This is so Mexifornia.

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Gomez talks immigration at university
David James Heiss, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/05/2008 09:04:11 PM PDT


REDLANDS - Since feudal times, people learned that it was their God-given right to rule over Earth and determine who gets to pass onto their land.
Not much seems to have changed when it comes to immigration, and Ed Gomez hopes young people can consider making a difference.

Gomez, a Redlands resident and chairman of the history department at San Bernardino Valley College, was the guest speaker at the annual Cummings Lecture on World Peace Thursday at the University of Redlands.

In his talk, "The Politics of Immigration," he challenged college students and others to question America's right to deny rights to human beings, specifically referring to people attempting to cross America's borders searching for a better life.

"Nobody has the right to own the Earth and deny access to others of the Earth," he declared in a fiery and passionate oration.

By allowing boundaries and borders to be drawn and establishing a mentality of "yours" and "ours," the practice "allows for abuse, exploitation and displacement of entire societies," including Native Americans, he said.

According to Gomez, the United States was established by immigrants (Pilgrims) who were looking for an opportunity to make money while escaping religious persecution.

"The English didn't come here to open golf courses," he said. "The English didn't come here to open Disneyland. They came here with the ideology to expand the opportunities they felt God had given them," which included signing treaties and conceiving the right to define what is "yours."

By the 1800s, Americans who had settled and established property feared the 26 million immigrants who came through Ellis Island and elsewhere would potentially take away everything they had worked hard for.

Americans, Gomez said, were afraid of immigrants stealing - stealing jobs, for instance, and so America developed a mentality of protecting itself.

"We continue to hearken outdated divisive ideologies despite being the most advanced, most educated society in the world," Gomez said.

He chastised the United States' construction of a wall along the Mexican border to prevent illegal immigrants "from crawling through mud and falling off cliffs in order to find food tomorrow."

Gomez pointed out how the United States benefits from world trade organizations that allow big companies like Wal-Mart to go unabated into poor countries such as Mexico, eliminating mom-and-pop family enterprises that existed for 100 years.

When those families become jobless and destitute, benefiting American business, the United States builds barriers to protect what it feels belongs above the border.

Gomez said he anticipates immigration will be a hot topic in the presidential election.

"I know most of the people I've met on this continent and other continents are good people," he said. "I just wonder when they'll reignite the ideologies they had as younger people and support them when they ask, `Why can't it be?"'

Associate professor of chemistry Barbara Murray questioned the likelihood of immigration being a big issue during the elections, because "it seems to have disappeared" from the political forum.

More than once Gomez insisted immigration will become a hot topic by November, because it is an issue tied to economics.

If he is wrong, Gomez promised again and again to treat everyone in the room to dinner.

Joyce Crawford of Redlands came to the lecture with a group of friends.

"He really made us think and worry," Crawford said.

"He is a very dynamic speaker," said Dwanna Runner of Redlands. "I enjoyed his historical perspective and how he brought it forward to present day. Being close to the Mexican border makes us all aware of the issue."

Stephanie Lassalle, a junior at the university's Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, is majoring in international peace and social justice.

"I was really engaged," she said. "He didn't just touch on modern times, he talked about historical perspectives and brought into light how, through our culture, we create oppression and exclusiveness."

By segregating populations, they become easy scapegoats for various issues, she said.

The Cummings Lecture on World Peace is designed to explore topics relating to peace and reconciliation on a national and global scale, and was inaugurated in 1990 through the estate of Oliver deWolf, a 1921 University of Redlands alumnus, and Edith M. Cummings.

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