No Immigrants Need Apply 
by Sheila Velazquez
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 1, 2006



 

Pity the poor government that isn't able to erect a fence along our southern border. Over the years, we have excelled in technology of all kinds, but we can't build a fence. Don't you think that if the government really wanted to stop illegal immigration they would put in a big order at Home Depot. Rather than fashion a fair immigration policy, they use the immigration issue like a shell game that they have fomented to distract the attention of Americans from bigger issues that benefit the ruling-class predators.

This country will exploit immigrants and suppress citizen workers as long as there is profit to be made from it. This is not a new phenomenon. It began when slaves and indentured servants were whisked off from Africa and Europe to work the plantations of the South and the Caribbean. The criminal practice continued through the years to include foreign technology workers who have been given work permits to replace American engineers and programmers who owe huge student loans and who can't compete with workers from overseas, many of whom were educated under government programs and who owe nothing for their knowledge. It includes jobs that are exported and now services. The only jobs that seem safe are those that include contact with an actual person. And I'm sure many of those are being looked at as candidates for automation.

The M3 (money supply) is no longer being published and the government can and will print paper by the wheelbarrowful, some of which could be used to secure the borders if they so desired. You can be sure that they will use it to bail out the financial system when the real inflation rate (the core CPI doesn't include food, fuel, etc.) forces them to raise interest rates ever higher to keep foreigners invested in our treasuries, causing millions of people with variable rate mortgages to find their payments going up by thousands of dollars a month. Hedonistic accounting masks the real state of the economy, which we working-class stiffs suspect isn't doing so well. GDP numbers (that include government spending) are higher, but the rise is fueled by inflation, not production. We are actually making less, but it's costing more.

Oil company profits and CEO compensation have risen to obscene levels; we are in danger of getting further embroiled in the Middle East; China and other countries are revaluing their currencies against the dollar. There is the chance that eventually our paper will be nearly worthless. If we were still using the gold standard, only as much paper could be printed as was backed by the shiny stuff. Now gold, silver and other precious metals are experiencing a bubble. The government manufactured the housing bubble to rescue the economy from the stock market bubble and bust, and now that housing has run its course and hangs stagnant in midair, the metals bubble. They cannot sustain the illusion of prosperity forever, and when the housing bubble bursts, the fallout will be far worse than anything seen during the Great Depression, especially given the fact that Americans have forgotten how to save, a practice common to immigrants who arrived with one bag of clothes and went on to grow empires.

Early immigrants crossed oceans to reach our shores and were allowed entry only through Ellis Island. If they could have run across solid borders, you can be sure they would have done just that. The Irishman and the Italian would have held hands as they jumped the magic line together. And forget the claim that our founders were immigrants; they were colonists who plundered and murdered to secure dominance of this country. They were white Europeans who have made immigration easier for people who look like them and who share their Protestantism.

It is becoming obvious that the protests of immigration reform are not just about immigration. They rise in opposition to class warfare. As more and more citizens join these demonstrations, it is clear that the protests are a cry against the division of labor, the manipulation of labor, the exploitation of labor. Memories passed down from earlier generations rekindle resentment on behalf of our immigrant ancestors -- the Irish "who need not apply," the Chinese who died building our railroads, the Germans who had been in the United States many years before World War II, but who had swastikas painted on their doors.

For those old enough to remember, the protests represent a requiem for a way of life that no longer exists for most nationalities, but which they can detect in the closely-knit communities of the Latino immigrants. We understand the need to hold tight to centuries-old customs and values, which are stronger than the so-called values of the enlightened classes. We remember that those same stalwart men and women organized the unions so that their families could enjoy a better life, suffered when they opposed companies who treated their employees like chattel, and went off to war to fight and die to secure what they had won. They didn't complain because they didn't have night vision goggles or full body armor. They just died.

Capitalism is handing the working class a sacrifice, a group of people who often resemble their own ancestors, if not in shades of white and black, in variations of sacrifice and struggle. While their anger and resentment at losing good-paying jobs and health and educational security for their children may allow them to temporarily forget that it is they who are being manipulated, it will eventually dawn on them that they are the lambs being led to slaughter, in every respect as much victims of the fascist government as Mexican day laborers.

When the hard times come -- and they will -- new immigrants and old will hopefully have the strength and will to hold their families together by drawing on the skills and community that have always made them strong. The elite who don't know how to do anything for themselves, including growing and cooking their food and building shelter, skills always passed down to the "least" of us, can learn what it means to be an American -- from the bottom up. Let them know what it feels like to have calluses on their hands and feet, how an honest day's work doesn't always result in an honest day's pay. Because when the isolationists among us experience what it's like to be an immigrant, then and only then will we be successful in resurrecting our country and our culture and our pride in being the melting pot of the world.

Sheila Velazquez lives and writes in Bozeman, Montana. She can be contacted at: velazque@ix.netcom.com. 

Other Articles by Sheila Velazquez

* “Please, Sir, I Want Some More”
* Drug Wars
* A Tale of Two Cities
* More BS From the BLS
* Bonds Are Us

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