“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
(Emma Lazarus, 1888)
“. . . . [W]e declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlan. Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.” (“For the race, everything. Outside the race, nothing.”)
(From El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan)
A land of dreams. A land of myths. America began as a rumor, a subject of court gossip in the great halls of 15th century Europe where it was whispered that some Genoese navigator had discovered new lands across the ocean sea. In the ensuing 500 years as tens of millions flowed to her shores, America swallowed the new arrivals with relative ease, assimilating them with a combination of brutal exploitation and wondrous opportunity – powerful forces that stoked the fires of the melting pot and imprinted American values, customs, and ideals on the peoples of every race, color, and creed.
But something has gone horribly wrong. Not just with immigrants from Mexico although currently being the largest group of new arrivals, they come in for the harshest criticism. It is the same with Russians, Poles, Slavs, Balkanites, Africans, Asians and many more who make it to our shores and then disappear into the great morass of bureaucratic ineptitude and inertia. The fact is, it is ridiculously easy to skirt our immigration laws.
Overstayed your visa? No problem. A huge underground industry has grown up that supplies illegal immigrants with documentation so that they can live and work in the United States as well as apply for benefits related to everything from health care to unemployment compensation. No one knows how large this illegal document industry is but estimates are in the 1-2 billion dollar range. This doesn’t include the monies stolen from the American taxpayer in illegal benefits.
With 96% of illegal immigrants able to procure these documents and become part of the workforce, this unprecedented outbreak of lawlessness has had predictable consequences; fewer and fewer of these illegals are on a path to citizenship and assimilation. The various schemes put forth to rectify this situation including the latest “guest worker” program have had no impact on solving the problem and may, in fact, encourage more people to illegally enter the country.
With no stake in the future of America, no need to learn English, no desire to make America their adopted land, there is no compulsion to inculcate American ideals in their children who are automatically citizens by virtue of being born here.
Anyone who doesn’t think that this aspect of illegal immigration doesn’t have consequences I would direct your gaze to the picture above of the upside down American flag being deliberately flown below the flag of Mexico. Is anyone seriously making the argument that this one image, so wrenching in its implications for our future, doesn’t accurately reflect the feelings of those children, most of whom are citizens? They are future voters. And I shudder to think of what they would be willing to vote for if the growing reconquista movement is able to successfully play upon and manipulate the current coalition of greedy businesses, weak politicians, diversity crackpots, multicultural tyrants, and guilt-ridden leftists who have made it plain that America is a land without recognizable borders and that citizenship, in the end, doesn’t mean squat.
John Fonte, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute:
We have arrived at a tipping point in American history. Make no mistake about it, these demonstrations are a challenge to what Aristotle and Straussian political theorists call a “regime†or “way of life.†We are witnessing the assertion of raw power (from and on behalf of non-citizens) that challenges our own citizenship and our very constitutional order. Illegal aliens who are here without the “consent of the governed†(aided and abetted by amoral corporate and ideological elites) are demanding that the views of the overwhelming majority of the American people (for border control and immigration restrictions) be ignored. This is an attempted social coup; war by other means.
A “social coup” indeed. The image of that upside down American flag is a declaration of war not just on the citizens of America, but on our values, our ideals, and our most cherished hopes that have sustained this country for more than 200 years.
It should go without saying that the reality of America has rarely lived up to its promise. Slavery of Africans, ethnic cleansing of the native Americans, and especially the way newcomers have been treated in the past upon their arrival have made the words contained in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution ring hollow. But almost important as this reality is the promise that our society can and does work to constantly better itself. The “No Irish Need Apply” signs in the days of our great grandfathers have disappeared along with similar disdain for subsequent waves of immigrants from Europe. The forces of assimilation worked their magic on those peoples to transform their progeny into citizens who are indistinguishable in all the important ways from the native born.
For others, the transformation was more painful but was made nonetheless. Overcoming the obscenity of racism (as well as other cultural obstacles), Asian-Americans and recent African immigrants have proven that the melting pot model of assimilation can be stretched to include those whose cultural values were vastly different from the Europeans who came before them.
The drive to assimilate has done more to make the words “All men are created equal” resonate with meaning than all the Supreme Court decisions, civil rights laws, racial pressure groups, and crusading journalists put together. By standing up for and exercising their rights as citizens, ethnic groups in the past have changed the American social and cultural landscape. By becoming citizens and taking part in the grand experiment that is American democracy, they have fought for and won important battles to make their vision of America – not their native land – a better place to live.
That is the stake that assimilation gives new citizens; the future happiness of their children. But today’s illegals, while wanting the same happiness for their offspring, don’t care about the context in which that goal is achieved. Hence, infusing their children from birth with the values of American society takes second place to maintaining their separateness from the rest of us. Part of this has to do with their status as illegal immigrants. But it has more to do with a belief that America is not a place to dream but rather a place to milk. The opportunity afforded those willing to work is seen as a means to take and give nothing in return.
This is why the image above is so disturbing. It shows that their children, despite many being citizens, have taken the same attitude as their parents toward American opportunity. Many apparently see themselves as the vanguard of a movement to “take back” California and the American southwest for Mexico. At the very least, it shows a lack of understanding of what America is all about, a failure of education both at home and at school. At worst, it presages a period in American politics that could lead to civil unrest and a fracturing of the American polity.
For 120 years, the Statue of Liberty has been the image of inclusion and opportunity for immigrants. It is sad almost beyond words that the image of the upside down American flag displayed in an inferior position to the flag of Mexico could become modern shorthand for the feelings and even the hopes and dreams of immigrants today.
UPDATE
Cao has an excellent round-up from the passionate right on the flag issue as well as the immigration bill before the Senate.
Michelle Malkin has dozens of pictuers of the illegal, forged, and fake documents used by “undocumented” workers. Quoth Malkin:
Next time you read or hear reporters mindlessly refer to the “undocumented,” send them here and ask why they continue to use such an inaccurate, biased, loaded, and plain annoying term.I eagerly await their reply.
11:51 am
You and Peggy Noonan are on the same wavelength. There’s an estimated 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants here now. Too bad the politicians can’t look three or four generations down the road instead of only until next November. Whose tax dollars are going to put all those kids through the school systems?
12:09 pm
Brilliant analysis and summation. Thanks.
1:35 pm
[...] Update: Rick Moran has weighed in with some thoughts on this which I feel echo my own. He also notes some things I didn’t think of or wasn’t sure how to say. As usual he captures the gravity of the issue much better than I. Don’t miss it. [link] [...]
1:42 pm
Rick, the one subject that is never being addressed by either side of the aisle in the matter of IL-legal immigration is the attitude of the Mexican government.
Vicente Fox refuses to refer to these citizens of his as “illegals”. The Mexican government takes out full page ads in OUR newspapers touting amnesty for his citizens. And while Fox places his military on HIS southern border, he refuses to place them on his northern border to prevent HIS citizens from crossing over or jumping into the Rio Grande. One only has to look at Mexico’s policy on illegals to see that it is in direct conflict with what he wants the United States policy to be.
Fox is not stupid, wait, he is dumb like a fox. He knows that the $20 billion that goes into his economy every year from money sent back to Mexico by illegals in the U.S. is the one, largest resouce for his nation, now exceeding the Mexican oil revenue. So Mexico produces brochures on how to sneak into the United States, brochures on how to collect social services once in the U.S., provides them with travel packs, refuses to cooperate on criminal background checks, on and on.
Fox is no friend to the United States. But it seems that we have a bunch of wimps in Washington that will never admit that.
The problem with illegal immigration will never be solved unless Fox does his share and that is not going to happen. Why would he want to be responsible for the lowest economic segment of his society when he can get the U.S. to do it for him?
2:00 pm
Put’em in jail.
I’m talking about those that hire the illegals, so they don’t have to pay wages and benefits the American markets bear.
as for the illegals, they’ll stop coming when they stop earning a living.
BTW, it’ll never happen. No way the politicians will make the corporations pay.
The corporations run the show in this country. The sooner Americans learn this, the better off we’ll all be.
2:03 pm
Robert:
The overwhelming majority of illegals work for small businesses. Most of those businesses are run by recent legal immigrants or naturalized citizens.
3:43 pm
A Chance For A Better Life
This is a tough issue, emotionally charged for some, irrelevant to others and an excuse for the remainder to eagerly pull out the racism card…NYT is worried about the GOP loosing the Hispanic vote. Tom Maguire is not impressed.
3:56 pm
Is It ‘Amnesty’ or ‘Earned Citizenship’?
Or neither. That’s our position.
S.F. Chronicle reports: “The immigration debate roiling the Senate and the country often boils down to one charged word: amnesty.”
It is brandished like a loaded gun by opponents of expanded legal i…
4:03 pm
Oh, thank god we have solved that pesky racism problem here in the US…I must of missed that announcement on FOX!
5:00 pm
I remember a trip to Mexico City in which I had a conversation with a Mexican taxicab driver. He informed me that the biggest mistake the United States ever made was to stop at the Rio Grande during the Mexican-American war. As long as the United States remains a vibrant economic powerhouse with opportunity and the Mexican political (corrupt)and economic situation stay the same, Persons from Mexico (and the rest of Latin America for that matter) will always wander north in search of the Promised Land. No fence will stop them and there is no political will to do so. If the U.S. really wanted to stop immigration at the border, due to the large border (and difficult terrain) that will result in the need to bring the military to bear on the problem, however, look where the vast majority of military bases are located; in the heart land (not strategic)of the United States. You would need to move them to border states. However, what Senator and Congressman, willing to actually do something about illegal immigration, will also be willing to give up the thousands of jobs and economic infrastructure which springs up around a military base, especially if the base is in his home state or district. It is already a major congressional battle to close a obsolete military base let alone a vibrant and large base with thousands of active troops that attract business and therefore jobs.
Onto another issue, you discuss the lack of cultural assimilation by new immigrants, either legal or illegal. It is my humble opinion, having seen this first hand, that while the first or maybe even thesecond generation of these immigrants are not making the move to assimilate or even learn English, you will find that the second, but definatly the third generation are doing so. I suspect, the vast majority of the young who attended these vast rallies where there for the day off from school.
Lastly, just because the thought of persons frothing at the mouth amuses me, you might be interested to know that there are major lawsuits occuring in the border states where Mexican families are pursuing class lawsuits to have the lands taken from their families long ago returned to them. Southwestern Texas ranches are under assault as well as Padre Island, Texas and even the famous King Ranch. I also recall reading about lawsuits occuring in Arizona and New Mexico. Makes one shudder to think what judge is sitting on the bench of those lawsuits.
5:08 pm
I’m suspicious of the sudden hysteria over immigration. It isn’t like this subject just showed up on our nation’s doorstep. Hell, Regean signed a huge amnesty program in 1986. Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) (Public Law 99-603).
More likely, this is an issue intended to distract from the growing unpopularity of the war, the budget deficit, the trade deficit, and the massive increase in the size of government.
6:58 pm
[...] Rick: Anyone who doesn’t think that this aspect of illegal immigration doesn’t have consequences I would direct your gaze to the picture above of the upside down American flag being deliberately flown below the flag of Mexico. Is anyone seriously making the argument that this one image, so wrenching in its implications for our future, doesn’t accurately reflect the feelings of those children, most of whom are citizens? [...]
7:38 pm
Hector, mexico lost all claims to certain lands in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo…along with the land they lost were lands seized by governments during that time.
They lost the lands due to the law. They have no more hope of stealing back the land than the muslims have of reclaiming spain….actually they have less hope of getting back lands they lost than the muslims have of reclaiming spain.
4:15 am
Why are the illegal aliens in this company? Supply and Demand. By saving money on cheaper illegal wages, companies can continue to maintain lower prices. Why do you think Wal-Mart can keep its prices so low? Hell, they have branched out to provide cheaper luxary items. The real question is how much do we save as consumers compared to the amount of money we lose as taxpayers paying for public services that illegal immigrants use? That there is the answer to the question.
3:18 pm
Well, for what it’s worth, I’m planning to move to Mexico when I retire. So that’ll make a teensy bit more room!
7:31 pm
kender.
The “treaty” of Guadalupe-Hidalgo came after a war that Mexico Lost. The so called treaty was signed while American troops were in Mexico City.
To believe that Mexico went to war with the U.S.A. on border disputes including Texas, only to give half their country after they lost the war, because they needed 15 million dollars is idiotic.
As for the Muslims reclaiming back their land, last I checked the Muslims invaded Spain, and were trown out. You comparison does not hold water.