Today Is A Big Day For Us....

Here's how we solve the problem: Raise wages and make whites want those jobs as janitors, fast food workers, maids, etc. Maybe then, some young child in middle-America will actually say to his parents, "I want to work at McDonalds and sling burgers when I grow up."

Of course, raising wages will raise business costs.

Of course, raising business costs will raise consumer costs.

Of course, raising consumer costs means I have to spend more to get less.

etc, etc, etc

As a member of Queenzone's illegal immigration apologists who does live in an area effected by illegal immigration, I see the full effect of it most days. I've seen parents working 2 jobs and paying for such things as Social Security and Medicare, yet never expecting to take advantage of that. I've seen them pay taxes for services they will never partake of, which in turn helps the white population that will.

As a historian, I've seen this trend play out over and over in our brief history. Today, we complain about Mexicans. One hundred years ago it was the Italians. Two decades before that, it was the Irish. In each instance, the group complaining the loudest about immigration are the lower white classes most likely to be out of work by a cheaper work force. (Some complaints heard in the 1890s were that these immigrants were dirty, were clannish and refused to learn english, and crime was more rampant among "their kind") Some people might argue that these whites have a right to complain; others would say they're lashing out at their failure to take advantage of their position within the dominant society.

Finally, a brief fun fact: The rate of immigration and growth has actually dropped in the last one hundred years. The US was due to hit about 340 million (our current population is 290-300 million) by around 1940, and this was according to estimates made before the great immigration boom of the 1870s and 1880s.

And Jorge:
"I've always wondered how many descendants of Red Skins exists today?"
First of all, referring to American Indians as "Red Skins" is highly offensive to them; it's best to avoid that term. Second, the Indian Population is one of the fastest growing populations in the US.

Sorry I didn't know it, I just used the most common term used in Mexico (a team in Washington exists with that name highly offensive(?)), well I just wanted to make notice the difference between their ethnic groups and ours, because we are also North American

My respects to the indians for all the abuse they suffered but it seems like now that they've had more than enough, they feel offended about any slightly comment they make about them.

Somehow at the last Grammy Awards, Outkast performed with with some back-up dancers dressed up in sexy indian outfits. Although they weren't too revealing, somehow a league anti-defamation for African Americans got extremely offended, and threatened to sue MTV.

Although it's commonly seen in big urban areas to see minorities taking low paid jobs, there's about as many poor whites in America taking those jobs in small towns around the country where just about everyone is white.

And to Jorge, I think you owe all Americans here an apology. Imagine if you were on a latino message board and you called everybody "a fuckin' spic".
You may have a point about a lot of the things you said, and as another hispanic QZer I know for a fact that we have been victims of a lot of abuse by many of the American government administrations, as well as from American corporations who have pretty much "enslaved" and taken advantage of the low eployement rate in third world countries.
Yet that is not a reason to label everybody here as a "greedy and selfish fuckin' gringo". Most people in this board regardelss of their nationality, race, or ethnicity respect others equally.

Phew, lucky I live in normal Australia..
*remembers the stolen generation and Eddie Mabo*

Oh..oh yeah.

Excellent post Bullwinkle.

1.29 % Hispanic population for a Queenzone apologist town of nearly 100,000 is nothing ... and the crime rate there is below average.

Aurora IL is a town of just over 100,000 people of which 33% is Hispanic and its crime rate is horrid.

I do believe the Italians and Poles came here legally a century ago.

The issue is illegal immigration.

Illegal immigrant workers are great! Any time an illegal threatens to get out of line - just threaten deportation and they become compliant again.

Imagine if Hispanic immigration were to be legally increased to 500,000 or more people per year (provided that each immigrant gets a job) ...

Oh wait, that will never happen because illegal immigration is great for business because second class "citizens" (illegal criminals) make excellent compliant employees. It is almost a form of slave labor. The illegal workers certainly have virtually no rights ...

"1.29 % Hispanic population for a Queenzone apologist town of nearly 100,000 is nothing ..."

I don't think that accounts for our neighboring town of which the majority of this Queenzone apologist's income has been derived from over the last 2 years. I do not claim that it exceeds 33%, but I think 2% is a little low. Before recent state budget cuts to social programs that helped immigrants and other lower income families, our tidy little income came from working closely with a varied amount of immigrants, including Mexicans, Eastern Europeans, and Africans, not all of which were legal.


"I do believe the Italians and Poles came here legally a century ago."

There weren't national laws that controlled immigration then, so in a sense every immigrant was legal. (Regions or states had long had laws aimed at controlling or intimidating immigrants, such as requiring higher taxes, etc) The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was one of the first attempts by the Feds to control immigration, but it wasn't until the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 that immigration restrictions were set. This law was based on the 1890 Census and clearly favored northern Europeans over all other countries.

But, history lesson aside, the point remains: Our attitudes over immigrants in 2004 are very similar to those in the late-nineteenth century. Only the face of the immigrant has changed.

No one thing is going to change the issue of illegal immigration. You can pass laws to punish those that employ illegals (and you're right, many enter into virtual slavery when they come here), but as long as jobs are available, they'll come. You can try to improve the economy in their home country and remove the incentive to come here, but then people will complain that the US needs "to take care of their own" and shouldn't help other countries.

I'm all for solving the issue of illegal immigration, but I reject reactionary thought that serves only to protect the dominant society from the perceived attack of change.


And Jorge:
"(a team in Washington exists with that name highly offensive(?))"

Yes, it does. And plenty of Indians are upset by this. Your point, however, is clear; I was just trying to help with the language issue. As for the "fucking gringo" comment, I found it slightly humorous. The origins of the word "gringo" are laughable at best, and do not connote any negative stereotype like "wetback" or "spic" might.

In most Latin American countries, the word 'gringo' is more of a humourus connotation than negative.

Green go = gringo

After the green uniforms that the US military wore during the battles in Texas back in the Wild Wild West, I think.

Excellent post btw Zeni.

The whole world is full of immigrants, and race mixers.

We multiply by the second.

*buwahahha*

Phew! Thank God I don't live in the US lol

God, that's a lot up there. I tried to write in small paragraphs to make it readable, if that helps, Bull.

the only thing i know, is that like with everything, there's good and bad stuff with immigration, some guys i know are in gangs and just do destruction, but on the other hand , some people come to work their asses off to support their family, honest people, and i really doubt american people will take the jobs immigrants do
and I agree with Zeni, like always

Jesus, some people don't seem to understand that the whole crime stats have more to be with social status than race.

Wherever there's poverty, there will be people willing to get involved in criminal activities to earn money, or are you forgetting that poor white people don't commit crimes as well? As far as I'm concerned, they do.
Bullwinkle's post is just ignorant, because there were hundreds and even thousands or European immigrants coming to the U.S. everyday during the first half of the the XX century. Once they settled here, most of them were able to live humble yet honest lives, but there were many of them involved in criminal activities. There were plenty of mafias formed from different groups of immigrants including, Irish, Italians, Jewish, Polish, etc. Some of those still exist today.
So as you can see, it'd be completely stupid to blame hispanics and blacks for all the crimes ever commited in this country.

Using a search engine on "us immigration" I found that lawyers are busy chasing more than just ambulances ... I ignored those links and found these instead:

http://www.oacac.com/docs/Loehr.pdf

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031125-113936-7416r.htm

http://www.cis.org/topics/history.html

http://www.illegalaliens.us/factsandmyths.htm

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/5621651.htm

http://www.vdare.com/francis/destroy_jobs.htm

http://www.jimmyworks.com/illegal.html

http://www.sqlife.org/evansarticle.htm

http://www.billcobey.org/cutenews/cobeynews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1070983165&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&

To the level-headed queenzone immigration apologist: I checked neighboring towns and all had Hispanic populations below 5% ...

So no more than 5%? I prefer to think of that as more than triple your initial figure.

I like to celebrate the small victories.