Tag: Midwest

Immigration, legal or otherwise


Do you really want to live without Mexican food?

America, you better think twice. ¡No Mexicans, no burritos! Next time you’re about to bite into that burrito, will you ask yourself, “Is this burrito here legally?” Of course not! You crave that tasty burrito, and you’ll enjoy every bite of it.

Not many people really think about citizenship in their day-to-day existence, unless of course, they’re not U.S. citizens. No one really thought about how many Mexicans were in the Midwest until the immigration marches last year. Since then, everyone seems obsessed by a person’s state of citizenship, whether or not they’re here legally. It’s an immigration version of the House Un-American Committee, or the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy in the military. Now whenever I read about Mexicans in the news, there’s no doubt if the subject is a citizen because the author will state their citizenship status. Or, if not a citizen, we read something like, “does want to give last name because he/she is not a citizen.”

On the July 4, I read “Squeegee economics” in the Chicago Tribune about Chicago skyscraper window washers from Mexico. For example, Salvador Mariscal of García de la Cadena, México, cleans the windows of the John Hancock Center and he’s a legal immigrant. Juan Ortiz, who worked illegally in Chicago for three years, is mentioned by name because he is now living in México again. Would you believe the Tribune reported that there are illegal immigrants washing skyscraper windows in Chicago?

Maybe we should work on the immigration reform bill a little harder. If we deport all the illegal Mexicans, we won’t have burritos and we’ll have dirty windows to boot.

DDR

¡Hola!


From Yahoo! News

¡Hola! I love teaching college Spanish! I have taught at several colleges in the Chicago area. I would like to help college students who need help learning Spanish–whether it’s to speak Spanish fluently or to merely pass the foreign language requirement. Hopefully, my teaching will also serve as a cultural exchange where students learn about some Hispanic issues and learn to differentiate them from the negative stereotypes.

However, current events have also stirred my emotions lately, so I will also comment on such cultural issues as the immigration debate, language differences, and xenophobia in the U.S., among other issues. Recent controversies have caused me to recall many incidents from my own life in the U.S. as the son of Mexican immigrants who came to the United States legally. I will explain all that later. As always, I have mixed feelings about immigration and occasionally suffer from identity crisis. I often wonder how Mexican I am. Or for that matter, how American I am.

I was at the immigration marches in Chicago while I was working as a police officer. And, yes, I did have mixed feelings during those marches. On March 10 and May 1, 2006, there were more Mexicans in Chicago than in Cancún. México has come to America! I don’t think most people were prepared to admit that there were that many Mexicans in the Midwest.

DDR