Comments on: I Can’t Help But Take Immigration Personally: A Guest Post by Oh Hells Nah

By: viajera

viajera — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:24:24 +0000

Amen! When I lived in Nicaragua, every family I met had at least one – and often multiple – family members living abroad, many in the US, and most undocumented. It was clear to see why they left. I wish that everyone who opposes immigration would go and see what these immigrants were leaving behind: the dirt-floored houses without running water much of the year, the diet of nothing but rice and beans, the leaking tin roof, the outhouse in the back, the inability to buy school supplies for your children… Maybe then they’d learn a little empathy (maybe).

Every single immigrant I know works hard – harder than many/most US-born citizens I know – and stays out of trouble. Of course they do – their families’ lives back home literally depend on them. They’ve taken huge risks to come here and work hard to make money to send home – why on earth would they mess it up?!?

By: rodriguez

rodriguez — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:25:04 +0000

Also, it would be great to try to rid our speech of the term illegal immigrant. It would be better if we could always try to refer to them as undocumented workers.

By: wondering

wondering — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:41:42 +0000

We have a lot of this attitude in Canada too. We are both nations of immigrants. Except for First Nations, all of us have ancestors who immigrated here here less than 400 years ago (and most much more recently than that!) I do not understand this “othering” of recent immigrants and the scare-mongering (they’re here to take our jobs! they’re a drain on the social welfare system!) when study after study shows that immigrants create more jobs, bring more money into the economy, boost the percentage of workers/tax payers that help support the social safety net, take the edge off the aging populace, and so forth. My own sis-in-law is from Columbia and she is unfortunately one of those who wants to slam the door firmly behind herself. (Maybe to fit in with what she perceives as the mainstream – in an “I’m not one of those ‘others’ kind of way”.

By: Ms. M

Ms. M — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:30:52 +0000

Groups exist by who is NOT in the group (I’m not saying that well, but the whole family has been sick for a week, so cut me some intellectual slack).

Right now it seems like certain Americans feel they can’t be “American” without excluding more and more types of people. It’s sad.

By: Doctor Whom

Doctor Whom — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 17:21:46 +0000

Many people feel an intense need to scapegoat someone, so intense that it outweighs any interest that they might have in logic or facts. For example, I remember a radio campaign several years back, blaming the D.C. area’s horrific traffic on immigrants.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:47:02 +0000

Ms. M +1

By: Ms. M

Ms. M — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:37:22 +0000

I really don’t understand the US anti-immigration policy. This country was BUILT by immigrants. Some of our greatest people have been recent immigrants.

The entire community I grew up in was basically 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants from one specific country (German farmers).

I don’t understand slamming the door on immigrants. I think it is wrong, racist, short-sighted, and just jerkish.

By: rodriguez

rodriguez — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 12:59:43 +0000

I don’t understand people like Susana Martinez and other Latinos. She is very close to this issue, she would be turning away her own grandparents. It’s really troubling that many Latinos agree with her.

Closer to home, my own parent ignore the fact that my grandfather draft-dodged from one country to another with a fake passport.

Still, they are hard-line against undocumented workers: “let me in the door, now shut the door”. It’s difficult to read that attitude as anything more than selfishness or fear.

By: Es

Es — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:53:35 +0000

There’s a similar sentiment in the UK, and about all immigrants, not just illegal ones. My father immigrated (came here for school – fee-paying school – met mum and while they moved around a lot, they ultimately settled here) so it’s something I take personally as well. I’ve shocked more than a few people into slack-jawed embarrassment by saying, ‘you know you’re talking about me there when you say [insert generic insult here], don’t you?’
I have found that most of it is ill-informed and poorly thought through rehashing of some of the UK’s more unpleasant tabloids though, once you start talking about it, not as many people actually believe it.

By: Mackey

Mackey — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:41:55 +0000

~~standing ovation~~