Friday, December 22nd, 2006...11:22 am
Some of Pearce’s Best Friends…
One of the strangest stories coming out of the recent Holocaust denial conference in Tehran was the presence of representatives of Neturei Karta, a small Hasidic sect. So, I guess the fact that they were Jews at the conference makes any of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-semetic tirades okay, right?
Of course not.
A recent East Valley Tribune featured a story about Frank Alvarez, a Hispanic who supports Russell Pearce’s tough stand on immigration. I’m not going to doubt that there are many more like him, because I’ve met plenty of them. The relations between native born Hispanics and new arrivals is complicated (at best). What I do have a problem with is that it almost seems like the press is playing into Pearce’s hands here by agreeing with his notion that Pearce is only being derided as a racist only for his position on illegal immigration.
Yes, a large part of the opposition to Pearce is about immigration. But, there are plenty of people in the legislature who share his views on immigration but are not undergoing the firestorm he is. Why is that? Well, his public and private statements lead some to believe that his views don’t come entirely from just some notion about securing the borders and protecting jobs. When he casually throws around words like “wetback” and forwards white supremacist emails to supporters, it really makes people like me wonder if this is about race rather than the law. Having a couple of Hispanic friends for convienience’s sake doesn’t convince me otherwise.
His problems are also a matter of his own style. His heavy handed, bombastic manner with which he ran the appropriations committee last session was so bad that it was difficult for House leaders to find enough of Pearce’s fellow Republicans to serve on the committee with him. That has nothing to do with folks attacking him for his stance on immigration, no matter how much he tries to say otherwise.
1 Comment
December 25th, 2006 at 1:20 am
OK, time to answer this by mentioning my own family.
My ancestors on my father’s side include a guy who was a ship’s chandler in Southampton and rented the Mayflower to the Pilgrims (bad deal, they didn’t return the ship, in fact they later made a barn out of it). He himself came over ten years later, in 1630. My favorite cousin (who is on my father’s side so she has the same ancestor) is married to a man from Latin America (he is a legal resident). Her kids (my kids’ second cousins) are native-born U.S. citizens and the eldest will register to vote next year when she turns 18. My cousin’s husband has family back home (who they go to visit every year or two), family in America (I don’t know if they are all here legally or not, in fact I have no interest in knowing that though I’m sure she would tell me if I asked) and family planning to come (who will be here legally if there is way they can be).
What I have learned from this is that it is about la familia. Conservatives often make the mistake of supposing that there is one group of Hispanics who are Americans and another who are Latin Americans and that they are two seperate groups. So they are surprised at the negative reaction they get when they propose idiotic solutions like building a wall on the border or making being here without documents a felony with a prison term attached to it. But to me it is not surprising. When you start messing with someone’s family, you’ve lost their vote. I am sure there are many families that include both family members who are U.S. citizens who are voters and family members who are either here illegally or who at least would be hurt by some of these laws.
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