Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>]

We are 12 hours from the border.  We have a LARGE illegal community in the 
north state.  The vast majority of the illegals up here are Mexican.  And 
the majority of those are criminals, drug runners and gang members or gang 
recruiters.  On the coast and the closer to SF you'll get lots of illegal 
Chinese, etc.  Same in Seattle.  Port cities see large illegal Asian 
populations.

The attitude of a large % of the legal immigrants is not the same as those 
that came through Ellis Island.  There is no drive to become part of 
America.  There are demands that things be done the way they were done where 
they come from.  The illegal fishing and over fishing is a major problem. 
They get hauled in, they shrug and do the whole "no English" routine. 
Demand a translator and then say "I didn't know."  They get a slap on the 
wrist and 6 months later they are infront of a judge again.

The whole PC crowd is out there screaming that the poor immigrants are being 
discriminated against.  That it takes time to learn a new culture, blah, 
blah, blah.

When I lived in Mexico, I made it a point to learn the rules/traditions and 
act accordingly.  What the hell happened to "when in Rome"?

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Yes, it means I'm using reason and logic instead of being lost in a PC 
> fog.
> For instance I generalize that in the Hispanic community (around here, but
> I'd not expect it to be much different elsewhere), the odds are very
> overwhelming that any individual I encounter speaks Spanish.  Here among a
> perponderance of red haired, light skinned, blue and green eyed Celtic 
> descendents,
> when I meet someone dark skinned and black eyed named Ramirez, I ASSUME
> they probably speak Spanish.
>
> Turns out I'm right about 100% of the time.
>
> Likewise that person is likely Catholic.  However unfair an assumption  it
> might seem to anyone in a PC fog, most, by far most, of the Hispanic
> population is Catholic.
>
> Further, because this is a person of a Hispanic culture, I ASSUME that if
> the first thing said is not "Good Day" or "Good Afternoon" or the 
> equivalent,
> it conveys a message of unfriendliness or irritation (while in the
> pervailing anglo culture it does not).  So I am careful not to ommit it.
>
> Sure there are probably Hispanics right here who do not speak Spanish, are
> not Cahtolic, and would never notice if the obligitory greeting were
> dispensed with.  But they would be the rare exception.
>
> The devoted PCist wants us to view every individual as if they had just
> risen out of the sea on the half-shell like Botticelli's Venus.   Real 
> people
> are not like that.  They come with language, religion, and culture.  What
> passes for a resistence of stereotyping and "generalization"  is really an
> attitude that the other person's culture does not matter .... or even that 
> it
> does not exist.  That itself is the ultimate generalization.
>
> Yes, I generalize.  It's because life and existence are made up of 
> patterns
> and commonalities.  As much as we might want to pretend that it isn't so
> and lose ourselves in a comfortable PC fog, it is none the less reality. 
> I
> generalize because I am not an idiot and I want to both get along with the
> wider world and enjoy its verities and varieties to the fullest.</HTML>