Thread: Melting Pot

Originally Posted by patriotman

Watchman:

Is that picture of your yards landscaping or something you just picked up on the net?

Curious,

Patriotman

'tis mine

When people are talking about "American culture," they ought to know what they're talking about. It's more than pizza and MTV . . .

Also, most of you folks proved the point of my column. If you hate Mexicans and believe they're anti-American and will ruin civilization that's fine . . . just be honest about it. When folks couch their opinions in talk about the economy and terrorism and all that, it's insulting to everyone in the conversation. If folks just said what they were thinking we'd all be better off.

Finally, someone earlier misunderstood the rule on construction workers. Work-based immigration is prohibited for construction laborers, so those jobs are being "protected" for American workers. The problem is the folks who do the hiring. Mosts builders don't want to hire Americans; the want cheap, quiet labor -- so they hire illegal immigrants.

Emanuel Anthony Martinez

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www.newspapertree.com

An Open Letter to Samuel P. Huntington
By Emanuel Anthony MartÃÂ*nez


Dear Mr. Huntington,

As you are likely aware, expertise is a quality granted an author by its audience for his or her wisdom -- not a quality exacted through the force of status by any individual. In this regard, despite your credentials, you are no expert when it comes to Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, nor the United States.

Your recent article, "The Hispanic Challenge," published in the March/April 2004 issue of Foreign Policy, isolates Mexicans and Mexican-Americans as the "single most immediate and most serious challenge to America's traditional identity." With all the accuracy of any "sticky bomb" -- thrown containing every possible issue to see what sticks -- you cite immigration, the Spanish language, historical difference, education, marriage, and nearly every facet of Mexican and Mexican-America life to argue, ultimately, that my home, my family, and my friends pose some menace to America.

I respectfully and fiercely disagree.

Located on the United States-México border -- across the river from Ciudad Juárez -- El Paso is my home; one that neatly fits the profile of your un-American community. El Paso is 78.2 percent Hispanic according to the 2000 US Census. Twenty-seven percent of the population is foreign born and 92.9 percent of that population comes from Latin America. Only 26.7 percent of El Pasoans are English-only speakers; and 71.2 percent of the population speaks Spanish as a first or second language.

Pero, el problema no esta en la realidad que usted ve . El problema esta en la manera en que usted ve la realidad -- que no comprende quienes somos los Mexicanos y los Mexicanos-Americanos ni entiende los principales fundamentales de los Estados Unidos.

While you purport to defend American institutions, our culture, and our law, you in fact undermine it with your true question, one obsessed with the assimilation of Hispanics into what is your perception of United States culture: "Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture?"

Mr Huntington, if your real concern is the strength of our country, you must acknowledge that the genuine threat to the United States is posed by those like you who do not understand nor value our most basic foundations. Conspicuously, in haste toward your pursuit of a question of language and culture, you have nearly dismissed our most important institutions -- the rule of law, civil liberties, and market capitalism -- as the "glue" that keeps our nation together; and none of these are the sole proprietary interest of Angles nor Protestants.

You should know this.

Our concept of rule of law, a fundamental principle to the western democratic order, has its origins in the philosophy of two Greek thinkers, Plato and Aristotle -- both non-English speakers and non-Protestants.

As Lord Chief Justice Coke quoted Bracton in 1610 -- "The King himself ought not to be subject to a man, but subject to God and the law, because the law makes him King" -- he reverberated the words of Aristotle recorded two thousand years before:

The rule of law is better than that of any individual.

Ironically, Bracton may have never recorded those words and Coke may have never uttered them had Greek and Arabic texts containing Aristotelian thought not been rediscovered and translated in Spain in the 13th century. One translator in particular, Michael Scotus -- a Scotsman not an Angle -- translated a number of important Aristotelian commentaries from Averroes of Córdoba, Spain; and the great Aristotelian thinkers of the period included Thomas Aquinas of Italy, Albert the Great of the southern German province of Swabia, Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon of Córdoba, and John Duns Scotus of Scotland [from whom we get the word dunce] -- only Duns Scotus having benefited from an English, though non-Protestant, education.

If there were ever an "Hispanic Challenge," as you call it, it occurred when Europe first encountered Aristotelian reasoning via Spain. The reaction to which was denial, even outrage. In 1210, the Council of Paris prohibited the reading of Aristotle's books on natural philosophy as well as all commentaries on them; and in 1215 the ban on reading Aristotle expanded to the Metaphysics.

In Europe, modern thought was met with no warm welcome at its threshold.

[As a minor note, Mr Huntington, every time you scribble a Western number -- "1, 2, 3, 4" -- you are the beneficiary of yet another development of Spain and the Maghred; in this case, West Arabic numerals and the decimal system.]

Yet reason and the rule of law alone have not made the United States the nation it is today. In the absence of civil liberties, nations with a rule of law have regressed into totalitarian regimes not representative democracies. Indeed, it is these civil liberties -- as an extension of human rights -- we speak of when we refer to "freedom" in our nation.

The father of positive human rights is not an Angle, unfortunately Mr Huntington, but the Geneva-born French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Writing in French not English, he presented the world with the idea that there are rights to which every person is entitled and for which every state is obligated. And though born a Protestant, Rousseau converted to Catholicism at a young age around 1728, before reconverting back to Protestantism in 1754, so that he could regain his Geneva citizenship.

How can this ambivalent Catholic serve your claim to the Protestant foundation of American cultural values?

Perhaps your sole consideration was John Locke, an Anglo Protestant who also contributed important notions regarding private property, government with the consent of the governed, and the natural rights of man -- but still, he was preceded by a few decades by Polish brethren, Samuel Przypkowski on "tolerance," and by Andrzej Wiszowaty on "rational religion."

The third pillar buttressing our nation is our system of market capitalism. Economic thought can be tracked back through Thomas Aquinas all the way to Aristotle; however a more systemic approach to economics did not begin to develop until the mid 18th century when the French Physiocrats -- who called themselves économistes -- developed an agricultural economic theory.

But, as you know, Adam Smith -- a Scotsman from Kirkcaldy, Fife -- is considered the father of modern economics; and his Wealth of Nations was indeed written in English.

Perhaps your argument is strongest on this final count, but Mr Huntington, my aim is not to argue that we owe nothing to the contributions of Angles and Protestants in the creation of our nation. Rather the argument is that your version of America as the reflection of an exclusively English-language, Anglo, and Protestant tradition is at best, limited, and at worst, a gross misrepresentation.

The strength of the United States in history is that we have embraced universal humanistic ideas, developed through many centuries by various peoples in various languages; and that we Americans have embraced principles of law, rights, and economy above the medieval importance placed on difference of religion, language, and ethnic origin in forging a nation.

Yet, based on the arguments in your article, you remain unconvinced, Mr Huntington. Even if American culture could be defined by the three basic institutions I have discussed above, you argue that Hispanics are somehow different and incompatible with it. You write:

The extent and nature of this immigration differ fundamentally from those of previous immigration, and the assimilation successes of the past are unlikely to be duplicated with the contemporary flood of immigrants from Latin America.

But who are these Hispanics? ¿Quienes somos nosotros los Hispanos?

Contrary to your characterization of Hispanics as insular and culturally rigid, our story is among the most cosmopolitan in the world. Beginning in the ancient world and continuing into modernity, Hispanics are perhaps the most heterogeneous, multi-linguistic, multi-national groups to be arbitrarily categorized by the US Census.

As early as 1,100 BC, Phoenician merchants began founding trading colonies on the Iberian peninsula, such as Gadir, modern-day Cádiz. Around the 9th century BC, Celtic tribes -- members of the same Celtic culture inhabiting Scotland and Ireland -- began settling Iberia; and as Western civilization continued to develop, the Greeks also built their first Spanish colonies, such as Emporion, along the Mediterranean coast.

In 237 BC, after the first Punic War between Rome and Carthage, the Carthaginians strengthened their bases in Spain by founding the cities of Carthago Nova -- modern Cartagena -- and Barcelona; and after two centuries of warfare with the Celts and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician and Greek colonies, the Romans ultimately claimed victory and annexed Spain around 25 BC.

Shortly thereafter, in 70 AD, another important group to the identity of Spain arrived -- Jewish refugees fleeing Roman persecution in Judea.

As you are likely aware, Mr Huntington, it was during this time that Roman Iberia came to speak Latin, giving rise to the modern Portuguese, Galician, Castilian, and Catalan languages. In addition, in the mid to late first century after Christ, a large numbers of senators to Rome came from Spain; as well the Roman Emperor Trajan, a distinguished soldier who became one of Rome's most beloved monarchs.

It is not difficult to imagine, then, that as England turned her head over her shoulder on a quest for a cultural and scientific renaissance in the 16th century, that when she looked to Rome she also looked to Hispania.

As the Roman empire began to decline in the 5th century, yet another mass migration occurred in Spain -- this time the Suebi, Alans, and Vandals each took a part of Hispania. The Suebi, a Germanic tribe originally from the Baltic Sea region, established a territory making up the northwestern part of the Iberian peninsula in 409, under King Hermeric. The Alans, a nomadic Russian people speaking an Indo-Iranian language, also arrived in the same period with the Suebi and Vandals.

The Vandals, an East Germanic tribe, began moving westward from Eastern Europe in 400 or 401 under King Godigisel, along with the Alans and Suebi. Under Godigisel's son Gunderic, the Vandals advanced across the Pyrenees into Spain in October 409. Eventually, they received land from the Romans in Galicia and Andalusia. Andalusia owes its name to the Vandals.

It is important to note that meanwhile in the 5th century, another Germanic tribe -- descended from Yngvi -- began their migration from the northernmost part of Germany to modern-day Britain. The Angles made their journey along with the Frisians, Jutes, and Saxons -- the last from which the Old English language is derived. Already, Mr Huntington, we find ourselves not so distant, but rather associated by common Germanic heritage; and to add to this association, yet another Germanic invasion altered the course of Spanish history -- this time in the 6th century.

Soon after the Vandals established their Spanish kingdom, the Germanic chieftain Wallia led a powerful Visigoth invasion of Spain. By 573, the Visigoths -- a branch of Goths originating in Sweden -- had driven the Vandals and Alans into Africa; and in 584, Visigothic King Leovigild conquered the Suebi kingdom, finally handing the Visigoths the entire peninsula. These Visigothic conquerors would later become the chiefs and barons of Spain; and the province of Catalonia, once called Gatalonia, still bears their name -- Country of the Goths.

Still, the cultural fabric of Spain had not been half woven. Visigothic domination of Spain found itself challenged less than 150 years later; and in 711, Visigothic King Roderic -- also called Rodrigo -- lost his life fighting an invasion of the Umayyad Muslims, otherwise known as the Moors. Al-Andalus, Muslim Spain, was born; and the last Christian Visigothic kingdoms held on in the north with Aragon, Castile, Galicia, León, Murcia, and Navarre.

Yet, the Visigothic kingdoms could not concede their loss for long. Under King Pelayo the Visigoths defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Covadonga in 722, beginning the Christian reconquest of Iberia. This reconquest is called La Reconquista, a term unfortunately misappropriated by a few early Chicano writers and equally misappropriated by you in your article.

After almost 800 years of battle, the Christian Visigothic kingdoms finally claimed victory, when Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand de Aragon expelled the Moors from Granada in 1492. Certainly you recognize the year, Mr Huntington. It is the same year Christopher Columbus arrived at Cuba, under the flag of Spanish Castile -- where he was greeted by the indigenous TaÃÂ*no, Siboney, and Guanajatabey tribes of that island.

Without detailing the influence upon Hispanic culture of the Native American languages and customs of the Nahuas of Central Mexico, the Zapotecs of Oaxaca [Mexican President Benito Juárez was Zapotec], the Tarahumaras of Chihuahua, the Mayos and Yaquis of Sonora and Sinaloa, the Huicholes of Nayarit, the Tarascos of Michoacán, the Tzeltales of Chiapas, the Totonacos of Veracruz, and the Mayans of the Yucatán peninsula -- to name but a few -- it is safe to assert that that the impact has been profound.

I would be remiss at this point to omit that, according to the World Bank, there continue to live in Latin America approximately 40 million indigenous people -- none of whom are Hispanic; and there continues to be spoken approximately 400 different indigenous languages, with every country having between 7 and 200. Uruguay is the only country in the continent that is Spanish-monolingual.

Furthermore, if our discussion were economic as well as cultural, I would argue that a significant portion of contemporary immigration to the United States from Latin America is not quite Hispanic as it is culturally Native American -- and the result of extreme poverty in indigenous communities. In Mexico, for example, the World Bank found in 1994 that communities with a less than 10 percent indigenous population had a poverty rate of 18 percent; and communities with a more than 70 percent indigenous population had a poverty rate of over 80 percent.

However, this discussion is cultural not economic; and you have argued that Hispanic culture, not Native American culture, is incompatible with the Anglo-Protestant values of the United States.

I hope you understand now, Mr Huntington, that by the time it reaches Latin America and the United States in the 21st century, the term Hispanic has almost no meaning. It is an empty word. It is a generic word. It unsuccessfully attempts to categorize human beings who are as diverse culturally and linguistically as the world is diverse. Therefore, the blanket assertion that Hispanics are so culturally alien to American values loses all credibility absent any meaningful terminology.

If specificity would give the word meaning in future discussion, Mr Huntington, then I would ask for you to consider Mexican Secretary of the Interior Santiago Creel Miranda, the great grandson of Ruben W. Creel, an American Consul from Greensburg, Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Secretary Creel is the Mexican official currently working with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in securing the Americas from international terrorism.

As you continue to define the word Hispanic, you may also wish to consider Juan Carlos Romero Hicks, the Governor of Guanajuato. Governor Romero Hicks, a graduate of Southern Oregon State College, is the son of Joan Hicks, a New Jersey native. He is also married to Frances Siekman de Romero of Appleton, Wisconsin. His brother, José Luis Romero Hicks, is the Chief Executive Officer of Bancomext, the development bank of the Mexican government.

In art, you might consider Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish immigrant; or perhaps Mexican actress Selma Hayek and Columbian singer Shakira, both of Lebanese descent.

And, of course, you must remember Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada, the grandson of an Irish immigrant from the United States. In remarks at the University of Toledo in 2001, President Bush had this to say about Fox:

We've got something in common, by the way, that you probably haven't thought about. President Fox's grandfather was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. My grandfather was raised in Columbus, Ohio. I guess you could kind of say we're Ohioans. Except it's kind of hard to tell by our accents.

As I contemplate my own heritage -- French, Arabic, Spanish, Mexican, Native American, Southern Baptist -- and as I contemplate the impending birth of my Mexican, Polish, Jewish, Baptist, Russian, French, Arabic, Spanish, and Native American son -- I find almost nothing about it extraordinary in history. Certainly I find my son extraordinary as a father, but never in terms of checking a "mixed race" box on some government form or in terms of being Hispanic or White or whatever label social scientists and bureaucrats have created for their own benefit.

Earlier, when describing El Paso in US Census figures, I excluded one important statistic -- El Paso is also 73.9 percent White.

Go figure.

The upshot, and your concern Mr Huntington, is that Hispanics are in fact hardly different from any other immigrant group in the United States. Your arguments regarding intermarriage are bogus. Your assimilation model is an overly simplistic binary fabrication invented to convice your readers of a reality, not to describe one. Many Hispanics not only share a common lineage with US citizens of almost every ethnic origin, including Anglo, but embrace the institutions that have made our nation great: the rule of law, civil liberties, and market capitalism.

Las palabras "libertad," "independencia," y "oportunidades" significan igual en Español y en Inglés. Es por esto que todos, inclusive usted, somos herederos de una grande y gloriosa nación.

Should we lose sight of this, therein lies the danger.

In our nation's history, perhaps the greatest test of these ideals came with the Civil War, when learned men such as yourself concerned themselves with how the freed slave population would alter our nation. While some men argued an inherent incompatibility between African-American culture and Anglo culture -- passing Jim Crowe laws and promoting segregation policies as a result -- others found guidance and deeper meaning in the vision of our founding fathers. In the words of President James A. Garfield in his 1881 inaugural address:

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government.

Still, you conclude your article with these thoughts:

There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.

But if that dream truly is an American dream, Mr Huntington, then it is an impossibility that your final sentence could logically follow. If we are a country of laws, liberties, and a free market, then the dream remains the same dream in any language we might choose.

Mr Huntington, the most fundamental element of any democratic system is choice. While your personal belief may remain that Americans choose poorly when they speak Spanish, eat salsa with their hamburgers, and attend a Catholic mass -- it is an abuse of your station and of your institution to argue those choices undermine American life.

Quite contrary to your position, those choices are an exercise in democracy and capitalism, the absence of which would be most undemocratic.

In conclusion, Mr Huntington, you are most undemocratic.

Sincerely,

Emanuel Anthony MartÃÂ*nez
El Paso, Texas

Oh Boy......I'm tired. That just wears me out. So, rather than confront the Bloody B******s in your own country, if it can be called that, you would instead risk your life crossing some desert at the hands of scumbag coyotes and other maggotry? I'm sorry William. Yeah, it is easier to take off, make some money, help ruin someone elses' deal and then return to build paradise.

IN WHAT?

A place you left, because your leaders are so worthless, you cannot provide a decent life for your family?

Anyone acquainted with the History of Mexico can attest to the fact that Nationalizing what others have built is a common means of taking through nationalism what was someone elses. It is a bad habit, born of conquistador mentality, I don't blame the Indians, that are discriminated against horribly, by the Castillians(white Spainards if anyone would call me racist, I be white as a sheet). Geeze!

I can only implore the person who worked in Chicago to read his own history. Unless he deigns to join the class of exploiters down there, his own palace, for his family, made off of our economy, will be forfeit when those pirates decide they "need" what he has.

Once again, sorry William, censure me, if necessary. naturalglenn

If suburban white kids in American would stop doing cocaine and smoking pot, then the drug dealers in Mexico would lose their influence and real legal reform could happen there. Y'all have good intentions, but you conservatives are pretty darn dumb and stupid. Instead of shooting and asking questions later, how about helping find a solution everyone wants? How about a solution any good Christian would pray for? Yeah, Mexico is corrupt . . . and but where do you think the banks are that launder the money? America. Heck, the biggest private bank in Mexico is Citibank -- the owner of Banamex. You think you're so innocent? You're not.

Welcome Emanuel. Small world. Little did I know my little post would actually find it's way to the original author.

I had to look up Samuel P. Huntington to see just what he said. I found quite a few links to him. Amazingly enough I'm afraid a Harvard professor is going to take as much ribbing here as a lawyer in training. Here's a link for anyone interested. http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html

On the subject of multiculturalism I'm afraid I'm going to have to go along with the professor. As a Viking descendent I greatly appreciate the contributions other cultures have made, but of course we mostly got those by assimilation (ie, rape, pillage, destroy, replace) and seldom my mutual cooperation.

America has been the land of great experimentation. A land of immigrants more so than any other in the "new world". But a land where there were so many different immigrants that in order to find common cause with others they "melted" together. Or from another perspective they were assimilated into something mostly uniquely American. Where everyone was an individual. And then everybody “discovered� their history and half the nation became “something something� – American. I guess my liberal god-less pro-choice American self sees us not uniting anymore but dividing into tribes. And the only thing I can discover in common about most tribes in the world is that is that they all think their tribe is the best, that everyone else should belong to it, or if not then the other tribe is better off dead. Classic assimilation.

So here we are now in the time where the pace of immigration (legal and otherwise) has overwhelmed the pace of assimilation. And now the “immigrants� mostly come from one tribe. Am I racist? I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want to be assimilated by the Borg either. I don’t want my town turning into El Paso. (your quote didn’t say what percentage didn’t speak English at all) I don’t want to live in the same town all my life and have to learn a 2nd language when I’m in my 50s in order to buy my groceries. I don’t want to ‘have to� raise my german, danish, native americankid to speak Spanish so that he can get a job in his home town. (I’d like him to learn another language but I don’t like being forced to in order to survive)

Does that sound selfish? After all I do expect people who move here to learn English. But a very important point needs to be made. I’M NOT THE ONE CHOOSING TO MOVE. If I and my millions of neighbors are forced to adapt instead of the other way around then we have not only been INVADED, we have been OVERTHROWN and it matters not one iota what color of skin the invader was born with.

Who is to blame for illegal immigration? Oh I agree with you there. The employers in this country and their government pansies have accepted and embraced an “if you build it they will come� philosophy. “The illegals are “necessary� to our economy because they do jobs no one else will.� Isn’t that the same reasoning plantation owners gave as the economic necessity for holding slaves?

Crooks abound in this nation. You talk about that one of the things that is great about our nation is the commonality of the “rule of law�. The only commonality between the employers and the employees is that “rules are made to be broken�. Break one law, hire an illegal. Break one law, cross the border illegally. Both offenses are felonies under the law. Just because the employer is wrong does not make the employee right. It’s time to uphold the letter of the law and remember that justice is blind, it does not take sides.

See Emanuel, I’ve read both your pieces now and I still see you as a supporter of legal, not illegal immigration. You are the type of person that I’ve talked about to others here that view things from a different perspective. Not that you aren’t concerned about our open borders but that different things about them concern you. I see you as a person who would be 100% behind prosecuting employers for example. I think you would even be for tightening security and making the border a real border. I’m pretty sure you’d like to see green card rules and other migrant issues broadened to decrease illegality and this last point might be my only issue with you. Mostly just because we’d disagree on the numbers.

Hmmmm, I’ve read back over what I’ve written and it seems like I probably will fit your profile of “hate Mexicans and believe they're anti-American and will ruin civilization� but I’ll simply remind you that I’m discussing the multiculturism aspect you raised by quoting Samuel P. Huntington. I’ll let you tell me where in the world tribes seem to be coexisting peacefully.

Anyway love to knock heads with you more especially if you’d like to discuss how the middle class is being squeezed by the combination of good paying jobs becoming low income jobs and high paying jobs being outsourced overseas. Or how the right-to-work folks got us into this low paying mess in the first place by chasing off all the unions. Or how free trade is turning us all into 3rd world citizens. Or how I don’t understand how security moms would vote for Bush when all he’s doing is thumbing his nose at every terrorist in the world and at the same time saying, here’s the door we’ll let you walk on in.

Oh please. My ancestors were not immigrants, they were settlers. The built a civilization where there was none. They pushed into the wilderness, fought the Indians, cleared the land, broke open the land, irrigated it, and cultivated it. They gained what they acquired from the sweat of their brow as they fashioned what was once only a vision into a reality. The immigrants that came rode on their coattails. They assimilated into the civilizations the settlers had made. And those civilizations were paid for in sweat, blood, and years of toil.

So get this through your head. This is not nation of immigrants, it is a nation formed by settlers. If my ancestors were immigrants they would have immigrated into the native American or south western American culture and you would be living in a cliff dwelling, a tepee, or an adobe hut and defecating in a hole in the ground.

And nation of immigrants, that is just liberal propaganda fed to a gullible public.

Patriotman

You have an interesting point there Patriotman.

W

Dang, of my ancestors that kept records they only came over in the 1840s. I guess that makes me of those coattail riding immigrants that only had the American west left to "conquer". Of course my spouse comes from one of those non-civilized people that got settled out of Florida into Oklahoma via some sort of sad trail. Of course they had opened their borders in friendship to the invaders, must be a history lesson in there somewhere.

The scots side of my family were traced here as far back as the 1600's ...the Cherokee side can't be traced to its roots...So, I'm not a coattail rider...ahem...

RR

Some of my family came here in the 1600s and some of my family was already here. And some of them cannot be traced. Must be criminals or something. Most notable was Sylvester Pattie who was the first American to die on Mexican soil. He's significant because he was allowed to die April 24, 1828 in a San Diego prison because he violated their border seeking food and water. He was buried unceremoniously outside the Presidio there. I know this because he was my 2nd cousin (5 times removed) and the story is well documented. In 1847, the Mexican government went to a great deal of trouble to conceal this fact, fearing American reprisal. The US named a ship after him. Liberty Ship No. 1914, named Sylvester Pattie, was launched November 23, 1943, less than one month after her keel was laid October 26, 1943. Her Naval Armed Guard crew earned "Battle Stars" during the Battle Of Leyte, November 28 - December 16, 1944. She survived the war. For history buffs, the whole story may be seen at: Sylvester Pattie.

And you guessed it, none of this has anything at all to do with 2005 and the problem with Mexico. Touchy-feely, soft & fuzzy, be-nice-to-illegal-aliens is a nice thought but we can't afford it in both the literal and figurative senses. Edited link.