All Americans, everywhere, should be required to watch videotapes of members of the Mexican military pouring into Texas bringing humanitarian aid to the victims of hurricane Katrina. Doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and life's essentials were loaded on trucks and the Mexican convoy trudged into Texas. Americans would have to be told, because fewer than 9% of Americans are bilingual, these news videos did not once demean the American government for its alleged mishandling of the Katrina crisis. There was no rhetoric: "Oh, now America is being taught a good lesson for their imperialistic arrogance"?. Nor was there any talk, as many anti-Mexican groups (a.k.a. The Minuteman Project) would have you believe, such as, "Here's our chance to invade America in their time of need"?. This is a common theme in their ideology. Mexico is thinking about invading America or an invasion is under way. After viewing the videotapes, Americans, and especially the neopopulist Minuteman crowd, should be asked these questions. Do you really want to alienate Mexico? Do you really think the Mexican government, trying to be a free society, should prevent its citizens from leaving Mexico and coming to the United States to satisfy the xenophobic paranoia of a minority of delusional Americans? This delusional paranoia by anti-Mexican ideologues, with a few politicians thrown into the mix, is not going to stop. These straw man-makers, with their empty arguments and poorly constructed reasons, will continue to weave their ideology into the minds of the unsuspecting. They will harp until a wall is built, barbed wire is erected, and armed troops line the borders. That is how entrenched their anti-Mexican xenophobia is. I get lots of hate mail from those who tell me that I cannot even grasp the issues. "We are not talking about legal Mexican immigrants but the illegals"?. Oh, really? Is that so? Perhaps you should listen to the rantings of some of the ideologues of your movement. One such, Frosty Wooldridge, I quote in my book, America's Anti-Mexican Xenophobia. He clearly makes no distinction between legal and illegal Mexican immigrants when he says they are carrying tuberculosis, among other things, into America. Actually, he has a good point. At least he is one of the honest ones, though he is misinformed.[1] Here is why my detractors stray south when they accuse me of not understanding that "they"? are talking just about "illegals"? and not "legals"?. Frosty Wooldridge makes my point nicely: If illegals are coming into America infected with some virulent strain of TB then why is it only coming in the bodies of "illegals"? and not "legals"? too? Are you saying the TB bug somehow makes the distinction between someone sneaking across the border from those who come into America legally? If "illegals"? (and legals) are coming to America spreading TB, then why do more than 20 million Americans still flock into Mexico as tourists each year? Apparently, the TB bug ignores the tourist and legal Mexicans immigrants because it is too busy scouting out all the "illegals"? to infect and leaves the legals and tourists alone. And, if this is such a concern, then why is the CDC saying that TB is NOT an epidemic in America? The CDC in fact has stats to show it is the Asians and not Hispanics" ?foreign born or not" ?who have the highest incident of TB in America. Moreover, TB was shown in 2004 to be at an all-time low. So, where are the massively infected? Where is the epidemic? If TB is such a problem in Mexico, then shouldn't there be an epidemic of TB if not an all out pandemic? There clearly is not. The argument that only "illegals"? are coming to America and spreading "their third-world diseases"?[2] has to apply to "legals"? as well as "illegals"? or it applies to neither. Moreover, if Mexico is nothing but a "Third-World"?, disease-ridden cesspool, then why are Americans still pouring into Mexico as tourists? Do you get this point? If Frosty Wooldridge and Chris Simcox, the Minuteman gurus, mean only "illegals"? Mexican immigrants then why do they not answer the inconsistencies in their silly and vapid "they are spreading their Third-World diseases"? argument? Where is the epidemic their argument implies, either in Mexico or in America? Reason: IT DOES NOT EXIST. In addition, why are they not targeting the Asians, instead of the Mexicans, as the "Typhoid Marys"? of immigration? It is the Asians, not the Hispanics, who have the highest incidence of TB" ?whether foreign born or not! Let me ask this question. Have either Chris Simcox, Jim Gilchrist, or Frosty Wooldridge issued a public, "thank you"? to the Mexican government for lending a much-undeserved hand in the Katrina crisis? If they have, I haven't seen it.[3] The answer to all of this: America's Anti-Mexican Xenophobia. [1] America's Anti-Mexican Xenophobia, by Doug Bower, LuLu Press, page 19 [2] http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty59.htm [3] There is nothing filed on Chris Simcox's newpaper about Mexico helping America. http://www.tombstonetumbleweed.com/index.asp |
