People who are against illegal immigrants just wish they would go away.
So today…they went away.
Ariel was impressed by how much less crowded her school bus was, how it was easier to get around in the hallways, and how there weren’t kids hanging out on the front lawn of the school smoking, fighting or getting into trouble.
So this proved…what, exactly?
PAD
• 
Peter, me lad, you are right. I agree, there are legal ways to enter your country, or mine, for that matter. However, since most of the jobs the illegals take are the ones that everyone else turns their noses up at, and the “legal” ways usually require some demonstration of a marketable skill, and well, strawberry picker just don’t cut it.
Up here in the Great White North (not Minnesota) we just deported a whole bunch of Portuguese illegals who were working the construction trades. Since we have created a society that seems to deem any profession not invlving university degrees, stock options and golden parachutes as somehow undignified, we may have done this to ourselves.
I will retract the above statement when 20 people can tell me they actively encourage their kids to become construction workers, mechanics, loggers, unskilled farm labour….
I’m waiting.
The illegals take the jobs we think we are to good for, then we complain about the economic impact.
Still waiting.
Bill Mulligan –
I don’t think even BUSH believes that, since Jon Secada sang the Star-Spangled Banner in Spanish at the 2001 presidential inaugural.
I was thinking of bringing this up, until I found out that Secada did NOT sing our National Anthem.
He sang America the Beautiful in Spanish.
I’m not sure if I believe Bush either way, but when I first read the story, I gave it a digital thumbs up.
Manny –
However, since most of the jobs the illegals take are the ones that everyone else turns their noses up at
This is the biggest pile of bûllšhìŧ in the entire debate over illegals.
When I was 14, I worked at a grocery store for minimum wage. I’ve also worked paper routes, which pay crap also.
Don’t tell me these jobs are beneath Americans.
What is beneath Americans is getting paid slave wages for less than desireable jobs, jobs that should be getting paid much better because they are so undesireable.
Don’t tell me that no Americans want to be roofers or other construction jobs, when those jobs deserve better pay, but the illegals get paid next to nothing under the table for the work.
I knew somebody who, after he finished high school, had a roofing company in town. He used to employ kids like my brothers.
But he was driven out of business by a company from another town who brought in illegals.
So please, spare us the usual garbage about these supposed millions of jobs out there that Americans won’t do.
They would do them if they too would willingly become slaves.
It proved…
1. …that the “backbone” of the nation’s economy can disappear for a day and no one will notice.
2. …that the grass can always wait one more day before being mowed.
3. …that we’ll still go out and whoop it up on Cinco de Mayo, regardless.
1 well hopefully your daughter has enough sense to realize that it’s not illegal immigrants that make up all of the people that smoke or fight in front of the school. Nor was it only illegal immigrants that left school to show support.
Pleasedon’t oretend that the argument is about commissioned or non commissioned translations of the anthem, Mexican flags, Cinco de Mayo, or even immigrants who haven’t mastered English. It’s unfair to either side of the argument.
It isn’t that Ariel or PAD or anyone else thinks that the fact that all the illegals were gone was the only reason that the schools ran so well that day. In fact, the fighters, smokers, etc were probably just looking for a good excuse to skip school. Since some schools actually encouraged kids to participate they may have even thought that it would not be penalized (big mistake–just because Caesar Cavez High in California does something doesn’t mean that Stonewall Jackson Middle school in North Carolina will do the same).
The point is that this could have been predicted. And the result could have been predicted. When you are trying to prove how indispensable you are you DON’T want to create a situation that makes you look, well, dispensable. You don’t want to create even the illusion that your absence would be a good thing.
I would hazard a guess that the country is significantly more anti-immigration today than it was a week ago. Not exactly the mark of success–assuming we are correctly understanding the actual goals of the protest organizers.
“1 well hopefully your daughter has enough sense to realize that it’s not illegal immigrants that make up all of the people that smoke or fight in front of the school. Nor was it only illegal immigrants that left school to show support.”
I don’t think she thought about it one way or the other. I asked her how school was and she commented about how much less crowded it was and how many of the conspicuous troublemakers–the Usual Suspects, if you will–had evaporated. I’m not even sure she was aware that there was an organized ethnocentric boycott going on.
PAD
Lots (although not as many as are Hispanic) of illegals are from Africa and Asia. They get here the same way a lot of the Mexicans do – they are endentured servants to the people who get them into this country. The only difference between those immigrants and the ones, say 150 years ago, is that a lot of these illegals nowadays will never free themselves of their indebtedness.
JMHO, of course.
I can confirm Micha’s speculation about the varying regional degrees of Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. I lived in the Metro Denver area a while ago, so I can remember when the day was a big deal… vaguely. Here in the Syracuse area, it’s a total non-event. I’ve had May 5ths where it didn’t occur to me that it was “Cinco de Mayo” until the end of the day (if even then, actually). Meanwhile, St. Patrick’s Day is a relatively major holiday, which you hear about in advertisements (example: Dunk and Bright Furniture annually becomes “O’Dunk and O’Bright” from about the middle of February on) for weeks before the event. Now, it’s said that Syracuse has one of the larger St. Patrick’s Day parades in the country, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the extent of the celebration here is greater than in other areas. But, I do think there are regional variences in the significance of both holidays, and agree that those are probably at least partially based on varying ethnic make-ups.
As far as the May 1st marches (just the marches themselves, not the question of illegal immigrants or the need for reform of legal immigration)… personally, I was left impressed both by the show of numbers and, more importantly, by the completely peaceful nature of things. If anything, for me, at least, it left a positive impression.
However, since most of the jobs the illegals take are the ones that everyone else turns their noses up at
Chris J. Ries said to that:
“This is the biggest pile of bûllšhìŧ in the entire debate over illegals.
When I was 14, I worked at a grocery store for minimum wage. I’ve also worked paper routes, which pay crap also.”
OK Chris. Do you bag groceries now? Deliver papers? Do you tell your kids that picking lettuce in Salinas CA for slave wages is OK?
I don’t think so.
Nor would you pump gas for minimum wage, unless it meant the difference between eating and not eating.
I wasn’t talking about skilled trades (plumbers, framers etc.), I was talking about the guys who dig the footings, clean up the site, do the scut work for cash end of the day.
As for your friend driven out of business by companies using low paid illegals, blame the other companies as well as the illegals. INS anyone?
So we go right back to CEOs getting multi-million dollar bonuses while laying off entire plants and moving the work to (horrors!) Mexico. Those jobs would probably keep more illegals south of the Rio Grande for a while, until they realize they should be making more.
The irony will be in 50 years when we hear Mexicans complaining about illegal “yanquis” who are stealing their jobs, and can’t cut the grass just right.
1I’d like to add one more thing: This whole debate is dividing us and giving fuel to Bush and his party to take back the Congress in November. I agree something must be done about this issue, but we have bigger problems like health care, gas prices and the war. Also I think we should change the national anthem to Margretaville, it’s less violent.
I’d like to add, this country has been Spanish longer than it’s been Anglo-Saxon.
I’d like to add one more thing: This whole debate is dividing us and giving fuel to Bush and his party to take back the Congress in November.
Er, hate to be the one to break the bad, but they already have the Congress.
And if you think that EVERYTHING not directly related to Bush is someohow secretly designed to keep people from being focused on Bush…dude, this too shall pass. What are you going to do on January 2009? If you aren’t careful you’ll end up like those guys who STILL see Bill Clinton in every shadow.
I’d like to add, this country has been Spanish longer than it’s been Anglo-Saxon.
Only if you think it automatically turned Spanish when the first Spaniard touched its soil. Which some Native Americans might have issues with. Was there ever a time when the majority of people in North America spoke Spanish?
Posted by Bill Mulligan at May 3, 2006 09:30 PM
If you aren’t careful you’ll end up like those guys who STILL see Bill Clinton in every shadow.
AAAAHHHH!!! It’s Bill Clinton!
Huh? Oh. It was just an old sock.
Never mind.
AAAAHHHHH!!!!! It’s Bill Clinton!
Huh? Oh. It was just a bottle cap on the floor.
Never mind.
Laugh all you want Myers, you weren’t there when I passed what i thought was a lawn gnome and it turned out to be Paul Begala.
OK Chris.
I’m sorry, was there a Chris posting on this thread? Especially one sharing the same last name as me?
If you’re going to quote somebody, at least TRY and get their name right. Especially when my post is right there for you to actually read and reread. And reread again until you get it right.
Do you bag groceries now? Deliver papers? Do you tell your kids that picking lettuce in Salinas CA for slave wages is OK?
It’s not ok for ANYBODY to be paid slave wages – it’s time for the minimum wage to be raised again anyways.
But I see nothing wrong with other teenagers getting their first taste of life, responsibility, and earning a paycheck by way of doing minimum wage jobs, the same as people have done for decades.
But those opportunities are being ripped away by illegals who will work for wages less than the government mandates as it is.
I don’t think so.
Well, I’d say that’s more of an issue of the fact you don’t seem to be thinking at all.
I wasn’t talking about skilled trades (plumbers, framers etc.),
Of course you weren’t, because now you’re not even addressing my argument, but trying to create your own little reality from which to work in.
Delivering papers, cashier at a McDonalds, or bagging groceries aren’t skilled trades either. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people here who aren’t willing to do those jobs, just because the rock you’re living under tells you so.
For those of you who state that the use of the word alien when refering to this issue is incorrect, take a look at dictionary.com. Look up alien and read the first definition under the noun heading.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=alien
Craig-
Well, to be fair, the Mexican army won at the Alamo, too.
But it was more about my attempt to show that if Americans knew that Cinco de Mayo was about beating the snot out of the French, more Americans would probably join in the celebrations.
I guess I didn’t get that across very well. 🙂
See? that’s what I meant with cultural differences. I have no idea why Americans seem to hate French people.
And there’s a funny thing about the Alamo…
It’s not taught at our schools. For a long time, everytime I saw a ‘remember the Alamo’ reference? I had no idea of what they were talking about. By the time I hit Highschool, I had a vague idea that it had been a battle during our Revolution, where a lot of americans had been killed, and that Pancho Villa, considered a thief back then, had been the one leading the army. But then, huge chuncks of our history is not taught at school (the whole time we were a Spain colony? It’s taught as ‘300 years after the conquest, we fought for our Independece), and that particular period of time (The Revolution Wars) are so confusing that you don’t get to study it fully until College, and then only if you’re majoring in history.
Sorry Craig, dyxlesia bìŧçh a is.(Yes I am).But my question remains. Would you encourage you’re children to bag groceries til retirement?
I agree that minimum wage is slave wages at the best of times. I see no problem with teens having either. If they decide to work up the Mickey D corporate ladder, cool.
I don’t believe, however, that anyone looks at a 35 year old high school drop out flipping Big Macs and tells their child to view them as a fine example.
Further, if you were not aware, produce pickers are paid piece work, not by the hour. The big Agri-corps have everyone convinced paying a living wage will destroy the economy. The people who load the trailers in CA are paid by the box they load. I have not only been thinking, I have dealt with the situation.
I drive a truck. By Choice. After trying my hands at other proffessional endevours. I haul produce out of CA into Canada. And, by the by, I live in an apartment, not under a rock. Let’s not lower ourselves to personal attacks to prove a point, please. The only point made down that road is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
It seems we both agree that there is a problem with the level of minimum wage. Therefore, I submit that arguing about who is to blame is a waste of time.
If the root issue is minimum wage, that is where to focus efforts at reform. The next step would be, I think, a reform of immigration policy to make it easier for those wishing to enter the US legally.
Up here, under my rock, the much bally hooed problem is immigrants from India and Pakistan “taking over” the taxi business in and out of Pearson Airport in Toronto. Most are starting family businesses, and cabs are fast way to go. But, since being a cabby pays šhìŧ, no one else wants to do the job unless they have to.
In closing, Craig, I do think. 12 hours in a truck 10 days at shot, there isn’t much else I cando.
And I will still insist that you do not encourage you’re children to be produce pickers or šhìŧ shovellers. Before you’re next outraged assault on my character, I wouldn’t encourage my kids to take those jobs either.
Would you encourage you’re children to bag groceries til retirement?
That was never the issue.
Your argument was merely that nobody will take these jobs.
Not that Americans won’t work these jobs until retirement.
There are plenty of kids out there to work any kind of jobs, and they don’t need to spend their lives doing it before the next set of kids is ready to come along and do the same type of work.
And the notion that “šhìŧ shovellers” is automatically beneath every American is pretty dámņ preposterous as well.
And I will still insist that you do not encourage you’re children to be produce pickers or šhìŧ shovellers.
Well, here’s an idea: I don’t tell your kids what to do you, and you don’t presume to be able to tell my kids (if I had any) what to do.
As it is, if the pay was reasonable for the work, and they don’t mind doing the work, why the hëll does it matter what job somebody’s kids do?
Maybe we should stop encouraging kids to become teachers. I mean, the pay is šhìŧ, the work is šhìŧ, and the students don’t have to learn if they don’t want to, so why bother, right?
But if shovelling šhìŧ paid the $25/hour with benefits it deserves, considering how disgusting a job it is, by all means, anybody that wants to do it should be allowed to.
Instead, we’ll just tell people “well, some Mexican will come along and do that job, you don’t have to”.
Craig, the roots of the issue appear to be:
1)Minimum wage is to low to make the scutwork jobs most of the illegal/undocumented aliens take attractive to any one.
2)Companies willing to hire illegal/undocumented workers to do these jobs, in fact going out of their way in some cases to recruit them.
3)The Big Lie that paying a decent wage for these jobs will drive consumer prices sky high.
My argument, you are right, was that nobody will take these jobs. Low pay is a piece of the puzzle, however, social perception of the job is also in the mix.
Even if šhìŧ shovelling paid $25.00/hr., the social perception would be well paid šhìŧ shoveller (not Bill O’Reilly).
A proctologist makes more sticking his finger up peoples’ áššëš. But, s/he’s a doctor, so it’s quite alright.
I did not mean to imply I should tell your potential progeny what to do, nor anyone else’s for that matter.My choice of wording was unclear, for which I apologize.
My point is that I do not believe anyone presents the “scutwork” as an ambitious goal to aim for. This leads to the impression that the work is somehow “beneath” us. We teach our children to go for the best, that people in high places or with glamourous sounding professions are to be admired.
The attitude that “some Mexican will just come along” plays right into the perception that the work is somehow unworthy.