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August 24, 2008 I'm 13th generation American on my dad's side. Tenth on my mom's. How about you? First? Oh, congratulations! Welcome to the U.S.A.! What was the citizenship transfer process like? Oh, you didn't? Uh...well, then. Excuse me. I have to make a phone call. I am not a white supremist. I'm simply a middle-class caucasian male born as a citizen of the United States of America, the easiest target for blame on the planet. Sixty-eight percent of the U.S.A. is white. About half of that is male and three quarters of that is "middle" or "working" class. So with one political cartoon featuring a dude in a white hood, an assault rifle, and a barefoot pregnant woman clinging to his leg, you've placed about 78 million people under the hood. But I think we're beyond the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This isn't black vs. white. This issue is about foreign occupation, documentation, employment, and taxes. Maybe even national security. The problem has roots in our neighboring countries to the south. What does the plaque on the Statue of Liberty say? "From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome" and further down, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" It kind of gives the impression that we're a nation of exiled losers from other countries, the absolute worst people in the world, the scum of the Earth. We've brought this upon ourselves...with some thanks to the French, who gave the thing to us. People have been fleeing their home countries in droves, heading to the United States of America in search of a better life. They seek employment, political protection, and social acceptance. Two out of three ain't bad. Unemployment is at an all-time high, yet even minimum wage will net an immigrant more than is commonly made back home. They often acquire jobs that pay under the table, so the government often doesn't even know they're here or that the employer is operating illegally by employing illegal immigrants. The employer finds cheap workers and the workers don't pay taxes. On top of that, they send money back home, assets leaving the U.S., to help take care of the families they left behind. However, companies like this do get fined or, rarely, shut down and more people become jobless. Our government can do little to deport these illegal workers, but can work to prevent all this by amping up border protection by both land and sea. Now, I grew up with some people of Mexican descent and had no beef with them. They were full U.S. citizens. The Spanish-speaking (sometime immigrant working) community plays a noticeable role in my hometown. Yes, I took two years of Spanish in high school. I'm not fluent, but I've retained enough to get by. And it has come in handy a couple of times since then. But I don't think we should mandate packaging of all products to be printed in both English and Spanish. If someone comes to the United States of America, they should be expected to speak American English. Or at least some form of broken English. If I went to Russia, I wouldn't expect anyone to speak English to tailor to my needs. It would be selfish to think that they would. My intrusion does not take precedence over their culture. What do they care if I go contribute to their economy? I'd be stealing their jobs, consuming their resources, and taking up their space. If I go there and acquire a job, I'd be expected to know Russian. But the U.S.A. lets everybody in. What does it take to separate the members of this club from the visitors? How much longer are we going to tolerate this silent invasion? Why must America continue to pervert the term "melting pot"? Some sort of order is necessary and communication is everything. English should be the official language. Speaking of English, let's talk semantics for a minute. A person from one country travelling to another country and setting up residence without legal documentation used to be called an "illegal alien". They're illegally residing in a country, as they are citizens of another country. This term seems to be abandoned in the U.S. and has developed into the term "illegal immigrants", since the illegal aliens are staying here, defecting to the U.S., gaining employment, and starting families. And, though it is technically accurate in this case, nobody likes being called an "alien". After calling this country their home for so long, their children having been born "citizens", the term now becomes "undocumented workers" to soften the terminology and to sound less illegal. These people need to pay the club dues or go back home to their own club. Once the communication barrier has been shattered, there's an issue of competing for jobs. The "undocumented workers", take jobs for less money and do jobs that many U.S. citizens don't want to do. Many American jobs are being exported, leaving countless American citizens jobless. Now they must fight with illegal immigrants for jobs, potentially lesser-paying jobs. So many of these exported jobs are being sent to countries like Mexico, taking the jobs to the people so the people don't have to move to the U.S. for that "better life". How convenient. And cheap. And legal! But this business move doesn't seem to slow down immigration. Let's take a look at some demographics. The United States of America has nearly 305 million people today. It's estimated that about 12 million of them are illegally residing in the U.S. The population is projected to reach 400 million by 2040 and about 440 million in 2050. A report in August 2008 from the Census Bureau projects that by 2042, the Caucasian American (a.k.a. non-Hispanic white) population will have fallen to make up less than half of the U.S. population, a revision of earlier projections that this demographic shift would take place in 2050. US Census Bureau Population projections 2008 Non-Hispanic whites 68% Hispanic 15% African Americans 12% Asian American 5% US Census Bureau Population projections 2050 Non-Hispanic whites 46% Hispanic 30% African Americans 15% Asian American 9% The extreme solution: Manifest Destiny, baby. The United States of America could strike a deal with foreign leaders to take on Cuba, Haiti & Dominican Republic (together as Hispaniola), The Bahamas, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico as our next five states. This would add the skills, assets, and resources of 37 million more people to the U.S. economy, so nobody's illegal, nobody has to relocate, and everybody's happy. An official national language would be necessary. It would most likely be English, not Spanish, because most illegal immigrants, as well as a lot of their families in those other five new states, already know enough English to get by. Given time, everyone would pick up on it fluently and, of course, many Spanish terms would bleed into commonspeak, adding to a new mixed language for a new mixed culture. While we're at it, let's split Texas into five states. Back in 1845, when Texas was becoming a state, the U.S. Congress and Texas wrote up a contingency to allow Texas to create up to four new states out of its own land and economy if certain conditions were met. People joke about taking on Canada as part of the U.S., but I can see it eventually happening. Most Canadians live relatively close the U.S. border anyway. Our economies seem to be very friendly considering tourism, the film and music industries, and the fact that I wind up with their money rattling around in my pocket all the time. For an interesting take on this that I don't necessarily endorse, see www.unitednorthamerica.org. Mexico would be a more difficult task. Though it's a union of states modeled after their neighbors to the north, things are run a little more differently there. The population is also already about one-third the size of the United States of America. It might not be too easy to incorporte 31 more states into the union and do something with Mexico's federal district too. The U.S. would also then border 3 other countries by land (Belize, Guatemala, and Canada) instead of just 2 (Mexico and Canada), potentially giving us more immigration problems. I say we just put up a bigger fence. |