Thread: In Immigrant Georgia, New Echoes of an Old History

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March 6, 2006
Editorial Observer
In Immigrant Georgia, New Echoes of an Old History
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Savannah, Ga.

The Coke-bottle glasses of hindsight can leave even profound historical miseries all blurry with sentimentality. That's one way to explain the Savannah Irish Festival, a two-day celebration of the Great Famine's great contribution to this lovely Southern city — the migration of thousands of starving laborers who toted barges, lifted bales, dug ditches and cellars, and put down roots here in the mid-1800's.

Their descendants crowded the Savannah Civic Center for the festival, eating corned-beef sandwiches, drinking Guinness and applauding the young step dancers who thundered across the stage, tossing their auburn ringlets. Vendors sold teapots and cookbooks and those itchy, kitschy sweaters and scarves that have become the worldwide uniform of warm, fuzzy Irishness.

It is hard to imagine a tubercular immigrant, knee deep in cellar muck, dreaming that his adopted city would one day commemorate his sacrifice with a party. Unskilled Irish immigrants were abused and despised back then, chained to a life of poverty and hard labor that bonded them — at least for a little while — with enslaved African-Americans.

The parallels with the present day are too obvious to ignore. Georgia is undergoing another demographic shift, as Mexican immigrants flock to its farms, mills, processing plants and cities. The Latino immigrant population has soared in the last 10 years and exploded in the last 5, to an estimated 650,000 in a state of nine million. Some experts say the real immigrant number is double that. At least half of the newcomers are illegal, unskilled laborers who, like their Irish predecessors, want "any job, but now."

Anti-immigrant groups have taken to calling the state "Georgiafornia," and have vowed to fight the Latino influx. As Congress takes up immigration legislation in coming weeks, the Republicans who control the Georgia Legislature have been way ahead of them, having already put the issue at the top of their agenda. The leader of the effort, Senator Chip Rogers, has sponsored a bill he calls "the most comprehensive illegal-immigration legislation in America." State Senate Bill 529, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, seeks to cut off illegal immigrants from what its backers perceive to be a vast plundering of taxpayer-financed benefits, like medical care and schooling.

The bill is less ham-fisted than a measure recently passed by the Georgia House, which would impose a 5 percent surcharge on people wiring money abroad who could not prove they are here legally. The Senate bill proposes a strategy of deterrence by bureaucracy. Anyone who hires someone at more than $600 a year, for example, would not be able to take a business deduction on a state tax return without verifying the employee's legal status.

The Republicans who control the Georgia Legislature say that public sentiment is with them and that the time to strike is now. The bill's opponents acknowledge that S.B. 529 is likely to pass and have concentrated their efforts on trying to pull as many of its teeth as possible.

Yet, while Georgia is not about to break out the "Kiss Me, I'm Mexican" buttons, the current political climate is far different from the one the Irish newcomers banged up against a century and a half ago. Much of the state is struggling to find a sensible and humane way to handle the rising tide of newcomers. Even Senator Rogers's most vocal opponents admit that on balance, things could be worse. Senator Sam Zamarripa, an Atlanta Democrat, was able to negotiate with Mr. Rogers to exempt those under 18 from S.B. 529 and to protect access to prenatal care and higher education.

And not everyone here is phobic about living in Georgiafornia. Savannah, for example, is home to people like Melody Ortiz, a recruiter at Armstrong Atlantic State University, who travels the state looking for Hispanic students to apply for scholarships financed by the Goizueta Foundation, founded by Roberto Goizueta, the former Coca-Cola chief executive. One of her goals is to get the children of illegal immigrants into higher education, something an earlier version of Senator Rogers's bill tried explicitly to deny.

Then there is John Newton, editor of La Voz Latina, a free monthly newspaper that circulates in Georgia and South Carolina, part shopper, part immigrant manifesto. Mr. Newton, who is not Hispanic, describes his job as something close to a missionary vocation. "How insane it is," he writes, "for a nation of aging baby-boomers to vilify a work force composed, for the most part, of members of the Christian faith, with strong family values, a willingness to work and a desire to succeed."

Savannah is approaching its biggest celebration of the year, St. Patrick's Day, when hordes descend on the sidewalks and historic squares, and the grits and fountains turn green. That celebration, like its New York counterpart, has become a beer-soaked blowout that has little to do with any specific immigrant group. But underneath the happy, vague ethnicity of it all is a rich and tear-soaked history. And anyone who cares to look around can see the telltale signs of that history repeating itself.

In response to the editorial by Lawrence Downes titled "In Immigrant Georgia, New Echoes of an Old History" it is clear that Mr. Downes is highly disconnected from the views of a super majority of Georgians and Americans as a whole.

The immigration enforcement provisions in Senate Bill 529 enjoy wide support from a vast majority because the public, unlike Mr. Downes, does not support illegal immigrants. Neither do LEGAL immigrants that came here the right and legal way.

His comparison of the recent invasion of our country by millions of illegal aliens, most from Mexico, to the Irish immigration from 100 years ago shows a complete detachment from historical fact.

First of all, most of the Irish immigrated to America LEGALLY. They were screened for diseases and they worked hard to assimilate to our culture.
The American public was not trillions of dollars in debt at the time and they were not asked as taxpayers to pay billions of dollars for the education, health care, court and legal costs, insurance rate impact fees, and bi-lingual services for the Irish! His entire comparison of millions of illegal aliens from Mexico to the Irish is a bad political joke.

The current waves of illegal aliens from South of the Border are showing no desire to assimilate to our language or culture. Their contempt for our laws and our citizens is shown by the first series of laws they break entering America illegally, utilizing identity theft and documents fraud, and then stealing an America job that belongs to either an America or a LEGAL immigrant.

Secondly, Mr. Downes plays the oldest card in the deck by calling anyone that supports SB 529 "anti-immigrant". To put it mildly, this is a lie. Most Americans support legal immigrants although many are turning against all immigration in reaction to this historically unprecedented influx of millions of illegal aliens. Even those that are now against all immigration are not necessarily against the immigrants or "anti-immigrant."

Clearly, the point Mr. Downes wants to make is that anyone that is for enforcement of our immigration laws or SB 529 is an anti-immigrant bigot or racist. Funny how he does not spend much time in his editorial debating the merits of the bill or the concerns of the bill sponsors. Furthermore, he completely ignores the American victims of illegal aliens that are killed and maimed by illegal aliens and the America taxpayers that are being drained of their livelihood by being forced to pay for services they can't afford for themselves to provide for people that have no respect for our laws, citizens, culture, or Nation.

In closing, the Irish immigrants were very different from today's illegal aliens in the fact that the Irish did not hate Americans for what they perceive as the genocide of their native American ancestors. The Irish had no bone to pick with the territorial claims of the United States of America as the separatist groups withing our current illegal alien population do.

Mr. Downes is too busy making false comparisons to distant history, trying to impugn the motivations of the 80+% of Americans that want illegal immigration stopped as bigots, and getting to know the inner most feelings and motivations of illegal aliens that need to return to their homes and the nations of which they are citizens.

William Gheen
President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC ALIPAC

Ahhhhh,... it's not about ***IMMIGRANTS*** it's about ***ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!***
We like Immigrants!
We DO NOT LIKE Illegal Aliens!
Your reading comprehension leaves a LOT to be desired!
Regards, Tom Porter

Because we all know every hispanic supports illegal immigration.

I believe a lot more hispanics are like Robert Vasqaez than the New York Times/Fishwrap wants to believe.

It comes as no surprise that the NYT would want to stop this bill. They are the most leftist leaning journalists with a major outlet. Fortunately, the NYT is shrinking. Losing subscribers and audiences.

This bill is modest. But even a modest bill has an uphill fight against the leftists.

I'm certain the citizens of GA will really appreciate the NYT telling them they should not pass this bill because they are in the South and once owned slaves.

W

That was a FANTASTIC response, W.
You pointed out everything truthfully, factually and clearly.

I hope Georgia comes through for US with SB 529 !!

COME ON GEORGIA !!

Stand up for what is RIGHT. Do it for U.S.

It's something of a leap to compare the Irish Immigration after the potato famine to today's tidal wave of illegals from Mexico. It's true the Irish immigrants did stoop labor but so did most people at that time. They were at least legal and they spoke English and they didn't overwhelm our welfare, healthcare and criminal justice systems (actually I can't be sure about the criminal justice system, they were pretty rowdy).
The main weapon the open border folks beat their opponents over the head with is guilt. Anyone who wants to protect our borders and wages is a xenophobic racist and an evolutionary rung below Alley Oop. They would have us think that Diversity is the best thing since sliced bread. There was an article in USA Today (don't worry I didn't pay for this rag for people with ADHD, they slide it under your door when you stay at La Quinta) about former white Suburbs in the sun belt becoming more diverse. The article was by Haya El Nasar (beat that for diversity) and he/she (I think Haya is one of those gender neutral names) seemed delighted at the prospect . Haya said and I quote "as a consequence white bread America is experiencing diversity first hand". Now why can't a remark like that be considered a racist slam? I guess my point is that not only are we being invaded we have our values ridiculed by people like Haya and the New York Times writer.

BTTT