Bustillo LAT Article Extols Sedition, Drug Running
The L.A. Times has seldom run as misconceived and destructive an article as yesterday's Page 1 piece by Houston bureau chief Miguel Bustillo on a small Latino village on the Texas side of the Rio Grande where the people, according to Bustillo, still oppose the results of the Mexican War and "seem more leery of newcomers such as the Border Patrol and the Minutemen than they are of illegal immigrants and drug runners."
I say at the outset this article is misconceived and destructive because it is highly doubtful that millions of Latino citizens of the United States agree with these villagers, who are outraged that the U.S. is planning to build a fence to keep out the illegals in their area.
All that Bustillo's article can effectively do is to build anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment in the U.S. It is going to exacerbate every prejudice that exists.
I wonder what Bustillo's real sentiments are, and I wonder about the editors of the L.A. Times who decided to run such a wrongfully-provocative article. Bustillo, however, has done some good work in the past.
More and more in recent years, the L.A. Times does not exhibit good sense, either on its editorial pages, or in its choice of what can be run that will annoy and lose readers.
Of course, defenders of the Bustillo article will say that every point of view must be reflected in the pages of the newspapers. But I don't believe the New York Times or Washington Post would have run such an article. Its editors know better than that. The New York Times certainly is altogether more circumspect.
The village of Granjeno has but 400 residents, and appears to be on a main route by which thousands of illegals are crossing into the United States. There are 12 million of these already, and Congress cannot agree on what to do about them. Meanwhile, the issue of illegal immigration has become a major subject of debate in Iowa and other early-voting states.
Bustillo seems to have a gift for unnecessarily stirring up his readers.
What other goal could he have had when he quotes a man, Rey Anzaldua, 62, as saying, "We didn't come to the United States. The United States came to us?"
Horse shit! The Mexican War occurred 97 years before Anzaldua was born, and the fact is that after there was a rebellion in Texas, and the Mexican Army wiped out the Texas contingent at the Alamo, the U.S. decided to expand its boundaries, taking Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The conquest was recognized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican war, and the millions of Latinos who have come to the U.S. since then, came, not to undo the treaty, but in recognition of the fact that, for them, the U.S. is a far better place to live and earn a living than Mexico. (Some of these immigrants come from Central and South America and simply pass through Mexico).
As to the statement in this article that people in the village seem more leery of the Border Patrol than they do of drug runners, this does not say much of the people there. If they really believe this, their village should be razed, the people imprisoned as accomplices of the drug peddlers, or deported back to Mexico, where, presumably, they would be happier and could even obtain their drugs more easily.
And how about the suggestion that "some bureaucrat in Washington" is behind the idea to build a border fence. The fact is, the bureaucracy has resisted the idea, which comes from pressure in the public and Congress.
Meanwhile, the editors of the L.A. Times should beware of being dragged along by radicals and miscreants in disgraceful directions. They ought to edit, not just pass through junk.
I say at the outset this article is misconceived and destructive because it is highly doubtful that millions of Latino citizens of the United States agree with these villagers, who are outraged that the U.S. is planning to build a fence to keep out the illegals in their area.
All that Bustillo's article can effectively do is to build anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment in the U.S. It is going to exacerbate every prejudice that exists.
I wonder what Bustillo's real sentiments are, and I wonder about the editors of the L.A. Times who decided to run such a wrongfully-provocative article. Bustillo, however, has done some good work in the past.
More and more in recent years, the L.A. Times does not exhibit good sense, either on its editorial pages, or in its choice of what can be run that will annoy and lose readers.
Of course, defenders of the Bustillo article will say that every point of view must be reflected in the pages of the newspapers. But I don't believe the New York Times or Washington Post would have run such an article. Its editors know better than that. The New York Times certainly is altogether more circumspect.
The village of Granjeno has but 400 residents, and appears to be on a main route by which thousands of illegals are crossing into the United States. There are 12 million of these already, and Congress cannot agree on what to do about them. Meanwhile, the issue of illegal immigration has become a major subject of debate in Iowa and other early-voting states.
Bustillo seems to have a gift for unnecessarily stirring up his readers.
What other goal could he have had when he quotes a man, Rey Anzaldua, 62, as saying, "We didn't come to the United States. The United States came to us?"
Horse shit! The Mexican War occurred 97 years before Anzaldua was born, and the fact is that after there was a rebellion in Texas, and the Mexican Army wiped out the Texas contingent at the Alamo, the U.S. decided to expand its boundaries, taking Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
The conquest was recognized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican war, and the millions of Latinos who have come to the U.S. since then, came, not to undo the treaty, but in recognition of the fact that, for them, the U.S. is a far better place to live and earn a living than Mexico. (Some of these immigrants come from Central and South America and simply pass through Mexico).
As to the statement in this article that people in the village seem more leery of the Border Patrol than they do of drug runners, this does not say much of the people there. If they really believe this, their village should be razed, the people imprisoned as accomplices of the drug peddlers, or deported back to Mexico, where, presumably, they would be happier and could even obtain their drugs more easily.
And how about the suggestion that "some bureaucrat in Washington" is behind the idea to build a border fence. The fact is, the bureaucracy has resisted the idea, which comes from pressure in the public and Congress.
Meanwhile, the editors of the L.A. Times should beware of being dragged along by radicals and miscreants in disgraceful directions. They ought to edit, not just pass through junk.
Labels: Immigration
posted by Ken Reich at 5:48 AM
1 Comments:
Ken Reich’s comment of December 18th indicates he really does not know what he is talking about. He is stereotyping the residents of Granjeno as drug and illegal alien smugglers when in fact they are U.S. citizens who are trying to save their homes. The perception of what Reich calls “Latinos” that reside on the border are drug smugglers and criminals is factually wrong and frankly insulting. It sounds racist to me. He refers to the Mexican American War and the fact that Mexico lost as a basis to justify “razing” the village homes and that I was born 97 years after that war as some form of reasoning to counter the historical fact that Granjeno has been in existence since BEFORE the U.S. Revolutionary War. That is correct I was born 97 years after the Mexican American war but my ancestors were in South Texas in the 1750s. I can say that “we did not come to the United States the United States came to us” as a HISTORICAL fact and not some ex-journalists ax to grind against the LA Times. That is no horseshit, that statement is true.
Yes, we are outraged that the U.S. Government is trying to take land for a fence. This is the second time in twenty years that the government has taken land from us for a government project. What is really horseshit is that people like Ken Reich regard us as Mexican nationals, we are U.S. Citizens that keep getting stepped on and frankly we are tired of it. To suggest that I and other residents of Granjeno go back to Mexico is ridiculous. We, from Granjeno, have shown our loyalty to the U.S by going to War for our country. From the Civil War to the present wars, over 300 residents of Granjeno have served honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces. Many of us are disabled war veterans. We have earned the right to voice our opinions and challenge what we believe to be unfair and wrong.
A Border fence will not work. The Southern border is 2,000 miles long and the proposed fence will be 700 miles long. Do the math, 64% of the border will have no fence. How is that going to stop illegal aliens and drug smugglers from coming into the U.S.? DEMAND for illegal alien labor and illegal drugs is what is causing the problem. Most of the demand for illegal alien labor and drugs is in the interior of the U.S.! Eliminate or reduce the demand and illegal aliens will stop coming. The problem needs to be resolved in the interior of the country. Illegal aliens are easy targets, illegal alien employers are not easy targets because they vote and complain. Sanction employers and criminals that profit from illegal aliens. They will have no reason to enter the U.S.
National Security is not the issue, it is immigration. If national security is the issue, look at the Canadian border. Canadians may not want to illegally come to the U.S. but Eastern Europeans, Middle, Far, and Near Eastern and African illegal aliens do enter through Canada. The Canadians have very lax immigration laws. 9/11 type terrorist are more likely to come from those countries and not from Mexico
Post a Comment
<< Home