One of the distressing things about being on Facebook is seeing what people think. There is a gross hostility to Mexicans in particular and Hispanics in general. People will claim that their hostility only extends to illegal immigrants, but that is nonsense. In my area, we have a number of Laotian (Hmong) refugees. For those unfamiliar, this traces itself to the Vietnam War. While the immigrants have made significant progress economically, I don’t believe members of the Hmong community would consider themselves significantly welcome in Wisconsin, despite our witnessing the 2nd generation coming of age now.
While one can understand that communities tend to be closed and as a consequence outsiders don’t perceive themselves as welcome, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in the cases of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California vis-a-vis Mexico. Mexicans aren’t outsiders in those states. As Sam Rocha offered in a personal anecdote, historically we are roughly speaking of one people. Admittedly, we shouldn’t stretch the concept too much. While the Okies that settled California were all Americans just like the Californians, there was significant hostility. I imagine this is somewhat the case in the current illegal immigration debate, where longtime Hispanic residents of places like Arizona aren’t as sympathetic to the illegal immigrants for the reason that they aren’t the right kind of Mexicans. A number of the illegal immigrants are from central Mexico, are grossly poor, and their families trace many of their roots through native tribes. In short, US settled Hispanics don’t necessarily see themselves in solidarity with the illegal immigrants until things like Arizona’s law remind them that they are perceived and should be treated the same as the those illegal immigrants.
They are breaking the law is a rejoinder I hear often. So what? People break our drug laws everyday. We don’t break someone’s door down and rip a baby from his mother’s breast over a joint. Why would we do it because one overstays his visa or enters the country illegally? Where is the sense of proportionality? When I hear people talk about addressing illegal immigration, I hear things that make me think we are talking about detering murder or something. People want to put armed guards and dogs along walls. Goodness. You’d swear we were at war with Mexico or something. But, do I want open borders? What is it to you if I did? Certainly I don’t think creating a vast diaspora of Mexicans is a good thing. That doesn’t make preventing it at the end of a gun a good idea. I don’t support marijuana use. I’m not for legalized marijuana. That doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of our drug laws and assess them as a failure. I can imagine a number of things worse than having dope smoking neighbors or a Mexican neighbor who was forced by economic necessity to leave family, friends, culture, and heritage. I have tendencies toward authoritarianism, but the visions of people in this country of the police states they’d create to address these issues scare me. Prudence is not a 4-letter word.
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