AUTHOR: Sarah Cove TITLE: The Immigration Issue DATE: 4/11/2006 11:20:00 PM ----- BODY:

So, I was listening to Fox News tonight (listening meaning being in another room while a roommate watched the TV) and what other issue was on but the Illegal Immigration Bill. There was a woman on the TV who was pro kicking out illegal immigrants. Her story went something like this, "We cannot sit by while people come into the United States on their own terms. We have laws and it is not okay to sit by as these people disregard them all...that is not what America is about . America is a country where immigrants come into the country, integrate themselves into the culture and learn to speak the language..." And as this was being said my muscles tensed and the following conversation happened: "Lady, really you don't care about the illegality or legality of people coming into the US or about people following the rules. Sure you spout it vehemently but who cares. You don't. That is just a politically correct, boring story to hide a more vile one. What is the much more interesting story for you and what triggers you is the story of "invasion." And by "invasion," I mean a large group of people coming into a culture and making changes to the way of life, the culture, the language. It is the same fucking story as with the Irish immigrants and Italians immigrants: `those bloody Catholics coming in and polluting our religion and over-populating with their large families. They live in burroughs and don't integrate and how in God's name will we preserve our WASP way of life?' It is the same racism, driven by the fear of losing one's culture or what is comfortable." "But now, the conservatives have a nice twist--legality--which hides and, at the same time, makes more present, their racism. `We are doing it for the greater good of the country, saving it from people that have not got a right to be here,' is a much tastier story for conservatives to swallow than, `I, a person with strong racist inclinations, don't want dirty people from below the border to bring their filthy, non-English-speaking bodies here.'" Let's get some word printed out there about what is really happening, people's anger and racism boiling underneath all of this and driving it every bit of the way. And, I think almost every American has this story. Hey, I have recognized it in me at times. In my lifetime, 1/4 of the people in the US will be Latinos. And that story has every so often scared me since high school or early college. But I recognize it as a bullshit story that can trap me into a rigid and intolerant way of being. I think liberals should be more aware of that story in them and conservatives that live in it should stop trying to hide it. They should think about the stories driving their concerns versus the bullshit stories of legality, and see if those are the stories they want America to bring proudly forth into the future.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: guillermo m wechsler DATE:5/18/2006 01:05:00 PM ...mexican walking under the moon and over the desert are triggering interesting questions about legality, justice, and multiculturalism. overall, in my heart, i would like to have just one america for all of us. it is a huge challenge to learn from each other, and to create the ethical space in which diverty can thrive...the media debate seems to be shallow and uninspiring...and most of the audience do not distinguish what is legal, from what is moral, from what is ethical...should we talk about it? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sarah Cove DATE:8/25/2006 12:20:00 AM How does one create an ethical space we can all share as a country when our country is founded on the freedom of speech? And how do we deal with the collision of freedom of speech and intolerance? I have a lot of questions around this, but this area is new to me and I don't know how to articulate these questions. I'm blindly being American but not understanding all the ways that is making me in the world. ----- --------