Thread: Navarrete's latest whine, Iowa rules immigration debate

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... SU7JQ3.DTL

Iowa rules immigration debate
Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

What's the matter with Iowa?

Maybe I'm experiencing a little geographic jealously. When I moved to California, I assumed that San Diego - as a border town - would be ground zero in the immigration debate. So when did Sioux City, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids cut in line?

If Iowa is, in fact, the new center of the immigration debate, what sense does that make? If you've been paying attention, you know that despite the lip service given to border security and fighting terrorism, much of the debate is driven by demographics and the concern that the United States is becoming too Latino. In some parts of the country, such anxiety might make sense. But who would have imagined you'd find traces of it in a region that is still overwhelmingly Anglo?

According to the 2000 Census, Iowa is about 94 percent white, 3 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black and 1 percent Asian.

That is not exactly a majority-minority state in the offing. And yet, we're told the outcome of the Iowa caucuses - especially on the Republican side - could come down to the candidates' views on immigration.

For that, you can blame those Iowa voters who, from the sound of it, can't find anything else to talk about at town hall meetings throughout the Hawkeye State.

That's fine. Folks in that red state can talk about immigration until they're blue in the face. But they should at least have the decency to talk about it honestly.

Instead, some of them give the impression that Mexican immigrants are launching a full-scale invasion of Iowa, soaking up public benefits, subverting the culture and undermining the English language. They never acknowledge that immigrants are making their way to the heartland because someone there is offering them jobs, profiting from their labor and pumping tax dollars into the local economy to the benefit of everyone - even the complainers.

Someone needs to tell that to the retiree who grilled Fred Thompson at a gathering at the Music Man Square museum in Mason City. Concerned that Mexicans were plotting to retake the Southwest and insisting that illegal immigrants were a burden to taxpayers, the woman finally quit beating around the bush and got around to what really bothered her.

Surprise: It's the changing culture, and specifically how - even in Iowa - the Spanish language pops up at the most inopportune moments. In what was obviously a gross exaggeration, the questioner claimed that, when Iowans call the power company, "everything is in Spanish" and that she finds it all "sickening."

You want sickening? Consider Thompson's lily-livered response. "You are so, so right," he told the retiree. He even suggested that English be the national language. Instead of providing leadership by telling the woman to knock off the nativist lingo and acknowledge that illegal immigration is a self-inflicted wound, Thompson opted to pander. Just like everyone else.

Doesn't any of this immigration narrative sound familiar to native Iowans? It should. Nearly 100 years ago, another ethnic group found itself on the cultural skillet in that state. Its members had last names such as "Schultz" or "Braun" or "Kalb."

As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dale Maharidge points out in his insightful book, "Denison, Iowa," the first German immigrants arrived in Iowa shortly after it became a state in 1846. For several decades, they built "Germantowns," created German schools and churches, and founded German brotherhood associations. And, about this, no one seemed to mind much.

But then the United States entered World War I in 1917. And an anti-German crusade began. It may have been cloaked in concerns over the war, but it quickly focused on the German language, German newspapers and German culture.

In Denison, which is now a town of about 8,000 people, German Americans were beaten and piles of German books were set afire. English-only laws were passed.

Critics will reject the comparison and point out the obvious: that many of the Latino immigrants now streaming into Iowa are coming illegally and that the Germans came legally.

That's true. German immigrants who helped settle Iowa in the late 1800s did come legally. There was no way to come illegally until the 1920s. And yet it made little difference. They were still mistreated. That's because the issue was never legality. It was the same thing that fuels the discussion today: fear of change.

It all makes for an ugly chapter in history that Iowans would be wise not to repeat.


Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

It's politics, stupid

This is historically inaccurate. The Germans in this country decided to give up their culture because most of them came here to get away from being cannon fodder in Europe's wars. The Germans wanted a New Constitution and a New Life. The Germans did not want their children to speak German and refused to teach it because of the messages being spread in German, especially in the 1930's.
The Germans wanted to become Americans, leaving the "old country" behind. Most of them were well educated, brought skills and wealth to this country and embraced America and American values.
Navarette should not use history of which he is ignorant and ethnic groups he does not know or understand to embellish his biased, irrational and racially motivated spiels.
Navarrette distorts facts to promote a racial/ethnic agenda

Originally Posted by xyz

This is historically inaccurate. The Germans in this country decided to give up their culture because most of them came here to get away from being cannon fodder in Europe's wars. The Germans wanted a New Constitution and a New Life. The Germans did not want their children to speak German and refused to teach it because of the messages being spread in German, especially in the 1930's.
The Germans wanted to become Americans, leaving the "old country" behind. Most of them were well educated, brought skills and wealth to this country and embraced America and American values.
Navarette shuold not use history of which he is ignorant and ethnic groups he does not know or understand to embellish his biased, irrational and racially motivated spiels.

Same was true of the Italian, Polish and South American immigrants.

In some parts of the country, such anxiety (concern that the United States is becoming too Latino) might make sense.

But evidently Iowans don't have that right, he goes on to write with what seems to be righteous anger.

the woman finally quit beating around the bush and got around to what really bothered her.
Surprise: It's the changing culture, and specifically how - even in Iowa - the Spanish language pops up at the most inopportune moments.

You know this article bothered me and I was in the middle of making a long post of complaint until I realized the stupidity of the writer.

"According to the 2000 Census, Iowa is about 94 percent white, 3 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black and 1 percent Asian."

He supported his position using a 2000 census? What an idiot. How many illegals have crossed the border into the U.S. since 2000?

Pandy:
Re:

You know this article bothered me and I was in the middle of making a long post of complaint until I realized the stupidity of the writer.

It is Ruben Navarrette ...consider the source!
He's a hopeless and unapologetic sympathizer with IAs. That isn't likely to change any time soon.

bordersoldier:

Re:

He supported his position using a 2000 census? What an idiot. How many illegals have crossed the border into the U.S. since 2000?

What, you mean, facts? What are those?

Of course, here in my state, the total Illegal population has roughly doubled. So, yes, if a person is interested in facts and details (as Navarrette claims to be), then this small detail should not escape scrutiny.
Good point.

Well Navarrette - Since your beloved illegal invaders spread like rabbits, Iowans are probably being somewhat proactive in stopping the invasion before it reaches Iowa. Perhaps they have seen the devastation caused along the border states by illegal invaders, anchor babies and the crime and filth that seems to follow the illegals everywhere they go. Maybe they do not want to see Iowa end up like California, Ariziona and Texas.

There's your honesty Navarrette....

Being an Iowan, let me give you the scoop on this. We are a pretty tolerant lot around her. We are aware of what goes on in the rest of the world and usually it is live and let live for us. However, the decisions made in the "big cities" have intruded into our lives. We do not have jobs here to spare. Our pay rate is already lower than the rest of the country so when the illegals work for less our people go hungry and lose their homes right away.

As I pointed out to Mathews and Russert via email, we are aware of what goes on in LA and NYC. We just don't buy their bull. Too many opportunities to step in that crap around here not to be able to recognize it. Invited them both to farm country to get experience in recognizing bull crap so they don't immerse themselves in it quite so often. Personally I think it is too late, for both of them.

Originally Posted by LawEnforcer

much of the debate is driven by demographics and the concern that the United States is becoming too Latino.

Not too "Latino" but too Latin American culture wise. Of course to Ruben there is no difference between the two, to us there is a big difference. There are plenty of patriotic Latino Americans we have no problem with. The problem is with the unassimilated criminal Latin American "Latinos".