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Immigration
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Listed below are a number of items concerning immigrants and your (and my) feelings about immigrants in the US. I would be interested in knowing what you think about each of the following situations and whether or not you would be bothered (or to use that awful word "prejudiced" about each of the situations below. So as not to influence your feelings at all I will send you my answers to these questions tomorrow explaining how I feel about each of them. I have made a study of each person trying to become our next president and I find that none of them would be significantly bothered by any of the incidents or conditions below. 'Fess up.
How would you feel?
Situation 1:
There are presently in the US a total of 25 foreign nationals convicted of heinous crimes who have been sentenced to death under state laws. One of these persons convicted of rape and murder of an 11 year old girl is a Mexican national and he confessed to the crime during his trial. He was advised of his rights under the Miranda doctrine when apprehended and there is no question of the adequacy of counsel which he was provided at trial. This inmate has now sued
to the Supreme Court of the US asking that his sentence should be put aside and a new trial held because he was never told during the trial that he had a right to seek the counsel of the Ambassador to the US from Mexico. He does not contest the fact that he never asked to have the counsel of the Ambassador during his trial or after his apprehension. If the US Supreme Court finds in favor of this defendant the other twenty four prisoners sentenced to death will have to be re-tried. All 25 of the prisoners have already exhausted their rights to appeal on other grounds.
The Supreme Court has agreed to rule on this appeal. President Bush says he agrees with the prisoner.
Situation 2. You go into a department store to make a small purchase and are waiting in line to pay for your purchase when another employee comes up to the cashier's desk and engages the cashier in discussion in Swahili dialect (at least you think it is Swahili) and frequent use of the word "nguruwe" at which they always look directly at you and giggle. This goes on for several minutes then the cashier turns to you and says in perfect Oxford English "May I assist you now Madam? ( or Sir?). Are you affronted? Do you think that Sears should allow this? Will you do anything about it? Or will you bask in the diversity?
( "nguruwe" incidentally means "pig" in Swahili) but you don't know that.
Situation 3. You are walking down a crowded city street and the two teen age (late teen age–about 19) walking directly behind you are conversing loudly in an Oriental language (you think) and giggling after each time they use the word "bakkhu-shun". Does this get on your nerves? Do you cross the street and walk down the other side of the street? Or do you just accept it and wish that you spoke their language? "Bakkhu-shun" in Japanese means "a woman who is much more attractive when seen from the rear that when seen from the front"—but you don't know that.
Situation 4.
Your eighteen year old son just graduated from high school and you have sighed a great sigh of relief, but he told you this morning that he has been turned down for entry to your state's university because their allowable freshman entries whoops–I forgot that you don't call them "freshmen"–the allowable number of "first year students" has been admitted. This is bad news because that means he will have to go to Texas Hindu University which has a good curriculum and faculty but costs at least four or five times as much as the state university because it does not have the tax support of the state school–your taxes. Then you find out that the state university admitted twenty three first year students from the Easter Island of Rapa Nui in order to achieve greater student body diversity and "culturally enrich" the school—these admissions without regard to the testing scores of the twenty three. You go to the registrar of the state university and stand in line to see someone and the two girls in front of you are talking in an unknown language and you catch only the frequently repeated word "Tingo" but this time you have time you smile. You know what "tingo" means in Pascuense , the language of the Easter Islands—it means ":the practice of taking all of the objects one desires from the house of a friend by borrowing them one at a time and never returning them". You know that because you were the sole survivor of a US submarine which dived in the Easter Islands in WWII–you were too slow to get down the hatch.
But what do you think about the act of the University in allowing the Easter Islanders to enroll as First Year Students in a school supported by your tax dollars when they did not make testing scores as good as our darling child —or even if they did for that matter.
Situation 5.
You land at DFW airport after a tough flight from Teheran Iran and you are already seething mad at Iran because of some things that happened to you in Teheran and you don't notice that your cab driver got his driving lessons from a camel. He stops at the side of the road just off the airport and hands you a small card which says in passable English "Please print in block letters the name of the street and number of your destination. Thank You. May Allah bring you peace".
So you print "904 Rindie St., Irving" on the card and hand it back to him. He thumbs through a MAPSCO and a bright light turns on when he finds the street and he smiles and takes off at about 90 miles per hours When you reach your destination you glance at the meter and hand him a generous tip just because you have been thinking of garotting him with your belt during the entire trip. When he sees the tip he screams "kill", "kill" I realize that he is not Iranian at all but rather Saudi Arabian where "kill" means "friend". But what do you think about the fact that a large percentage of the taxi drivers in New York City and other metropolitan centers are Muslims from Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt and Iran as well as quite a few from India. This is purely and simply because the Taxi cab franchise owner can get these immigrants to work for a fraction of what he would have to pay an American citizen but the cab fare is the same or more than when the drivers were American citizens meaning that the franchise owner is making a much larger profit than before he hired all immigrants to drive his cabs. This OK with you?
I could go on all day with other examples but I will let these suffice. I will send my further thoughts tomorrow. What do YOU think about these things which are not exaggerated in the conditions they set.
Let me hear from you.
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