Tennessee GOP comment on immigrants is woefully ignorant, intolerant ... and fun

Pete Kotz, new newsroom boss of the Nashville Scene, wrote a great blog post on English First’s Jon Crisp and the most ridiculous political comment of the year in the state of Tennessee.

On the ridiculous scale, Crisp's comment even exceeded Nashville Mayor Karl Dean's statement in Sunday's New York Times about the torture of Juana Villegas (DeLaPaz).

I met Crisp when he was chairman of the Davidson County Republican Party. He didn't rant and rave and sounded quite reasonable about his politics. So Kotz's post really startled me. Then I read Crisp's comment:

“Sadly in general, today’s immigrants are not the same as those of our past and seem to want to reap America’s bounty while not committing to our culture. Will we become a patchwork quilt of third world nations that have set up shop in Nashville?"

Wow!

How incredibly stupid!

How historically inaccurate!

Last week, I was speaking to the grandson of German immigrants. The Nashville attorney spoke of Chicago and then cities in the Northeast. There, Italians, Poles and Germans -- for example, not criticism -- created their own little communities of stores, churches, newspapers and other institutions. The native tongue was only spoken. Several generations were able to stay isolated in those neighborhoods and in their native tongue while living in the United States.

In Utica, NY, in the 1990s, I actually came across people living there who still only spoke Italian. So Crisp's comment about the immigrants of the past being more committing to this nation's culture (there is NOT an American culture) is an incredibly nasty plop of horse manure. I wish I could be more eloquent like Mr. Kotz, but that's my failing.

The sons and daughters of today's Hispanic immigrants are picking up English immediately and translating for their folks to various authorities. TV has been one instrument of learning. Survival amid a hostile environment is another. But by the next generation, many of these Hispanic households will only speak ENGLISH -- on their own, not forced by a silly referendum.

That truth happened in my extended family. My cousins and I were raised in English-speaking households of the 1960s and 1970s. Our grandparents were the first to come to this nation from Mexico, recruited by the Santa Fe Railroad to fix and lay track.

Now, to our detriment, we've had to go back to college and community programs to learn Spanish. Thankfully, I am picking it up quickly now, which allows me to work among immigrants in the Nashville Hispanic community in their language to help protect them from the torture of law enforcement authorities and the 287g deportation program. Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church is my continued focus.

I've yet to have one English-Firster or anti-immigrant inflamer take me up on my invitation to come with me to the Hispanic community and speak to the people there about their lives and reasons for being here. It also is beneficial to see America through the eyes of others.

Yet, these others are also picking up English in various church and community programs. And compared to Spanish, English is the most difficult lanugage in the world. It has taken words from so many other languages, while Spanish is derived from Latin and a few other romantic tongues. It is beautiful and logical. My uncle, shot down behind enemy lines in WWII, was able to communicate with French allies because of the common roots of Spanish and French. It saved his life.

English is an amalgamation of words thrown together. It is very difficult to learn. And it's why many Hispanic immigrants feel threatened to use it in public, because making mistakes is embarrassing. I feel the same way about my Spanish.

Verbal skills are one thing, which can come quickly, as Hispanic children have shown. Reading and writing take from three to five years for PROFICIENCY. Grammatical perfection takes even longer -- something that I still am pursuing at my age.

No one is arguing against English being the language of empowerment here. But to deny a place for other languages is just plain dumb. It cheats our children out of preparing for a more diverse 21st Century. Worse, it makes Nashville an isolated berg instead of a member of the world. And the world is where the big money is made to power capitalism.

Businesses know that, but they're too afraid to speak out lest a radio talk show host announce a boycott of their establishment and smash a French car in front of their grounds.

Poor Phil Valentine of The Tennessean wrote yesterday of his blind-leading-the-blind dependence on former Nashville talk radio host Darrell Ankarlo for information on border difficulties. According to The Tennessean columnist, Ankarlo has written books. I didn't even know he could color between the lines. Then Phil jumped atop his high horse and wrote about how all the Mexicans need to change their own government before they come here.

Hell, Phil, Americans can't even change their government in Washington. How do you expect the very poor of Mexico to change their corrupt officials?

Actually, you don't. It's just another excuse so you don't have a bunch of brown people diluting the rich European blood across this nation. Sorry, Phil, but the American Indians were here first. Your ancestors -- as illegal immigrants -- came to this land and brought disease and firearms. Whether the civilization they also brought represents progress remains to be seen. All those whiners former Sen. Phil Gramm cited sure don't represent a happy America.

Closer to home, there would not be as many Mexicans in Nashville and Tennessee if Tennesseans of lore would have just stayed home and not invaded another country's territory with firearms. Davy Crockett and Sam Houston were ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. They helped preserve slavery on Mexican territory that forcibly became the state of Texas. The government there had eliminated slavery in the early 1800s.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who likes to introduce resolutions in Congress encouraging more knowledge of American history, sure doesn't bring up those facts about this nation's heritage. He prefers the lie, the myth, the non-cruel version of Manifest Destiny -- brought about by another Tennessean, President James K. Polk.

The Mexican-American War, which then Congressman Abraham Lincoln prominently opposed, forcibly removed Mexican territory in 1848 that became New Mexico, Arizona and California. The Golden State is one the world's biggest economies by itself. Los Angeles isn't named after the Spanish identification for angels by coincidence. Think of all the Mexicans who wouldn't have been on U.S. soil if Polk had been even the least bit humane and moral.

And don't believe the myth that this nation paid for that territory. The $15 million given Mexico under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was for reparations -- to pay for the damage and killings by U.S. forces in Mexico.

So if it were not for all these Tennesseans of lore and all the VOLUNTEERS who reported for Polk's war, there wouldn't be many Mexicans here to deport and fret over in pushing a ridiculous referendum on the English language. And Jon Crisp would not have to make himself look incredibly stupid and historically inaccurate in his comments.

But I could tell Pete Kotz of the Scene had a lot of fun in writing that post. You just don't get that kind of REALLY stupid political comment every day to write on. Savor the moment, then stop the political trend toward turning gross ignorance into public policy.