From - Mon Sep 9 22:56:31 2002 Message-ID: <3D7C8D47.9CE8BFCE@earthops.net> Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 12:00:07 +0000 From: Tiny Human Ferret Organization: copyright 2002 all rights reserved -- non-UseNet transmission prohibited. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.38 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.tv.cartoon-network,rec.arts.animation,alt.animation.warner-bros,alt.politics.immigration Subject: Re: The Secret of Speedy... References: <3D74F77F.8A9F6FCC@earthops.net> <3D773EFA.A9E8185B@earthops.net> <3D77F640.BAAE9DA4@earthops.net> <3D79416D.1D285F74@earthops.net> <1nce9.382180$UU1.59756@sccrnsc03> <3D7B40E1.43A93A2D@earthops.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 65.205.1.226 X-Trace: vienna7.his.com 1031572808 65.205.1.226 (9 Sep 2002 08:00:08 -0400) Lines: 174 X-Authenticated-User: tjh22isp Path: vienna7.his.com Xref: vienna7.his.com alt.tv.cartoon-network:3546 rec.arts.animation:7995 alt.animation.warner-bros:1458 alt.politics.immigration:26180 Joe Bevilacqua wrote, top-posting in an effort to destroy the thread and silence debate, and so I relocated his remarks to the end of the message where they belong: > > Tiny Human Ferret wrote in message > > Possibly the majority of non-latinamerican immigrants -- legal or otherwise > > -- are fairly well-educated, and generally fairly intelligent... and they > > are usually very highly motivated to learn to speak the language, and given > > the opportunity, to advance themselves through education obtained here in > > the States. Such persons may develop themselves into, who knows, doctors or > > engineers, which professions aren't exactly understaffed locally, but more > > good minds are always welcome. > > > > I don't wish to imply that the latinamerican immigrants -- legal or illegal > > -- are stupid or anything, but many of them come from cultures of defeatism > > and fatalism; the attitude is that "life has dealt us a certain hand of > > cards, they're not very good card and I'm not a very good card player". > > Simply getting up the nerve to walk out of their homeland seems to be more > > of an act of desperation than one of intention to be "upwardly mobile". The > > history of latino immigrants to the US is not one characterized by success; > > even after as many as four generations, the highschool dropout rate is still > > one of the highest, the rate of college graduation is the lowest. While > > there are certainly some success stories, those success stories appear to be > > directly related to the degree with which these immigrants (and their > > citizen children) identify with and participate in latino culture. Simply > > stated, the culture promotes intellectual laziness and academic > > non-participation. > > > > Wow, I haven't seem racism and cultural stereotyping put so eloquently > since I read "MEIN KAMPF" in politial science class in college. You > could easily replace the "non-latinamerican" with Arian and > "latinamerican" with Jew. Strawman argument. This isn't about race. It's about culture. It's about a culture of futility. > Your point of view is disturbing, to say the > least. It is intended to be disturbing. > Hopefully, we will never get any leader in power who thinks > this way. > > Your entire supposition that non-latinamerican immigrants are fairly > well-educated, and generally fairly intelligent and latinamerican > immigrants are not is flawed. First of all, there are of doctors and > lawyers who come to the US from Latin American countries and than have > to work in unskilled labor to get by. The majority is not defined by the minority, as you appear to imply. To make "an argument from television" that you might understand, just because in "the Buffyverse" the vampire Angel has a soul, doesn't imply that most vampires aren't soulless bloodsuckers interested only in killing as many humans as they can. Fortunately for us, there are no vampires, just a lot of illegal immigrants, the majority of which have come from latinamerica and have little education beyond the 6th grade of Mexican public schools... and you're right, "they just want to work" and since a great many of them come from a Mexican province that was thrown into an ecological catastrophe by clear-cutting logging of one third of its timber by US companies in a five-year period, I cannot blame them for wanting work. I cannot even blame them for coming here, though I really wish they would come here legally. Still, these are not doctors and lawyers, for the most part. They are, simply stated, rural peasants from a province not exactly known for good schools or a high rate of academic achievement. Thus: only a small minority of latinamerican illegal-immigrants are professionals with advanced degrees. In fact, only a minority of illegal-immigrants who snuck across the border have high-school educations. We will leave the visa-overstayers for another thread of debate, as quite commonly many of those _do_ have academic credentials. > Second, your concept presupposes > that somehow being a doctor is better than being a fruit picker. This > is a kind of social prejudice, an elitism that mistakenly thinks that > the more educated you are, the better a person you are and the more > you contribute to society. Do you really believe that every immigrant > who comes here should have gone to college and have learned a > supposedly "higher" profession. I think that everyone should _try to at least finish highschool_. I also think that people should apply for entry, receive permission, and then immigrate. It's much more likely that an educated professional will do this, in my opinion, than it's likely that someone who cannot read well enough to fill out the forms would do this. Also: I am under no delusions to the effect that advanced education somehow confers saintliness; in fact, I am convinced rather to the contrary. However, advanced education does confer knowledge and skills which are, in many cases, in short supply. I wish to remind you that you might have 10,000 men standing by all ready to build a bridge across a chasm, but if you do not have a graduate engineer to design that bridge and get the plans to the ten-thousand, no bridge will be built that is safe for traffic. > I doubt you would put such a burden > upon the general population of US born citizens most of whom are just > average workers. If everyone in the US was a doctor, lawyer or one of > the college taught professions, who would do the physical labor? Eventually, robots. However, we are not there yet. You will note that possibly the majority of positions in US industry are positions in the trades, where, rather than completing a course of study in academia, an equivalent number of years are spent learning the trade. Even a plumber has to know some math and has to be able to read, the same may be said of almost any of the trades. Auto mechanics in the modern day have to be just about as well educated as any graduate engineer, if they wish to work on the modern computer-controlled motor vehicles. A high-school degree generally guarantees only a slightly higher rank as a laborer. And there are very many US-citizens out of work, who would be doing manual labor, if only those jobs weren't filled by illegal aliens, or high-school dropout children of illegal aliens. > > You are wrong that somehow this current influx of immigrants is any > different than those of the past. This country was founded on slave > labor, from the Africans brought here against their will in the 1600s, And what of my german ancestors, who arrive in Pennsylvania in complete destitution, indentured more-or-less as slaves to the English? We don't count? We saved our money, bought out our indentures, worked hard and built a nation and fought against slavery and exploitation, sent our kids to as much school as they could handle and we could afford, and much of the US is the work of _our_ hands, not the hands of slaves or foreigners. _we don't mind hard work, but as we work hard, we're thinking of ways to make that work easier or more productive_. And, more importantly, we go far out of our way to make sure that we have or can get the tools -- including the intellectual and educational tools -- so not only get by, but to advance ourselves and our posterity. Anyone who does this is destined to success, if not greatness. Yet, I advise you -- take a look at the readily available and government-supplied statistics on the latino dropout rate. Note, if you will, that recently some latino organizations have been trying rather desperately to develop programs whereby degreed latino professionals would circulate in the schools and communities, trying to convince the kids to stay in school. There was some appallingly high figure circulated _by these latino groups_ that one of the reasons only about 50 percent of US-born latinos graduate HS, was because only about one in eight US-born latinos had any close relative who had even gone to college. > 1700s and 1800s through the sweatshops filled with foreign speaking > immigrants, many of whom were young children, in the early 1900s to > the Mexican day laborers of today. It is an economic crutch the US has In maybe the last 25 years, it has been a crutch only to crooked CEOs, any savings are not passed on to the public in terms of lower costs. They get paid more, the citizens lose jobs. > always had which has helped make it a superpower both to the > improvement and detriment of its citizens. It's bad but no worse than > at any other point in US history. > > Finally, I'd like to ask that if all you have to contribute to this > thread (which was originally about ANIMATED CARTOONS!) Actually, it was about whether or not Speedy Gonzales the cartoon mouse was culturally offensive to latinos, and whether or not this offense was based in reasonable outrage, or whether the stereotypes depicted in those cartoons were based in reality rather than in jingoism. > is more reasons > why we should fear "latinamerican immigrants"... that you stop > crossposting it to alt.tv.cartoon-network,rec.arts.animation,alt.animation.warner-bros. Sure. Just don't post bogus arguments and I won't shoot 'em down. -- Be kind to your neighbors, even though they be transgenic chimerae. Whom thou'st vex'd waxeth wroth: Meow. <-----> http://earthops.net/klaatu/