From the perspective of somebody in one of the "border states"...
Where I get testy is when folks from, say Iowa, start expounding on how we need to send all them brown people back where they came from because they are ruining our country.
Huh. How thoughtful of you, Mr. Iowa, to come up with such a great plan, considering the lack of those icky brown people that likely live in YOUR state.
I have an opinion on immigration. Yep indeedy. And, for better or worse, it is formed in large part by living in Southern California.
There were kids at my high school who were only there the first semester, vanished the second semester and then came back again the following fall. Why? Because second semester coincided with harvesting season, so they were out in the fields picking the lettuce that likely ended up on my dinner table. Which, oh yeah, wanna see the price of produce shoot through the roof? Send all those icky brown people back where they came from.
I was fluent enough in Spanish in high school that my then-boyfriend's mother would call up just to have me translate instructions to her maid. Because she couldn't be bothered to either learn a few simple phrases or find out how fluent the under-the-table help was in English (more than she let on, actually).
So yeah, you sit back in your rocking chair over there in Iowa and rant on about Fear of a Brown Nation. But I guarantee it will affect me long long before it gets to you. So in that sense, damn skippy I am entitled to more meaningful commentary on the subject.
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Date: 2010-04-30 03:22 pm (UTC)Where I get testy is when folks from, say Iowa, start expounding on how we need to send all them brown people back where they came from because they are ruining our country.
Huh. How thoughtful of you, Mr. Iowa, to come up with such a great plan, considering the lack of those icky brown people that likely live in YOUR state.
I have an opinion on immigration. Yep indeedy. And, for better or worse, it is formed in large part by living in Southern California.
There were kids at my high school who were only there the first semester, vanished the second semester and then came back again the following fall. Why? Because second semester coincided with harvesting season, so they were out in the fields picking the lettuce that likely ended up on my dinner table. Which, oh yeah, wanna see the price of produce shoot through the roof? Send all those icky brown people back where they came from.
I was fluent enough in Spanish in high school that my then-boyfriend's mother would call up just to have me translate instructions to her maid. Because she couldn't be bothered to either learn a few simple phrases or find out how fluent the under-the-table help was in English (more than she let on, actually).
So yeah, you sit back in your rocking chair over there in Iowa and rant on about Fear of a Brown Nation. But I guarantee it will affect me long long before it gets to you. So in that sense, damn skippy I am entitled to more meaningful commentary on the subject.