Americans of Hispanic descent; out of the frying pan into the fire

If you are an American citizen eligible to vote and just happen to also be of Hispanic descent, you should be very angry at most of the so called “Latino issues” political strategists, consultants, advisers or whatever you want to call them. You should be very angry at the politicians on either side of the isle who listen to them. They want to put you into a hyphenated American voting bloc frying pan. Once they have you in that pan the only exit is into the fire.

To these “Latino issues” consultants it appears that you are nothing more than another hyphenated voting bloc to be co-opted, catered to, and convinced of their client’s sincerity and concern for your “issues”. They don’t appear to care much about you. These consultants think of you in terms of a bloc of votes to be counted on so that a “larger agenda” can be advanced. Examples of their thinking as quoted or paraphrased in a July 20, 2010, Washington Post article titled Republican immigration position likely to alienate Latinos, Obama officials say illustrate this.

West Wing strategists argue that the president’s call for legislation that acknowledges the role of immigrants and goes beyond punishing undocumented workers will help cement a permanent political relationship between Democrats and Hispanics — much as civil rights and voting rights legislation did for the party and African Americans in the 1960s.

As a result, although the president is unlikely to press for comprehensive immigration reform this year, he has urged his allies to keep up the pressure on Republican lawmakers.

Washington Post July 20, 2010

First of all they assume that American citizens of Hispanic descent have less respect for the laws of this country than other citizens who may have come here directly from or whose parent/grandparents came from countries such as Japan, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, or Kenya. They are assuming that because you are of Hispanic descent that you believe that U.S. immigration laws should apply to “those people” who arrived here by way of one any of those “other” countries but not to someone who arrived here from a Central or South American country such as Mexico, Honduras, Bolivia, etc.

Apparently they think you feel because you are of Hispanic descent that oath of U.S. citizenship and allegiance to the Constitution stuff about supporting and defending the Constitution and laws of the United States don’t really apply to you. Well, it applies but only the parts you like. After all, if President Obama gets to decide which parts of the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, he wants to defend and support why can’t you? Never mind what Article II Section 3 “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” says, apparently President Obama gets to decide which immigration laws on the books before he was elected are OK and will be enforced and which ones he doesn’t like so much and doesn’t have to enforce.

They further assume that you buy into the made up term “undocumented worker” to be used to describe a person who is in this country illegally. A person in this country illegally that is if they are of Hispanic descent. In the case of “those people” from say India or Kenya, the term “undocumented worker” doesn’t apply. It doesn’t apply because “those people” must come into the country in accordance with the law and therefore cannot be here without proper documentation. In the case of someone of Hispanic descent, enforcing such a law would be “punishing” an “undocumented worker”. You see, not only does President Obama get to decide that he doesn’t want to enforce a law at all, he also gets to decide if he wants to enforce a law for some groups of people and not others. That’s what makes America so great, at least for some of us; not having to do anything you don’t want to do.

Here’s another one you should be angry about.

“The one thing that has the potential to grab a large part of that constituency is to actually show them respect for being here, being here legally, being part of the community,” said a senior Democratic Party official. “The fight over immigration is a proxy for tolerance. It’s a proxy for diversity.”

Washington Post July 20, 2010

Politicians are being advised they can “grab” a large part of you as a “constituency” by showing you respect. You might want to ask yourself how using you as cannon fodder in a proxy war over “tolerance” and “diversity” is showing you respect. You remember proxy wars don’t you? They were big back during the Cold War. We tried to support a potentially democratic form of government in South Viet Nam and the Soviet Union got to go to war with us by sending in their proxies from the Viet Cong, to the North Vietnamese Army, Cambodians, and Laotians to bog us down in a mess for years at the cost of many lives and a lot of money. Once that was over with the Soviet Union decided to support some dirt bag warlord in Afghanistan and we got to return the favor. We provided arms, money, and moral support to a bunch of rag tag mujahideen “freedom fighters” that proceeded to bog the Soviet Union down in a proxy war. It ended up costing them a lot of lives and money. They killed lots of mujahideen but ended up getting humiliated by guys on mules riding around mountain trails with shoulder mounted missiles wiping out their most sophisticated air power.

Can’t say for sure what this “Democratic party official” has in mind for Latinos. I’m thinking you get to be the “freedom fighters” and the Democratic Party gets to sit back and watch you get chewed up in battles with Republicans.

Check this out. Same species of advisor only this one is advising the Republicans they have to be sensitive to the Latino community.

Lionel Sosa, who has advised Republican candidates including George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Latino issues, said the GOP needs to be careful about how its policies are being received in the Hispanic community.

“We must care about the people that we lured here to do the jobs we don’t train our children to do,” Sosa said. “If we forget those people, we are going to do ourselves a great disservice. . . . That comes off as insensitive, uncaring to the Latino community.”

Washington Post July 20, 2010

So according to this point of view the only reason you people of Hispanic descent are here is because you were a tricked into coming here to do jobs no one else wanted to do. Now that’s respect. What about the 9 million or so citizens of Hispanic descent in this country say before 1970? Were they all tricked into coming here to do something no one else wanted to do?

Note: that’s 9 million or so because in 1970 the Census folks sort of just estimated a Hispanic population based on a language usage sample of some sort… in 1960 and 1950 there were no estimates of those of Hispanic origin.

Out of the entire article this is the only person quoted that seems to have any real respect for citizens of Hispanic descent.

GOP pollster Neil Newhouse conceded that Republicans have had “a significant challenge with Hispanic voters” in recent years. But he said it’s not clear that those voters’ long-term political allegiance will be determined by a candidate’s position on immigration.

“I’d rather win them over on economic issues and taxing-and-spending issues than on the issue of illegal immigration,” Newhouse said. “Democrats are rolling the dice that this is going to help them more in ’12 than it’s going to hurt them in ’10. That calculation is very risky.”

Washington Post July 20, 2010

This advisor doesn’t appear to be assuming that citizens of Hispanic origin are some homogenous single issue (immigration) constituency that can be duped into supporting one political party over the other. Instead his advice is that citizens of Hispanic descent have the same concerns as the majority of their fellow citizens. They are concerned about economic issues, being taxed far beyond what is reasonable, out of control government spending and how are their children going to be able to pay for all of that. It’s up to you but I wouldn’t be angry with this guy or any politician that takes his advice; he seems to get it.

Then there is this final statement in the article by President Obama’s 2008 deputy campaign manager.

Said Hildebrand: “It’s a situation where Democrats need to make sure they are delivering for Hispanic voters. If they are not standing up and fighting for them every step of the way, we don’t deserve to have a lock.”

Washington Post July 20, 2010

Sounds good but remember this when he says delivering he means government programs. More government programs mean higher taxes. Higher taxes mean you have less freedom, economic and otherwise. The more programs there are the more it costs and the more someone is telling you what you can and cannot do with what little time and money you have left. That would be the ever decreasing portion of your rights, property and otherwise, that you have not already been forced to surrender to government entities from local to state, to federal.

So here’s how it works. First you are marinated the immigration reform issue sauce and seasoned with government programs. You know that the politicians have a virtually inexhaustible supply of “programs” and aren’t bashful about creating more if they need them but they also have a pretty much unlimited supply of immigration reform issue sauce as well. The secret of this sauce is should they start to run low, all they need to do add a new batch of issues to keep the sauce at a suitable marinating strength. The really dirty little secret part is that these political advisers and their clients, the politicians, are not all that interested in true immigration reform. Continuing to add issues to the sauce suits them just fine. When they deem you sufficiently marinated, you will be summarily plopped into the Hispanic-American voting bloc frying pan. Remember this as you begin to sizzle, the only exit from that hyphenated voting bloc frying pan is into the fire.

Given the political history of most of the countries in Central and South America, I’m guessing a lot of those 9 million citizens of Hispanic descent back in 1970 might have come to the U.S. because there just wasn’t a whole lot of freedom where they came from. Maybe, just maybe, many of those good folks came here because they wanted to be free and bought into the whole deal of American exceptionalism and U.S. citizenship. Even the part about supporting and defending the “whole” Constitution and not just the parts they especially liked. My guess is that the vast majority of your fellow U.S. citizens not of Hispanic descent see you that way. We don’t want to punish anyone. We just want everyone to play by the same rules. If the rules aren’t right, We the People can and must see to that they are fixed. Until they are fixed we all suck it up and enforce the rules we have on the books.