How Illegal Immigration Has Affected Me Through The Years, page 2
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ATS Members have flagged this thread 77 times


reply posted on 28-1-2010 @ 10:12 PM by Mountainmeg
I admire you OP, so I'll stand up with you. I moved to southern CA in 1992, not in the least bit prejudiced. Over 16 years in CA, I watched the decline of the school system, the overcrowding of the hospital ER, Santa Ana turning into a barrio. Amazing. We lived in the neighborhood where hubby had been born and raised. 30 years earlier, the elementary school was tops. Now it's 65% ESL (English as a Second Language) and a "distressed school" by all measurements. My sister is a teacher and confirms that you cannot teach children at any sort of normal pace when 50%+ speak another language at home.

I could no longer work in CA easily. I have an accounting degree and an MBA. I couldn't get work as a bookkeeper because I'm not bilingual. I wouldn't have minded as much if those immigrating to CA would learn the language, but that is, apparently, racist to expect. Instead businesses, government and schools are expected to be able to conduct affairs in Spanish. Most will not attempt to assimilate.

For a while, I worked as a substitute teacher in a heavily hispanic district. Awful. No respect for education or for teachers. I taught in a bilingual kindergarten one day. The kids had a worksheet where they were to color everything that began with the letter "B". One child was marked incorrect for coloring the Bushes. You see, in Spanish, the word bush does not start with a B. Hmm, how are they supposed to learn English?

I worked as a tax preparer for years. I saw so much fraud perpetuated by those who stole others social security numbers. Now the IRS makes it easy to file with a fake SS number and an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. The IRS will NOT contact the rightful owner of the SS number so as not to "panic" them.

I really tried to be non-judgmental. I tried to not let it bother me. It hurt when I realized that, after a while, I had a knee-jerk anger when illegal immigration came up. But, I admit, I am "post"judicial now and completely against any illegal immigration and any politician who even hints at supporting amnesty.

BTW, we finally fled California for job security and education reasons. My children are now enjoying much better schools in the East.



reply posted on 28-1-2010 @ 11:20 PM by jcjace
hats off to you op.

let me add my 2cents to this.

i lived in new york for almost 8years. I went to one of the best high schools there is in northern new jersey. the school was dominantly white, with a large jewish population followed by asians. Everything was top notch. A few towns over, it was easy to forget you were in america, signs were mostly in korean but people accepeted you there, it was easy on their community to write in their own language but you were always welcome to come in. i guess they understood that it was better for them to speak english to you otherwise your dollar could go somewhere else. See these people work really hard to become wealthy, they do not care what the system has available for them. Hats off to them.

in 2006. Me and my wife decided to move to Texas, more precisely Austin, deadsmack in the middle. I thought Austin was awsome. I found a job when i got there, loved the music scene, my son was born there and we named him Austin, how cool?! Well, not everything was easy, 2 kids, me being the sole provider we decided to look for a little help untill my wife could go back to work. You guessed it, we went to apply for food stamps. Well, my wife took care of it, i was always working. When she told me that we got it, i thought it was great relief. $200 a month for food, boy me and my wife could make that stretch for a very long time.


Here is the part where my judgement started to change. I thought the $200 was awsome. However my wife explained to me that this was probably the lowest you could get there. i asked her if it was because i earned too much. No. the answer was much simpler. it was because i'm a ligal immigrant on a green card and that therefore I was not allowed to apply, only my wife. the $200 was for my wife and my 2 kids. i was not counted, yet in order for them decide of the amount given to us, they neded to know how much i made. Well now there's a nice piece to choke on. Apparently, on a green card i'm not entitled to food stamps eventhought my taxes help pay for that.
We went back 3months later to reapply and while i was there, i was in shock. the familly next to me applying for food stamps did not speak english, and did not have any legal documentation yet received $500 a month. I know this because i understand spanish pretty well. i was furious, and again, i was told i wasnt allowed to have it so i told them to just keep it for some other persons because obviously if i could pay taxes i shouldn't ask for food stamps or help from the government.

This, is what started to change my view on illegal immigration. Later on it got worse. I worked on job sites and there the spanish workers would tell me their stories and how they use the system. Imagine this, i know how to cheat the system like they do, except i can't do it because i'm not an illegal.

Quick example: An illegal couple just moved in town. They are happy and make money, they want to stay here but don't want to take the risk to get kicked out. Well, the wife will take a few punches from her husband, he will then leave to a friends house. she will call the cops and they will come and she will tell them what happened. Most likely the guy won't get caught but meanwhile she will file a domestic abuse. This right there entitles her to apply for any kind of government help, she will even be allowed to apply for citizenship.

Oh and wait, if you ever get hit by an illegal, well you'll be SOL.

It's ok though, i'll let them have California, Texas, Arizona and NM. Once La Raza takes over, there won't be much help left for them. I'm sure whites will leave, eventualy turning those states into a replica of Mexico and they will be forced to migrate somewhere else, if they can this time.

Go ahead and call me racist if you want but let me tell you this. I'm a french national, i pay taxes, my wife is an american and as a bonus she's puerto rican, and we have two kids born in the US, we are a mix familly.


reply posted on 28-1-2010 @ 11:42 PM by ahddm
reply to post by thecandyman



Don't be so harsh on judging by flags, I display my country of orgins flag every April in remembrance of those killed in a Genocide 100 years ago to which is still not accepted, not because I love it more than I love America now.


reply posted on 28-1-2010 @ 11:44 PM by asmall89
It's not just California and the Border towns... I've seen it in Colorado too. I was in a town called Longmont for a Band Festival and there was only about two or three "White" people I saw in the school while walking down the halls. On my recreation baseball team I played for in high school we played a team from the town Greeley... all Mexican.

Now if they came here legally that's fine... and I used to think (and am still mixed a little) that illegal immigration was fine. Now I'm not so sure, when I worked in the kitchens at a couple restaurants I found immigrants (some probably illegal) that knew English, but didn't make any effort to speak to us in it.

They seem not to want to conform to the American Culture, which like it or not speaks English as it's main language. Which is funny because both English and Spanish are European languages... if they want their land and culture back they need to start speaking Aztec or Mayan.

I'm not naive I know there are separations between cultures and races, and people tend to like to stick to their "own" but honestly... coming to America and still acting like their in Mexico.

My grandparents, grandparents were immigrants but they told their children that "they are American now, and we don't speak Polish anymore, we speak English!" That mindset of immigrants from south of the border... seems to seldomly exist.

I think Americans have always had a problem with immigration especially in the early 20th century, but what the "illegals", "indians" and "white Americans" need to understand is WE SHARE THIS LAND AS AMERICANS! No ones taking it back from anyone else, we're all here we share it as one now.



[edit on 29-1-2010 by asmall89]


reply posted on 29-1-2010 @ 12:05 AM by SynchroniZation
Hello ATS.

I’m normally just a lurker here on ATS, but the sudden rush of illegal immigration threads has brought me out of hiding. I’m 13 and my great grandparents, both maternal and paternal, came here from Mexico illegally, I consider myself to be illegal because of this (I’m just the result of exploited loopholes).

I decided to post here on ATS because I’m utterly confused about what I should do and I have nowhere else to turn to. I see what my race is doing to this country; I can see that it’s wrong. We come here with absolutely no right to be here and even worse we, excluding myself and some others, we refuse to adapt this country’s culture. I have a younger 4 year old brother who has just started school, my mother decided to enroll him in a class where he can learn in Spanish, this infuriated me; everyone in my house can speak fluent English, there is no reason to have him learn in Spanish! It will just cause problems later on.

I live in Texas, where everyone is Hispanic. There are at least, five Hispanic kids, including me, in every one of my class periods (Yes I counted). I used to live in California where gangs and vandalism run rampant, the kind of vandalism that you just don’t see in predominantly white neighborhoods (no they’re not just myths). Luckily, I never found the “thug-life” particularly cool or interesting but my cousins weren’t so lucky they openly hated against white people. One of my cousins is in jail (or something similar) right now and he’s only fifteen! There is no doubt in my mind that they will continue this cycle of destruction that has overtaken this country, as my race seems to breed like rabbits.

I don’t like to speak my mind to anybody not only because feel like a traitor to my own kind, but also because I am able to sense the hypocrisy that comes from my words. It saddens me to read about the OP’s new-found bigotry. I’m sorry for what my kind has done; we are not all like that; but you can’t be blamed. I can say, without fear of being called a racist, that America needs to rid itself of us before we do to America what we have done to Mexico. And any Canadians on ATS, if America dies, Canada will be next.



reply posted on 29-1-2010 @ 12:12 AM by joeofthemountain
I owuld not get too hung up on legal technicalities such as (dubious) "birthright" citizenship claims. There was a time -- before the Mexican invasion, actually -- when to be an American, one had to have Americans for both parents. This is the law in most governments of the world. Actually, I think the US is the only place that permits accidental births to confer citizenship status.

Be that as it may, it's an arbitrary status and can be revoked without so much as a By Your Leave. Heck, the Feds and most governments pick-and-choose which laws they enforce anyway... much like the laws forbidding entry to the US except as provided by law.

Fact is, my people, the Pilgrims, INVENTED America and they did not sacrifice blood, sweat, toil and tears such that the Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free[ly] could give it away to the ingrate Wretched Refuse of the Third World to assuage their neurotic sense of white guilt.

No, not so their great ... great grandchildren. 400 years of struggle -- and killing -- to preserve one's land has a way of removing sentimental pap from the equation.

There will be bloodshed over this. I'm not giving away my children's heritage because some greedy MBA at Conagra and his bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece in Congress cut a deal. As to the peasantry now infesting my land: VAMOOSE. You've been given fair warning to get out, now.

Originally posted by officeresti
Originally posted by Prove_It_NOW
(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)
Heres a tip. If you are ANY race other than Hispanic or mainly Mexican, this is NOT the place for you.

[edit on 28-1-2010 by Prove_It_NOW]


And your what? Native American?
Another thing to think about is the U.S sending those illegals back to Mexico what happens to their american citizen born children who are under 18?
Do you send them with them? If you do then their invading mexico.




reply posted on 29-1-2010 @ 12:16 AM by soontide
The problems in LA sound very much like the ones we've seen here in Tulsa, OK. Yep, not a border state but Oklahoma has seen an influx of Illegal aliens (I refuse to call them Immigrants. Immigrants come here to be Americans, not Mexicans in exile). I live in a neighborhood that was fairly pleasant a few years ago. Your kids could walk to school without much fear of being attacked, local family businesses thrived and housing prices were stable and decent.

In the past five years, that's all changed. Parents are afraid to let their children, especially girls, play in their front yards, housing prices tanked even before the housing crisis hit and I feel like a target every time I go to the grocery store.

I have a friend who owned a small barber shop in our neighborhood that he inherited from his father. The shop had been there for forty years and would have been there now except for the influx of illegals forcing people to take their shopping elsewhere. As businesses closed around him, they were replaced by hispanic oriented shops until his was the only shop in the little strip mall that has a sign in english.

One day, a group of older Mexican gentlemen came into his shop and he greeted them like he did every other customer. He was told by these men that he should take his shop elsewhere as the strip mall now catered to Mexicans. He told them that he would cut anyone's hair, he didn't care where they came from.

They told him that he misunderstood them. He should leave before something bad happened to him.

A few weeks later, his shop was broken into and vandalized. The hard work of his father and him gone. He reported the visit from the men to the police but they said that they couldn't do anything about that. They even told him he should move as the instances of violent crime had gone up quite a bit in the area.

I still live in the neighborhood and it has gotten somewhat better. A few years ago, the state of Oklahoma passed a statute concerning Illegal Aliens denying them state aid unless they could prove that they were in the process of citizenship. The law also created stiff fines for hiring illegal workers or renting to them. That part of the law is still stuck in endless court battles, mostly backed by Chamber's of Commerce and the NAACP. They don't care that the illegals don't get benefits but they do worry about being fined for hiring them. Shows you where those people's priorities are.


reply posted on 29-1-2010 @ 12:17 AM by asmall89
reply to post by SynchroniZation



Welcome to ATS! You write very well for being only 13. First off, your not illegal, you are born here you are legal to live here, but whatever floats your boat.

I would say you don't have any big decision to make, the first step to being an American as I said in my post, is saying that you are an American (if you want to be one). It's not bad to learn a second language, and that's what Spanish should be for you. I can tell you don't have a problem with English so that's good. You don't need to abandon your family or your heritage, do your parent speak english at home or spanish?

[edit on 29-1-2010 by asmall89]


reply posted on 29-1-2010 @ 12:29 AM by bkaust
I don't think you are racist. I think it's hard to even bring up race without someone jumping down your throat, but you put what you wanted to say out well.

I'm from a place that does not have too many refugees or illegals, Brisbane area, QLD, but we have had a noticable increase in somalian refugees in my area, and my one big problem i have is that, i don't mind if they come here to work honestly and put in like any other citizen, but the ones near my home have no regard for road rules, do not speak a word of english, I have almost hit several of them driving down my street becacuse the little children ride on the road on their bikes at night without lights or helmets, i drove down the road at 9pm the other month and they had a table in the middle of the road with their bikes (god knows why!) and i've had them walk in front of my car as i'm turning off a main road, resulting in my quite nearly hitting him, only to look confused and angry at ME when i beep my horn, walk along the middle of the road instead of the footpath and NOT move for cars coming along, and sit in the gutter at all hours of the night.

We saw a man driving a car yesterday with the door held on by a rope, meaning the car was obvioulsy not roadworthy, meaning not registered, meaning most likely unlicenced. Add the increase in drownings at the local beaches and rivers because as the news reports will add 'it was the first time they saw running water' and they jump in and just drown. It's sad, but there needs to be some sort of condition to let these people in that they need to know the basic rules!

like I said, I don't mind people moving in and doing their bit, but if you can't speak a single WORD of the country's language and take no notice to it's laws and safety it makes me so frustrated. I don't want to be the one sent off to jail for hitting some poor boy because his mother has let him play on the road in the middle of the night without lights and a helmet. It's ridiculous.

I can only imagine the things you see over in the US. We had a friend go over there to shoot in a movie, and they went to longbeach and he's a BIG guy and said he was quite taken aback because they went to a mall, and the security guards showed them from their car with guns and said they were to follow them through the mall and back out safely to their car. That was their job. Until hearing that, and reading your post i never knew it was truly that bad over there.

Good luck to you.

[edit on 29/1/2010 by bkaust]
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