Thread: Does citing the facts on immigration mean I am a hate-monger

Does citing the facts on immigration mean I am a hate-monger?

Joe Guzzardi

November 22, 2008

Toward the middle of every week, I check the News-Sentinel blog to find out how readers responded to my column from the preceding Saturday.

I'm curious to measure how effectively I've made my argument. And I look for valuable feedback from readers who may point out an angle that I might have overlooked.

The columns that have generated the most passionate reader reaction are the critical ones that I've directed at President George W. Bush and those that reflect my reductionist immigration philosophy.

Three weeks ago, commenting on two stories by News-Sentinel reporter Jennifer Bonnett about the Lodi Unified School District's English as a second language classes, I wrote that after more than 20 years of teaching adult ESL, I had serious doubts about their effectiveness.

In my summary, I made two central points.

First, if the district and, in fact, the nation wants to reduce the huge numbers of non-English speakers who drain increasingly scarce financial and teacher resources, the Mexican government will have to fulfill its obligation as a sovereign nation to provide for its citizens. Instead, Mexico actively pushes them toward California, where they bring their school-age children. Once here, more children are born.

Second, unless the decades-old trend of unchecked illegal immigration reverses itself, America as we know it will cease to exist.

Some News-Sentinel readers objected.

Several feel that a multicultural, multilingual California would be a richer, more rewarding place to live.

Others say that California once belonged to Mexico and it is only just that, through immigration, the state will gradually revert to its original status.

Still another group concluded that I am too harsh on the young second-language learners. One invited me to go to Stanford University, where her former ESL student is pursuing an advanced degree.

All those views are well and good. And many Californians hold them.

But here's the key thing: Every single one of them is an opinion and debatable.

Maybe bilingual signage and pressing 1 for English doesn't bother you. But it does me.

Mexico, in fact, did once own the California territory. But Mexico lost a war with the U.S., willingly signed a treaty, accepted payment in exchange for its land and thus allowed the U.S. to acquire California legitimately.

And sure, we can find ESL successes at Stanford and maybe even Harvard, too. But with the California Hispanic high school dropout rate at about 25 percent, it's obvious that there are more failures than successes.

We can argue and argue and argue.

But there's no disputing my two conclusions. Like it or not, they're fact-based and 100 percent accurate.

To repeat, the students overwhelming our schools are either illegally in the U.S. or the illegal aliens' children. If Mexico treated its citizens with dignity or if the U.S. enforced immigration law, they would still be in their native countries.

And if the border remains wide open, then the America that many Lodians and I grew up in is finished.

Should anyone care to challenge either of those two observations, please feel free to contact me.

I'll make one final and important point that readers also overlooked.

Although some charged me of "hate," I'll simply say in my defense that I didn't pull the statistics out of the air. Don't kill the messenger.

Bonnett's original story and the column I followed up with cited the Pew Hispanic Center and the U.S. Census Bureau as calculating that by 2050 Hispanic K-12 student enrollment would increase by 116 percent nationwide and that two thirds of all San Joaquin Valley children are Hispanic.

Does that make the Census Bureau and the Pew Hispanic Center "hate" organizations?

The reality is that to deal effectively with the increasingly high rates of non-English speakers in California's public education system, we have to address what I refer to as politically incorrect "hate facts" — that is, irrefutable facts that that everyone ignores because of their connotation.

As long as no one — except maybe me — dares to talk about them, then you can expect more of the same, at least until 2050. For now, that's as long as the Census Bureau dares to looks ahead.

Joe Guzzardi recently retired from Lincoln Tech Academy, where he taught, among other subjects, ESL for more than two decades.

www.lodinews.com

Believe the previous article mentioned is posted here:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-138807-joe.html+guzzardi

I find you to be one of America's great friends with a deep understanding of how the USA is being destroyed.

Others say that California once belonged to Mexico and it is only just that, through immigration, the state will gradually revert to its original status.

Of course what they fail to remember is back when Mexico claimed California, the state went downhill economically and anarchy increased (just like now). To stop this trend some Californios (Spanish-Mexicans) and American (invited by Mexico to live in California) staged the Bear Flag revolt and formed the Bear Flag Republic, which was actually an independent country. This is why the California State Flag says "California Republic" on it.

Shortly thereafter the new Bear Flag Republic joined the USA as a territory, as the US had declared war on Mexico due to Mexican Army incursions into Texas.

No you are not a hate monger for citing facts. But that is part of the propaganda ploy to get America dismantled.

Any facts what so ever makes you a hate monger, they don't like facts, it screws up their agenda! \

But your not alone, according to ethnocentric special interest groups we are all hate groups, racists, and bigots...do we care anymore NO!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

Any facts what so ever makes you a hate monger, they don't like facts, it screws up their agenda! \

But your not along, according to ethnocentric special interest groups we are all hate groups, racists, and bigots...do we care anymore NO!

We don't care anymore because we know we are not the slanderous names and mud they like to sling at us.