rant o'clock
This rant is in no way organized. It was brought on after watching an episode of 30 Days on illegal immigration.
I am uncertain as to why people take such an uncompromising stance against immigration in the way that suggests some sort of animosity toward immigrants. I am of course talking about illegal immigrants, and realistically, it is not simply illegal immigrants who are the target of all this antipathy, but it is Latino(a) immigrants and above all else, Mexicans. It amazes me to see people up in arms over Mexican immigration and the illegal workforce, because so many of these people – in my life – rarely have anything to say on sweatshops and low wages. Actually, of all the people I have heard complain about these low-wage Mexican workers, I have not heard one complain about Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees, nor have I heard any complaints about companies such as The Gap or Pepsi. Why are these people not arguing the fact that these jobs, those that are offered overseas to workers who earn next to nothing to make overpriced apparel for the citizens of the US, are not also jobs for Americans?
It’s true that people complain about outsourcing, but I do not think it is to the extent people complain about illegal immigrants taking random odd jobs in the States, and certainly, as I said, I rarely hear people complain about overseas sweatshops.
Along with complaints about immigrants taking American jobs, there are various other accusations made against immigrants.
1) They do not want to learn English.
I always find this one amazing because it comes from people who have little experience with immigrants or language. Now, as a Spanish teacher I suppose it is obvious for me to say that most of the people I have come across who were learning another language were doing so in a formal setting. That is, they were taking courses at the university or had taken courses in their high schools and were given explicit instruction on grammatical items, context, etc. I will also say that as a Spanish teacher at the university, I have seen that there have been many teachers at the secondary and lower levels of schooling who have not had as much experience with the language. Just recently I met a girl who had received a degree in education – a Spanish emphasis – and yet all her credits were from high school. She admitted that when watching television in Spanish, she could not quite understand what was being said.
My point in saying all this is that even in formal education, particularly at the lower levels (read: not college) many students are not being exposed to the language in a way that fosters fluency. Even worse is the fact that their teachers do not necessarily have that much experience with the language either – but schools are desperate, I think, for any sort of language teacher, even one who is not all too familiar with the language which s/he is teaching.
Furthermore, there are aspects of the language – terminology – which do not present themselves in every day conversation. It may be unlikely that even while learning the language that any illegal immigrant will find the formal wording of government forms familiar if they have not had much contact with such terms. I think reading ballots and filling out forms can make anyone’s head spin.
Now, another point is that I do not know many immigrants who come to this country and who do not try to speak English. Mind you, it isn’t even the official language of the country – something the citizens of the United States tend to forget. I do think that as in the past, it is much easier for immigrant children to pick up the language. I know that Paul’s grandparents, immigrants from Russia, had encouraged their son, Paul’s father, to learn English as they struggled to learn. When you have known a language for so many years, you can imagine that learning a new one with new rules may be made more difficult when you do not have a formal education in regards to that language.
My fear now is that someone may respond to this with ‘Why don’t they get a formal education in the language?’ I have already made my case, I think, with grade school and secondary language education.The next level is college – and do you think that college is cheap or even affordable? If your answer was yes, or anything remotely similar to ‘yes’ then you are from a completely different social class than an illegal immigrant who is working odd jobs for low wages.If it was inexpensive to go to a college or university, then we would all get to go, right?
2) They wave their flags around and it’s disrespectful to this country.
I have one Colombian flag, three Brasilian flags and two Spanish flags. I also can’t think of a place I’d rather live than the States even for its flaws. I find it offensive that people cannot celebrate their heritage and ethnic pride – and honestly, it’s not ‘people’ it’s Mexicans, isn’t it? Has anyone ever complained that cities with a large Italian or Irish population have their flags up? Well, I’ll be fair, I’m sure people have complained many years ago, but now? Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? How can anyone claim that what they love about this country is that it is made up of such a mix of people, yet expect all those people to assimilate into some uniform standard which negates their background. Why should all people ONLY speak English? It seems to me that this is turning into some attempt to preserve some ‘pure culture’ which has never existed in the history of this country. It seems a bit ludicrous to have a country filled with xenophobic mutts.
There are so many issues I probably should address, but I just want to sum everything up by saying that I suspect that racism and discrimination are behind all this animosity. There are so many unfounded assumptions about Mexicans, about immigrants, and about illegal (Mexican) immigrants.I highly doubt anyone thinks for a minute about any illegal immigrants from Europe, from China, etc not only because while they do not make up the bulk of immigration, many people just don’t look at them like they are ‘low-life criminals.’ I’m very tired of all the stereotypes being placed on the Latino(a) population.
I can’t imagine anyone would listen to what I have to say though because I checked ‘liberal’ on my facebook profile.
-Monique
I am uncertain as to why people take such an uncompromising stance against immigration in the way that suggests some sort of animosity toward immigrants. I am of course talking about illegal immigrants, and realistically, it is not simply illegal immigrants who are the target of all this antipathy, but it is Latino(a) immigrants and above all else, Mexicans. It amazes me to see people up in arms over Mexican immigration and the illegal workforce, because so many of these people – in my life – rarely have anything to say on sweatshops and low wages. Actually, of all the people I have heard complain about these low-wage Mexican workers, I have not heard one complain about Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees, nor have I heard any complaints about companies such as The Gap or Pepsi. Why are these people not arguing the fact that these jobs, those that are offered overseas to workers who earn next to nothing to make overpriced apparel for the citizens of the US, are not also jobs for Americans?
It’s true that people complain about outsourcing, but I do not think it is to the extent people complain about illegal immigrants taking random odd jobs in the States, and certainly, as I said, I rarely hear people complain about overseas sweatshops.
Along with complaints about immigrants taking American jobs, there are various other accusations made against immigrants.
1) They do not want to learn English.
I always find this one amazing because it comes from people who have little experience with immigrants or language. Now, as a Spanish teacher I suppose it is obvious for me to say that most of the people I have come across who were learning another language were doing so in a formal setting. That is, they were taking courses at the university or had taken courses in their high schools and were given explicit instruction on grammatical items, context, etc. I will also say that as a Spanish teacher at the university, I have seen that there have been many teachers at the secondary and lower levels of schooling who have not had as much experience with the language. Just recently I met a girl who had received a degree in education – a Spanish emphasis – and yet all her credits were from high school. She admitted that when watching television in Spanish, she could not quite understand what was being said.
My point in saying all this is that even in formal education, particularly at the lower levels (read: not college) many students are not being exposed to the language in a way that fosters fluency. Even worse is the fact that their teachers do not necessarily have that much experience with the language either – but schools are desperate, I think, for any sort of language teacher, even one who is not all too familiar with the language which s/he is teaching.
Furthermore, there are aspects of the language – terminology – which do not present themselves in every day conversation. It may be unlikely that even while learning the language that any illegal immigrant will find the formal wording of government forms familiar if they have not had much contact with such terms. I think reading ballots and filling out forms can make anyone’s head spin.
Now, another point is that I do not know many immigrants who come to this country and who do not try to speak English. Mind you, it isn’t even the official language of the country – something the citizens of the United States tend to forget. I do think that as in the past, it is much easier for immigrant children to pick up the language. I know that Paul’s grandparents, immigrants from Russia, had encouraged their son, Paul’s father, to learn English as they struggled to learn. When you have known a language for so many years, you can imagine that learning a new one with new rules may be made more difficult when you do not have a formal education in regards to that language.
My fear now is that someone may respond to this with ‘Why don’t they get a formal education in the language?’ I have already made my case, I think, with grade school and secondary language education.The next level is college – and do you think that college is cheap or even affordable? If your answer was yes, or anything remotely similar to ‘yes’ then you are from a completely different social class than an illegal immigrant who is working odd jobs for low wages.If it was inexpensive to go to a college or university, then we would all get to go, right?
2) They wave their flags around and it’s disrespectful to this country.
I have one Colombian flag, three Brasilian flags and two Spanish flags. I also can’t think of a place I’d rather live than the States even for its flaws. I find it offensive that people cannot celebrate their heritage and ethnic pride – and honestly, it’s not ‘people’ it’s Mexicans, isn’t it? Has anyone ever complained that cities with a large Italian or Irish population have their flags up? Well, I’ll be fair, I’m sure people have complained many years ago, but now? Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? How can anyone claim that what they love about this country is that it is made up of such a mix of people, yet expect all those people to assimilate into some uniform standard which negates their background. Why should all people ONLY speak English? It seems to me that this is turning into some attempt to preserve some ‘pure culture’ which has never existed in the history of this country. It seems a bit ludicrous to have a country filled with xenophobic mutts.
There are so many issues I probably should address, but I just want to sum everything up by saying that I suspect that racism and discrimination are behind all this animosity. There are so many unfounded assumptions about Mexicans, about immigrants, and about illegal (Mexican) immigrants.I highly doubt anyone thinks for a minute about any illegal immigrants from Europe, from China, etc not only because while they do not make up the bulk of immigration, many people just don’t look at them like they are ‘low-life criminals.’ I’m very tired of all the stereotypes being placed on the Latino(a) population.
I can’t imagine anyone would listen to what I have to say though because I checked ‘liberal’ on my facebook profile.
-Monique
posted by Monique Mendoza at 7/27/2006 05:47:00 PM
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