a mish-mash of every other culture, and so we, as a people, are in many respects. But the melting pot takes time, it has never been boiling hot, and is certainly rather tepid now.
On the other hand, it certainly is not all that pleasant when you are working second shift, and the cleaning people come in, and you do not know Spanish worth a darn, certainly not at the speed and complexity they speak it, but you are not blind either, and you can tell by the body language that some of that conversation is making fun of you and your co-workers, making use of the fact that they know we do not know Spanish. And it does not help matters when I, as a white male, am presumed to be oppressive, ignorant, and bigoted. The racism and stereotypes go both ways. And it certainly does not help that my entire post will be utterly dismissed now that I have written this (relatively) short paragraph.