Thread: Fear, hate spread across region

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/11 ... 193445.txt

Fear, hate spread across region

By: SHARI CRALL - Commentary

There is an ugliness spreading across Southwest County. It was best pictured in the hate-filled, fearsome face of KFI radio personality John Kobylt, in The Californian photo during his recent visit here.

There are many eloquent words that could be, that have been said, from modern to ancient times about the danger of such faces. You can catch some in the theater, in George Clooney's movie about newsman Edward R. Murrow, as he faced down the same look on Sen. Joseph McCarthy's face.

The current atmosphere of fear and hate regarding the Mexican immigrant in this community is giving me shivers. Suddenly, even though they have been standing on a corner, connecting with odd jobs for longer than most of the homeowners in this town have lived here, day laborers are not welcome.


No charges of crime or even rudeness, were leveled, just fear. We are afraid of those men congregating on the corner. As one who walked past that corner for years in the early morning, the polite nods of those looking for work there was the most I ever encountered.

What is the border anyway that we need to be so vigilant about it? Isn't it an imaginary line, often between wealth and poverty? Is it so different from the Berlin Wall that we were so forceful in demanding the demise of? Doesn't it also hem people in, many times, to a life of poverty and hardship?

Those risking all to break out, are not honored here as heroes, as those escaping East Germany were, rather they are now something to be feared and hated in this country, for trying to find the freedom to feed their families, get their children a decent education and access to health care. For a people only 60 miles north of being born Mexican, can we really afford such rancor?

America is built on values better than this fear, better than this hatred.

We can look to countless examples. We can find dramatic monologues delivered from Shakespeare to Lincoln, from Churchill to Reagan. I guess if I have to choose one speech to ask you to please not look the other way when friends and neighbors express this fear, but rather to get specific, to dialogue and dissect what the actual issues are, and to never jump on a bandwagon that characterizes people by race or wealth or even access to freedom, it would have to be Emma Lazarus.

You know the speech. As an American, you probably had to memorize it in elementary school:

A mighty woman with a torch ...

From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome ...

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!

Shari Crall lives in Temecula.

I thought the "huddled masses thing " was French Humor and not be taken literally-
pass the swiss cheese some-one
seriously -once again those who want immigration reform are evil and hate filled - while the illegal immigrants
are noble and longing to be free - who have committed no crimes?
Do they ever talk to american citizens?

Â*Â*

Chris Crall, (909) 676-9136, 31524 Britton Cir, Temecula, CA 92591


Shari Crall, (909) 676-9136, 31524 Britton Cir, Temecula, CA 92591
shari@temelink.com
scrall@adelphia.net

It is harder generally for a foreigner to get a work permit in Mexico than the United Sates.
It is easier to get a visitors visa to Mexico than it is to the United States. If someone enters Mexico under a visitors visa and then seeks work then they are in violation of their entry visa.


There is a tight link in between the Mexican local police and the Mexican Immigration Police. If you are a foreigner who is found and caught seeking work you will be reported to Immigration then summariy deported. The process takes about three weeks.

Originally, when the Statue of Liberty was placed in New York harbor it was intended as a symbol shining the ideals of American democracy and individual freedom, opportunity, and responsibility throughout the world inviting other nations to cherish and embrace those same ideals. The Statue of Liberty was not intended to be a doormat into the United States for an unlimited huddled mass of wretched refuse.

The mediocre poetry was stuck on the statue later as the result of an amateur poetry contest. That poetry was never national policy nor even national sentiment to any great degree.

If Ms. Crall understood the real meaning of the Statue of Liberty she would be admonishing Mexico and other places for producing those huddled masses of wretched refuse rather admonishing us for not wanting to be inundated with wretched refuse (I'm just using the words in the poem).

I don't know if that fear and hatred she sees really exists or not. It could be that some folks are just looking at reality rather than mindlessly parroting silly poetry. One does have a tendency to hate that which destroys what one loves. Perhaps Ms. Crall could follow her own advice and attempt to understand the issues and consequences rather than being nothing more than a PCbot.

It she thinks all Mexicans can come here, then everybody else should be able to come as well. What about the consequences of that?, Ms. Crall.

Shakespeare likely didn't concern himself with American values much, Churchill seemed to want to preserve England, Lincoln realized that our forefathers brought forth a great nation and wanted to keep it some four score and seven years after one of those forefathers (Jeffeson) said that "The first consideration in immigration should always be the welfare of the receiving nation", and Reagan said that a country without borders is hardly a country at all. She doesn't seem to understand those gentlemen, or much anything else, very well.

Great points, Bluehills. Seriously.

I too have generally encountered polite nods as I pass by immigrants whether on the street or in church or other places. But it seems to be changing. A couple of years of ranting by the anti-immigration movement has affected many of these people to the point where they're not as friendly as they used to be.

Man, do you work at the White House ?

Originally Posted by Man

I too have generally encountered polite nods as I pass by immigrants whether on the street or in church or other places. But it seems to be changing. A couple of years of ranting by the anti-immigration movement has affected many of these people to the point where they're not as friendly as they used to be.

Well lets first again clear this up.

Immigrant = A person or persons that has come to the United States by legal channels and are here legally.

Illegal Alien = Two Definitions for this one

Main Entry: 1il·le·gal Pronunciation: (")i(l)-'le-g&lFunction: adjectiveEtymology: Middle French or Medieval Latin; Middle French illegal, from Medieval Latin illegalis, from Latin in- + legalis legal: not according to or authorized by law : UNLAWFUL
Main Entry: 1alien Pronunciation: 'A-le-&n, 'Al-y&nFunction: adjectiveEtymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin alienus, from alius1 a : relating, belonging, or owing allegiance to another country or government : FOREIGN

Maybe the Immigrants are not as friendly to you anymore, because of your standing by Illegal Aliens. I can very well understand there point. Since my wife is a legal Immigrant. By standing with Illegal Aliens, all your doing is throwing dirt in the faces of the People that have Immigrated here legally.

Originally Posted by Scubayons

Maybe the Immigrants are not as friendly to you anymore, because of your [sic] standing by Illegal Aliens. I can very well understand there [sic] point. Since my wife is a legal Immigrant. By standing with Illegal Aliens, all your [sic] doing is throwing dirt in the faces of the People that have Immigrated here legally.

I don't stand with illegal aliens