What If Mexico Was “White”?

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Thing is, ANYONE can be a linguistic threat....I don't want my street signs in German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. I don't want to press 1 for English. That doesn't mean I'm racist against Mexicans or 'brown ppl'.

I am so sick of this argument..it's complete ####### and totally insulting.

We can talk about our ancestors all we want....back in the day, there weren't this amount of people in the US. Do the math! The borders cannot stay open at the same rate it did in our infancy. Simple math and economics dictate that.

Please note that I did not state my position on illegal immigration in my post.

Latin Americans are seen as a linguistic threat because they constitute the largest non-native-English-speaking population in this country by a huge margin. You don't have to worry about signs being in German because there aren't enough Germans to make it a possibility.

It sounds like contributors to this thread want to believe that the majority of Americans view English-speaking white illegals in exactly the same way they'd view a Oaxacan who doesn't speak English. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think so. VJ members are international and, I dare say, enlightened. Not all of the U.S. is like this. Not even close, sadly.

In addition, the ancestors argument is not irrelevant. Yes, the population "back in the day" was much smaller, and healthy people were let in in huge numbers to help build the country's infrastructure, railroads, etc. But it's absurd to say, "Well, it's time to shut the doors because now we're overrun!" We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide. It's a question of regulating (or attempting to regulate) who comes in, and from where. "Doing the math" has nothing to do with it. With more responsible consumption of our resources, the U.S. could be home to double the current population. It isn't Gaza, or the Netherlands. We're not living on top of each other. If the purpose of USCIS were to keep population growth to a minimum, the approach would be different.

I've lived in Arizona for 15 years (I grew up in the Boston area), enough to see a lot change and to witness the door-slammers: People who moved here from elsewhere and set up shop, and now lament the continued population growth and issues that accompany it. Person #1 buys a nice house with a mountain view. A few years later, Person #2 comes along and builds a house blocking the view of Person #1. Person #1 is outraged. Person #2 says "too bad for you." Person #3 comes along and blocks the view of Person #2, and so on. Immigration is not dissimilar. I know that some will say it's a clumsy comparison, but I think the basis for the argument is the same.

[Dan J 277]

30,000 illegal Irish in Boston and 100,000 in New York.

Out of what, 12 million nationally?

---

In March of 2006 the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the undocumented population ranged from 11.5 to 12 million individuals, a number supported by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). Pew estimated that 57% of this population comes from Mexico and about half of them are illegal; 25% from Central America and, to a much lesser extent, South America (which has no road access to the US); 9% from Asia; 6% from Europe, and the remaining 4% from elsewhere.

http://pewresearch.org/

Somewhere around 45 percent of those here illegally are from overstayed visas....that fact seems to get overlooked in these debates. That's no small change.

Read the bold part above again.

---

Visa overstays are a second significant form of violation. A "visa overstayer" is someone who remains in the United States after the temporary authorization afforded by a visa expires. Visa overstayers tend to be somewhat more educated and better off financially than those who crossed the border illegally.[10]

To help track visa overstayers the US-VISIT (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) program collects and retains biographic, travel, and biometric information, such as photographs and fingerprints, of foreign nationals seeking entry into the United States. It also requires electronic readable passports containing this information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immig...e_United_States

So are you implying that this is more of a class thing?

Ironically, if we only allow well educated immigrants into this country, guess who will have to fill the low paying jobs? Citizens.

But we benefit more for accepting all types of immigrants, rather than giving preference to one specific class or group. As it is, getting an immigrant visa to the US, without family ties, or good education, is next to impossible.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Thing is, ANYONE can be a linguistic threat....I don't want my street signs in German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. I don't want to press 1 for English. That doesn't mean I'm racist against Mexicans or 'brown ppl'.

I am so sick of this argument..it's complete ####### and totally insulting.

We can talk about our ancestors all we want....back in the day, there weren't this amount of people in the US. Do the math! The borders cannot stay open at the same rate it did in our infancy. Simple math and economics dictate that.

Please note that I did not state my position on illegal immigration in my post.

Latin Americans are seen as a linguistic threat because they constitute the largest non-native-English-speaking population in this country by a huge margin. You don't have to worry about signs being in German because there aren't enough Germans to make it a possibility.

It sounds like contributors to this thread want to believe that the majority of Americans view English-speaking white illegals in exactly the same way they'd view a Oaxacan who doesn't speak English. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think so. VJ members are international and, I dare say, enlightened. Not all of the U.S. is like this. Not even close, sadly.

In addition, the ancestors argument is not irrelevant. Yes, the population "back in the day" was much smaller, and healthy people were let in in huge numbers to help build the country's infrastructure, railroads, etc. But it's absurd to say, "Well, it's time to shut the doors because now we're overrun!" We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide. It's a question of regulating (or attempting to regulate) who comes in, and from where. "Doing the math" has nothing to do with it. With more responsible consumption of our resources, the U.S. could be home to double the current population. It isn't Gaza, or the Netherlands. We're not living on top of each other. If the purpose of USCIS were to keep population growth to a minimum, the approach would be different.

I've lived in Arizona for 15 years (I grew up in the Boston area), enough to see a lot change and to witness the door-slammers: People who moved here from elsewhere and set up shop, and now lament the continued population growth and issues that accompany it. Person #1 buys a nice house with a mountain view. A few years later, Person #2 comes along and builds a house blocking the view of Person #1. Person #1 is outraged. Person #2 says "too bad for you." Person #3 comes along and blocks the view of Person #2, and so on. Immigration is not dissimilar. I know that some will say it's a clumsy comparison, but I think the basis for the argument is the same.

I agree. I'm an Arizona native...lived there for 30 years of my life.

[Scott & Lai 12]

"Whiteness" is a construct to mean where someone sits in the American power structure in a certain place. And that structure has a solid foundation in, uh, the r-word.

Wow.

Hehe, no kidding....I'm barely middle class, can't afford a house where I live...I guess I'm not actually "white" after all

[sandinista! 1,816]

i think some posters are taking the racism aspect way too personally. gary, lisad, etc. we know you are not racist people. but the fact that you're not racist doesn't mean that there are not huge numbers of people who are racist, and that racism doesn't play a huge part in how many people feel about this issue. like the people who will rant all day about brown skinned people who pick the vegetables they buy at the grocery store, but for some reason won't use the same vitriol for the predominantly white businesses, companies etc. who hire them in the first place. those guys get to make more money by hiring illegals who will work for less and always keep their mouths shut, but none of that profit or savings on overhead gets passed on to you as a consumer. i don't buy it. illegal immigration would not be what it is if there weren't people here gladly giving them work. if people were really angry about it, if they really cared about the principle of the matter, then they'd stop buying anything and everything tainted by illegal employment. but they don't. and probably never ever will.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

30,000 illegal Irish in Boston and 100,000 in New York.

Out of what, 12 million nationally?

---

In March of 2006 the Pew Hispanic Center estimated the undocumented population ranged from 11.5 to 12 million individuals, a number supported by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). Pew estimated that 57% of this population comes from Mexico and about half of them are illegal; 25% from Central America and, to a much lesser extent, South America (which has no road access to the US); 9% from Asia; 6% from Europe, and the remaining 4% from elsewhere.

http://pewresearch.org/

Well its seems pretty clear to me that there’s a marked difference between how a group of a few thousand are treated Vs. a group of several million. The increased negativity arises out of a problem ‘scale’, and the extent to which people feel their communities are being directly impact by those groups. That’s why Gupt’s post from yesterday resonated with me.

Again I saw this on a local level at home in the UK – where a relatively small number of Kosovan asylum seekers were dumped in large concentrations in small towns around the south-east of England. It was a real problem – the govt shouldn’t have done it, they handled the housing of those people badly as well as the decision to admit them into the country, to the detriment of not only of the genuine asylees (who were characterised en-masse) but of the people living in those towns whose communities changed almost overnight. Again – a real issue, not imagined; but one which was colored by the anger of a verbal minority, which manifested itself in an all too predictable manner.

[Alex+R 0]

"Whiteness" is a construct to mean where someone sits in the American power structure in a certain place. And that structure has a solid foundation in, uh, the r-word.

Wow.

Hehe, no kidding....I'm barely middle class, can't afford a house where I live...I guess I'm not actually "white" after all

Power doesn't mean money. If you want to look at it as simplistically as you are, it's your prerogative. A professor at UW-Milwaukee wrote, "Though put forward as biological truths, racial classifications are largely socio-political constructions used by a dominant group to distribute rights, wealth, power, status, and values among populations based on superficial appearances."

In other words, you can ignore history, but that doesn't mean it will look on you any more favorably than it did the others who made the same arguments in the past.

Let's replace the word racism with fear. People tend to have a simple idea of racism, that it means hating someone for the color of their skin, and nobody could stand to be accused of that. Racism is a word that is so misunderstood that it's useless to use in an argument. People think it's so evil that no good person could have it inside them. In truth, most of us are prejudiced in some way or another and the important thing is to be aware of it as much as possible.

[Ban Hammer 14,269]

We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide.

so how is the water situation out there in the desert? if it's not a topic of numbers, do tell why so many areas have in place water restrictions. atlanta, anyone?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

"Whiteness" is a construct to mean where someone sits in the American power structure in a certain place. And that structure has a solid foundation in, uh, the r-word.

Wow.

Hehe, no kidding....I'm barely middle class, can't afford a house where I live...I guess I'm not actually "white" after all

I think what Alex means is that it has more to do with economic class than a literal definition of someone's ethnicity. On that I agree. In the Philippines, it is the lighter complected that are regarded as high class, the darker skinned are called, Chimay, considered lower class - typically uneducated and working as servants, maids. That's been going on for a long time.

[Fandango 1,440]

Thing is, ANYONE can be a linguistic threat....I don't want my street signs in German, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. I don't want to press 1 for English. That doesn't mean I'm racist against Mexicans or 'brown ppl'.

I am so sick of this argument..it's complete ####### and totally insulting.

We can talk about our ancestors all we want....back in the day, there weren't this amount of people in the US. Do the math! The borders cannot stay open at the same rate it did in our infancy. Simple math and economics dictate that.

Please note that I did not state my position on illegal immigration in my post.

Latin Americans are seen as a linguistic threat because they constitute the largest non-native-English-speaking population in this country by a huge margin. You don't have to worry about signs being in German because there aren't enough Germans to make it a possibility.

It sounds like contributors to this thread want to believe that the majority of Americans view English-speaking white illegals in exactly the same way they'd view a Oaxacan who doesn't speak English. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think so. VJ members are international and, I dare say, enlightened. Not all of the U.S. is like this. Not even close, sadly.

In addition, the ancestors argument is not irrelevant. Yes, the population "back in the day" was much smaller, and healthy people were let in in huge numbers to help build the country's infrastructure, railroads, etc. But it's absurd to say, "Well, it's time to shut the doors because now we're overrun!" We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide. It's a question of regulating (or attempting to regulate) who comes in, and from where. "Doing the math" has nothing to do with it. With more responsible consumption of our resources, the U.S. could be home to double the current population. It isn't Gaza, or the Netherlands. We're not living on top of each other. If the purpose of USCIS were to keep population growth to a minimum, the approach would be different.

I've lived in Arizona for 15 years (I grew up in the Boston area), enough to see a lot change and to witness the door-slammers: People who moved here from elsewhere and set up shop, and now lament the continued population growth and issues that accompany it. Person #1 buys a nice house with a mountain view. A few years later, Person #2 comes along and builds a house blocking the view of Person #1. Person #1 is outraged. Person #2 says "too bad for you." Person #3 comes along and blocks the view of Person #2, and so on. Immigration is not dissimilar. I know that some will say it's a clumsy comparison, but I think the basis for the argument is the same.

Is it really that absurd to illustrate the population and limited resources? Or are you going to go shake your magic tree outside that's going to supply everything for everyone.... It's not simply about natural resources that I'm talking about...it's jobs, health care, education, etc. Where is it all going to come from? have you heard about the social security problems? To say that math has nothing to do with it is quite frankly, shocking. I'm not saying 'close the borders completely!' That would be absurd. But to compare it to when this country was officially 'founded' as if all other outside influences are the same is just even more absurd to me.

Take this debate out of sweeping generalizations like 'I'm going to speak for all Americans when I say that Americans are racist against non-whites' and maybe we'll get somewhere. Otherwise, you're just waxing lyrical.

[Dan J 277]

We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide.

so how is the water situation out there in the desert? if it's not a topic of numbers, do tell why so many areas have in place water restrictions. atlanta, anyone?

Do you realize how badly we waste our water resources? Its not an issue of limited resources, its just that we don't want to share.

[SteveLaura 0]

if people were really angry about it, if they really cared about the principle of the matter, then they'd stop buying anything and everything tainted by illegal employment. but they don't. and probably never ever will.

You can check (allegedly) for your favourite stores at this website: www.wehirealiens.com/

[Empress of Groovy 373]

We're not overrun. The U.S. is not facing overpopulation. The issue isn't even one of numbers, at least not yet, or stemming the tide.

so how is the water situation out there in the desert? if it's not a topic of numbers, do tell why so many areas have in place water restrictions. atlanta, anyone?

Oddly, it's less of an issue here than in other parts of the country, because water management is a big deal for obvious reasons. That said, it is an unnatural place to live, I'll be the first to admit. A city this size shouldn't exist in the desert. (The husband and I are planning a move to Portland, Oregon, within the year, I feel I should add.) :-)

Should we connect population growth to drought conditions? I don't mean that sarcastically; I don't know.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

"Whiteness" is a construct to mean where someone sits in the American power structure in a certain place. And that structure has a solid foundation in, uh, the r-word.

Wow.

Hehe, no kidding....I'm barely middle class, can't afford a house where I live...I guess I'm not actually "white" after all

Power doesn't mean money. If you want to look at it as simplistically as you are, it's your prerogative. A professor at UW-Milwaukee wrote, "Though put forward as biological truths, racial classifications are largely socio-political constructions used by a dominant group to distribute rights, wealth, power, status, and values among populations based on superficial appearances."

In other words, you can ignore history, but that doesn't mean it will look on you any more favorably than it did the others who made the same arguments in the past.

Let's replace the word racism with fear. People tend to have a simple idea of racism, that it means hating someone for the color of their skin, and nobody could stand to be accused of that. Racism is a word that is so misunderstood that it's useless to use in an argument. People think it's so evil that no good person could have it inside them. In truth, most of us are prejudiced in some way or another and the important thing is to be aware of it as much as possible.

I think he's right. IMO it's not so outrageous to imagine that society is organised according to the ideology of its most dominant and influential groups.

[Fandango 1,440]

i think some posters are taking the racism aspect way too personally. gary, lisad, etc. we know you are not racist people. but the fact that you're not racist doesn't mean that there are not huge numbers of people who are racist, and that racism doesn't play a huge part in how many people feel about this issue. like the people who will rant all day about brown skinned people who pick the vegetables they buy at the grocery store, but for some reason won't use the same vitriol for the predominantly white businesses, companies etc. who hire them in the first place. those guys get to make more money by hiring illegals who will work for less and always keep their mouths shut, but none of that profit or savings on overhead gets passed on to you as a consumer. i don't buy it. illegal immigration would not be what it is if there weren't people here gladly giving them work. if people were really angry about it, if they really cared about the principle of the matter, then they'd stop buying anything and everything tainted by illegal employment. but they don't. and probably never ever will.

It insults my pov to sum it up as based in racism.

Should I sit here and say 'oh right, I know you're not talking about me and gary but yeah, most anti-illegals hate brown people' #######? How really does anyone know who hates whom? Why is it always a circular, emotional argument which has to attempt to pull apart the other's pov?

This reminds me of an SAT question

If racists hate immigrants, then which of the following is true?

A. All anti-illegals are racist.

B. All racists are racist.

But you're right. Stopping illegal immigration can be done if people put their money where their mouths are.