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May 2, 2006
Let's Try to Keep Focused on the Real Issues
There are important and difficult issues surrounding US policy toward immigrates, legal or otherwise, from Mexico and elsewhere. A Spanish version of the National Anthem is not one of them.
But in 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version of “The Star Spangled Banner.” The State Department’s website also features four-separate versions of the anthem in Spanish.
Follow the links in the above paragraph from Think Progress to see what the truth is.
Neither is speaking Spanish nor waving the Mexican flag an issue. My grandmother and Shirley's mother spoke German, were born into families that spoke German and taught their children German before they were taught English. The Italian flag in commonly seen in the homes of Italian Americans as are the national flags of other immigrant groups. The Irish flag just about replaces the American Flag on St. Patrick Day.
The real issues are far more difficult. I list what I think are the most important ones in no particular order.
How do we manage the orderly economic absorption of all immigrants?
How do we assure that there is defacto ethic balance in our immigration policy?
How do we deal with illegal aliens that have proven themselves to be contributing members of our country?
How do we humanely deal with the illegal immigrate parents of natural born US citizens?
How do we assure ourselves that those who enter our country, legally or not, mean us no harm? Note: this is a bigger question than, "How do we secure our borders?"
What is the economic impact of a "nation without immigrants?"
What is the economic impact of employers who violate our laws?
How do we assure that our policies will not create a permanent underclass?
There may be other questions that are as important as these that I have overlooked. But until we can focus on these kinds of questions and get all the irrelevancies out of our national debate, we will never be able to solve whatever problems we may have with our immigration policy. I have a few tentative ideas as to how to address some of these questions but I really don't have enough data nor have I heard enough rational debate to be confident that my answers are anything other than nonsense. My real problem is that I don't think anyone is in any better position to answer them than I am. I do know that focusing on Spanish or the Mexican Flag or "National Security" will not get us anywhere. Equally deleterious to a meaningful debate is focusing on one or two of these questions without assessing how policy changes with regard to them may affect a rational solution to all the issues.
Posted by Duane Smith at May 2, 2006 9:38 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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