I returned to your country as an adult in ’99 when I was offered a job for an internet company in Augusta, Ga. I got to know a whole new country, different than the one I’d left behind as a teen. I guess it’s both because of the difference between a schoolkid perspective and an adult one; but it’s also the geography. And the culture. I was amazed at how alive and well racism still was prevalent in your country; this was particularly visible in Augusta. But even when I later moved to the tolerant melting pot northern california’s bay area you could still see a more subtle sense of it.

I used to get a lot of “no, you’re not Mexican. You don’t look Mexican. You don’t sound Mexican. Anyway, I guess I don’t act Mexican either, because though I am a legal resident of your country, I have been living in my own for the past three years. I decided that if the murder monkey stole another election, I would get out of there before homeland security decided I couldn’t, for whatever reason.

Your post, besides providing a point by point and almost verbatim dictation of right wing talking points from limbaugh to hannity to savage to tancredo, seeps with a localist nativist ignorance that can only come about when one hasn’t really traveled much outside one’s own country (in some cases, one’s own state… and in some cases one’s own county or hometown)… now to shoot your ducks down, point by point:

1. So… you’re saying your country does NOT need comprehensive immigration reform? You see it as codeword for “amnesty”. Sounds like you’d be happier with a phrase that were codeword for “final solution”… what the hell did Halliburton build those camps for if they’re not gonna use them, right? Or how are you going to deal with twelve million people without comprehensive reform?

2. The beauty of the phrase “illegal alien” is that it’s POWERFUL…. you know? it makes them so… well, so “THEM” to our “US”, right? So far away, so different from us… I mean they’re Aliens! not only that, they’re illegal, and we’re good honest law abiding red blooded christian Americans, right? Beautiful marketing, that Illegal Alien slogan… great brand distancing.

3. You have no clue about what “those people” on welfare do with their lives, do you? Have you ever been on welfare a single day of your life? And as for prisoners… you’d rather have serial rapists picking your tomatoes than those dirty mexicans? But what if it’s a prisoner who turned out to be an illegal alien, and also a criminal? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a skilled, honest, hardworking trained mexican pick my tomatoes than an unskilled, criminal, lazy thug mexican picking them. Oh wait, I forgot. In your world, all Mexicans are the same cartoon character. My bad.

4. They already share those databases, you naive little sheep… they know all those bookmarks you have. But, um…. do you not realize the problem is many of these undocumented migrants are “off the books”?

5. Yep; build the walls. If homeland security cuts the budget for the project, no problem: just hire a bunch of illegal mexicans to build it, like these guys did (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6626823). The downside is that all the mexicans will know where the good tunnels are.

6. “Illegal parents”? No no no no no, you little right wing hack. You will not get away with that cute little fucking phrase. They are parents. Their legal migratory status is “undocumented”. Get it through your skull that you are not allowed to frame this in your biased terms. Use facts instead of parroting talking points. And I’m not even going to address your attitude towards separating children from their parents, because the hypocrisy of your statements coming from the party of “family values” and “compassionate conservatism” speaks for itself.

7. Ah, national ID cards… one small step for technology, a giant goose-step in lock towards a police state. So, you’re advocating a policy for which South Africa was severely reprimanded by the entire international community? What’s next, apartheid? Oh wait, you already covered that in point #1. My bad… again.

8. Again, you’re playing to the myth that undocumented migrants take more out of the system than they put in. Do some real research, bring me some hard numbers from a reliable, nonpartisan unbiased source and then we can talk. Deal? Or would that make your head explode.

9. So, you no longer believe in the tiered level of government? Federal – State – County – Municipality? Not surprising since you seem to have also forgotten about the balance of powers. The Executive is not the king, in case you’ve forgotten.

10. And here we get to the bone marrow, the real root of this entire immigration debate… you finally show your true colors when you say “the right kind of people that made this country great”. Because we all know, in reality, despite all your claims to the contrary, this is about… “those brown dirty mexicans”.

Bottom line is you don’t give a rat’s ass if they’re here legally or not. That’s why you don’t bat an eye when separating families, when replacing them with rapists, murderers and thieves… because in your mind’s eye they are all the same in one big stinking brown pile of “otherness”.

Those “right kind of people” that made your country great? I’m one of those people. They are one of those people. You like to claim that your country, the greatest on earth, was founded on great principles of individual freedom, the value of hard work, and the equality of men (even though the genocide of entire indian nations and the enslavement of millions of africans, two very real and true pillars of your rise as a world power, would at first glance contradict these noble sentiments).

What do you think these poor Mexicans and Central Americans are doing when they go to great lengths and at great personal risk in order to find a better life for themselves and their families? They are only espousing the great American value that if you work hard and honest you can make it in life. And your hatred for the Others just seeps through. You refuse to see them as real people. I honestly would not be surprised to learn that you’d approve of a Final Solution.

Anyway, you sound like somebody who really needs to get out more. Travel around the world, talk to people from other cultures; learn how you are perceived as an American by others, and why. It’s never too late to learn something. I am grateful for the many years I lived in your country; I learned many things about Americans in my eleven years there. One of the things I learned is it’s not a country I want to live in. Not anymore. And the winds that began to blow in 2001, and the people that got swept up in it like yourself (you strike me strongly as a twenty four percenter) and continue to be swept up in it, are a big reason why despite having a green card I choose to live in MY country. Mexico. So…..

up yours. You can go to bed now and when you turn out the lights you can think about the fact that you got a little schooled today by a Mexican — a Mexican of all people! — about American politics, US History, World affairs… and a legal mexican citizen US resident who doesn’t want to be in your country…. tsk tsk. Oh, and I speak three languages fluently. And have a couple of college degrees.

But… of course. I’m not the right kind of people that would make your country great. So good riddance to me, right?

Much love from South of the Border

-R
PS. The day I was leaving for the airport I saw a bumper sticker that read “America… love it or leave it”. True story.

The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”