New Statue of Liberty Inscription

"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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Ahemmmmm!!!! Perhaps we should change that…

It should be more like….

“Take them, take them all back. All of the immigrants that come to this country to suck our resources dry. Take those who are nothing but a constant drain on our government, take all of them, from whatever country they are from. They are of no use; they provide nothing to us… Especially those Hispanic looking ones, I will build fences and declare open season on them and I will target them and chase them out of here with their tails between their legs. “

126 years have passed since the French gave the United States the Statue of liberty and yet so much has changed especially the lady’s attitude about immigrants.

On April 20, 2010 in one of the biggest displays of a change of attitude towards immigrants, the state of Arizona passed a new movement towards the handling of illegal criminals.

The law states that a police officer can stop someone who is already suspected of another crime and can ask him to show proof of his legal status. The officer, based on the sensitivity training he will have received, will look at you and ponder on the possibility of whether or not you are an illegal alien or not and then ask for your papers.

Hmmmm!!!! Let’s see, what will he be looking at???

Let me guess, the kind of car you drive? The clothes you are wearing? Your signature cologne???

WRONG!!!!

He will look at the color of your skin, your features and he will racially profile you. Then he will come to the conclusion that since your race is more than likely from another country, you will probably be here illegally and will ask for you to proof your right to be in this country.

Help me, if you can….. How is this NOT racially profiling???

Because I really doubt that Nura Oyenusi will be asked about her status or that Adelina Berberi would be asked for her documents. My South African friend and the Albanian one will be ok, one is black, and the other one is white.

Now, if you have dark hair and brown skin. Now that is a different story…
Then you certainly jumped the border, smuggled drugs, receive government benefits and are here to rob us of our resources.

Many people are fighting that this law has NOTHING to do with race and all to do with criminals. But there is no way to implement this law unless you judge based on race. If you arrest a group of people and then it comes up that they were illegal and you begin deportation procedures, I would be ok with that.

If you stop someone and you ask to see their papers because according to you there is a great likelihood that this person is illegal, I have a HUGE problem with that.

Racial profiling exists. EVERYWHERE. But it is NOT supposed to be supported by law enforcement.

Don’t kid yourself, Mr. Bush lied, racial profiling is not leaving, you cannot control it, you cannot even impose a law to eradicate it. It is something inside the person, a non-acceptance of someone who looks different, who is culturally different from you. I would like to tell you that it is not so. But there are so many instances in which I have been profiled, it would take far too long to share.

At this point, I don’t care about your racial profiles. I am used to it. I am used to the surprised looks from people who notice that I speak English fluently. I am used to people introducing me as their Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican immigrant friend; I am used to people speaking to me in whatever level of Spanish they took in high school. I am used to people who joke with me about immigration, taco bell, large families, you name it.

It’s not funny, but I’ve become immune to it. It’s hurtful and humiliating, but that’s ok, you think it’s funny!!!

I do care though that these laws will affect my children.

Already here, in the heart of it all, my oldest has to contend with the witty remarks of those who don’t comprehend that she was born and raised in the United States. She is about to get her license and besides from the drunk driving talk, we also had a talk about getting pulled over because of your looks and not letting an officer search your car without a police warrant.

Ahhhh, those little rites of passage.

Why do I teach her that? Because it has happened to me. More times than I care to count. At stores, at movie theaters, when dealing with the government, when applying for a job, when taking my kids to school, when taking a bus, even when I am walking around town.

It never stops amusing me when I hear white people (can I say that??? They call me Mexican…) saying that we are sucking the government dry.

People can’t go and take from the government, the social services that immigrants are given are granted by the people who work for the government, who follow rules established by your lawmakers.

You don’t like it???? Get involved, vote, and change it.

My favorite bumper sticker…

“I WON’T LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE IN MY OWN COUNTRY” or “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PRESS 1 FOR ENGLISH”

I am an interpreter. The company I work for is hired by the huge corporations in this country; we also work with most government agencies. The service we provide is paid by those who hire us. They are the ones that commission that forms be filled out in more than one language and that make all of these commodities available.

We are not walking into a business and translating the forms for each other.

YOUR LAWMAKERS AND CORPORATE HEADS ARE DECIDING THAT IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO CREATE THESE THINGS.

Illegals don’t qualify for social services. You must be able to proof your residence or citizenship in order to receive Medicaid, medicare, food stamps and welfare. Their kids qualify.

“Yea, that’s why they have so many kids… sucking down the system…”

Did you know that the government will pay for an illegal woman to have a baby, but REFUSES to pay for birth control, or to educate them about family planning????

BRILLIANT!!!!

We educate the children. Make education compulsory regardless of immigration status, provide bilingual education, get interpreters for parent teacher conferences, but if the parents get deported, the child goes back with the parent to the country of origin.

So, we will get rid of the parent and child, send them back to their original country even though the child is an American citizen and knows nothing of the other culture.

GENIUS!!!!!

Even better, the sheriff of a town nearby said that illegals are here stealing the jobs that belong to American citizens.

Of course, there are thousands of fights at the chicken factories, people just fist-fighting each other for the chance to work there for ten dollars a day; not a day goes by when someone is not wishing out loud to be able to work in the farms, next to the insecticides, for cents a day.

Get real, some Americans won’t even work at McDonalds, do you think they would want those jobs that offer a substandard of living?

What will you do when the Department of Labor goes into that factory and that farm and demands that the employees are protected by the same labor laws that are granted to everyone else? Will you be willing to pay $5.00 for a pound of tomatoes? Will you pay $15.00 for a chicken?

What many people don’t realize is that because of the very little that companies pay those illegal immigrants are the prices of the things they buy so low. Remember sweat shops, yeah, the companies are not going to lower their profit margin just to abide to the new law that says you shouldn’t hire illegals. Someone is going to pay for the increases in their production cost… guess who?

No one in this country can solve the immigration situation with one reform. You can’t solve it with two or three. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that you can solve it at all.

The same illegals you will arrest and take into jail are going to bog down the system; it will cause a deficit in the government agency that enforces it.

What will happen when you pick up and demand proof of status from a Naturalized Hispanic? You know, still brown and dark haired, but legal. They can’t produce any proof; the government has nothing that identifies a person as a citizen. Then what will they do? Arrest him until he can find someone to bring his 8 X 10 certificate of naturalization to the station. What happens then? Will the officers apologize? Will the State apologize? Can you say lawsuit??


(Read in redneck accent) “I am so sorry sonny, I thought you was one of them Mexicans that came over here, speaking Spanish and living like 25 in a house with their taco bells and their loud music.”

Well, not Mexican, but, you just described most Hispanics, legal or not.

When I became an American Citizen, Judge Rose said that the divisiveness was over. That they welcomed us with arms wide open and that they were so happy to have us here. That we had traveled such a long and hard path and that we were finally reached the end of that path and we were granted, like everyone else, the right to freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this new law is racial profiling. There is no other way to call it. It is amazing that this nation that was founded by those who were escaping oppression is willing to use the same techniques to take care of a problem that is continually perpetuated by them.

Have you ever asked your lawmakers why not close the borders? Have you asked why it is that this “problem” has continued for so long and no one has ever done anything about it?

There are million of conspiracy theories that can give you a myriad of complicated reasons as to why. But the simplest one is that it is not profitable. We are not a nation ruled by morals, values, ideologies or even lessons learnt in the past. We are ruled by the Almighty Dollar. Not so mighty anymore, but still the main reason why we do things.

We are not pursuing illegals because of the concept of them coming over and violating the law. We are not pursuing this because they are criminals. We are pursuing this because we have somehow conceived the notion that they are taking money from the government.

We are hatefully doing this based on ignorance.

The line has been drawn on the sand. The people will express their opinion and decide which side they belong to.

Is illegal immigration the cause of all evil?

Or

This is a problem that we can all solve, together.

I don’t know anymore.

As an American citizen, I understand the concerns about the economy, the concerns about the future and how we must find a way for our country to grow. But I will never accept a law that judges people based on their looks, their heritage, and their culture.

So I walk over to the other side, to support those who come here to earn a living, legally or illegally and give their life to a country who considers them a disease. I support the idea that hunting illegals at the border is inhumane and that this law is a total violation of the constitution that I was sworn to uphold.

Many of us have learnt many lessons in our path here; many of us went to school, pursued higher educations and conquered the American dream. We are a knowledgeable and intelligent group who understands laws, rights and liberties. We have assimilated and adapted to your culture. Learnt from your tenets and will hold them, even if you don’t.

Today, at 46.9 million, Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States and we will stay and prevail, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.