A Wink and a Nod

By Marlene L. Johnson

Sept. 16, 2007, 12:30 a.m. - Hispanics have become the favored minority and now outnumber blacks 43 million to 40 million, according to census bureau statistics.
This fact has set up a dynamic between the two groups. Blacks have fought hard for their civil rights and now see many of the things they fought for being usurped by a sizeable number of Hispanics, who have sneaked, swam or otherwise crossed the borders into the U.S. and can be counted among the “illegal” immigrants.
In many instances, such as employment, our political leaders have given them a “wink and a nod” rather than reforming the immigration policy.
Many Latinos hold jobs they claim Americans don’t want to do, like construction jobs for individual tradesmen or small construction companies. They gather in specific areas in the city hoping to be hired for day jobs in the construction industry.
Concessions are made. Employers have found another way to line their pockets—offer Hispanics economic crumbs in the form of lower wages than African Americans and others would accept for the same jobs. Then they bring over caravans of Hispanics and put them up in houses so they can have a private workforce. Then they start a disinformation campaign that Hispanics are doing the jobs Americans don’t want to do.
They give another wink and a nod when the “illegal immigrants” demonstrate in the streets of Los Angeles and other cities against deportation or being required to go through the immigration process. They want jobs and freedom. Yet they are flouting our immigration laws.
How dare they, you ask? They dare because unlike the Haitians, who came over in shabby flotillas, some drowning on their attempts to reach American shores, most Hispanics were not turned back. It is estimated by the U.S. Border Patrol Local 2544 in Tucson, Ariz. that there are between 12 million and 15 million. illegal immigrants in the U.S, mostly Hispanic. They dare risk crossing the borders because they know they can. They dare hang around work sites and pick up day labor, because they know they can. They know they won’t get thrown into jail, or worse yet, sent packing back to their home turf. Like the Haitians were.
They dare do what blacks have been killed and jailed for doing—hanging around in public places in groups of more than two or three.
They dare because the U.S. has accommodated them by favoring their language and by making life for them more comfortable than for some of its own citizens. Unlike Blacks who were forced onto these shores, stripped of their language and culture, and ridiculed for the way they spoke the new foreign language—English—Hispanics don’t have to learn it. Just check out your voice phone messages—“if you want English press 1, Spanish, press 2.” Or brochures giving directions on purchases you have to assemble—half is in English and another half is in…guess what?
What about other immigrants—like the Irish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Haitians, Nigerians, Greeks and other ethnic groups—who came here legally. Why not make them more comfortable by using their languages in phone voice messages? Or why not use the many American Indian languages. Let’s be fair. Can you imagine how long that would take before one could even gain access to the person your are calling?
English is the language of this country…the country they have broken the law to enter. I say let them learn English. Let them embrace our language, just as they embrace all that America has to offer, jobs and social services, like WIC for mothers with infants.
They have imported their language and their gangs, like MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha). And some have become “Americanized” in their view of blacks. They want to keep blacks out of neighborhoods in Los Angeles and elsewhere where their population is large. Black males, especially, who unknowingly cross the line into their ‘hoods, risk being shot or killed.
Or they adopt the mentality of the oppressor who sees little value in black lives. Like what was done to the four black college students in Newark where, police said, a Hispanic criminal lined them up and shot them execution style. One, a girl, lived. Another girl, and two young men died. One of the perpetrators Jose Carranza, 28, was not only illegal, but had a long criminal record, including assault and child rape charges, and shouldn’t have been let out on bail and back onto the streets of America. He should have been deported after committing the first crime, and not allowed back in the country. A second 15-year-old suspect was unidentified.
I’m all for people making their way to freedom, economic or otherwise. But I don’t agree that law breakers who come to the U.S. should be given “favored” status and accommodated where others are not.
Let them get in line behind those who are already here and have worked hard to make whatever gains they have made.
Unless the U.S. reforms its immigration laws and comes up with a remedy for the rampant “border crossings” and for dealing with those who are already here illegally, America may lose this country. It’s been done before. Just ask the American Indians who were benevolent to the early settlers and now live in walled off places in their own country. Hispanics already have taken over large parts of Miami and Los Angeles without firing a single round, while the politicians have given them a wink and a nod.