By Paul “Patriot” deVere
We’ve had an immigrant problem for over 400 years. Wake up, Congress! First, they drink dark beer. As a matter of fact, they drink my FAVORITE dark beer (Guinness)! What I want to know is this: Will there be any dark beer left for me?
Second, they almost speak English. Are we, as a nation, ready to accept these potato eaters? (I prefer mine baked, rather than fried or mashed, unless, if mashed, you use plenty of real butter.) Do they pay taxes? Do they become president? (16 of them did.) Are they on the Supreme Court? Do they run Fortune 500 companies? We are surrounded by these immigrants! They’re Irish for goodness sake! NINA (No Irish Need Apply)! Where is Lou Dobbs when we need him? (Rumor has it he’s taking Spanish lessons.) John McCain is Irish.
It gets worse. Norwegians. Forget the bachelor farmers outside of Lake Woebegone in Minnesota. Think Conrad Hilton (great grandfather of Paris Hilton… which means Paris Hilton is part Norwegian). Think James Arness (Gunsmoke), Bob Fosse, Pat Paulsen, Marilyn Monroe, my goodness, the Andrews Sisters! Triple “my goodness!” Would you have let these “Norse” live in your neighborhood? And they eat funny stuff like lutefisk, fiskeboller, grav lax (my favorite).
It gets worse again! Those Hungarians. Take Joe Pulitzer. Puts all his money into this fake-o prize and writes it off. Hey, Joe, we’ve got your number! What about Goldie Hawn? Or Paul Newman? Do you really believe he gives all that money to charity? Do you even like his salad dressing? (My favorite: the three-cheese balsamic vinaigrette.)
Everybody knows that immigrants cost us. Big time. Right? Well, probably. Why do you think President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Act into law in 1798? Go John! He knew the dangers. (Just because he was a Federalist and most immigrants had voted Republican did not influence his decision one bit. He just made citizenship really tough for those Republicans… er… immigrants, changing residency requirements from five to 14 years. Anyway, most of those Republicans were French. Eat “American Fries!”) One of Adams’ reasons: they were taking American jobs.
But then Thomas Jefferson becomes our third president and there goes the neighborhood. He repealed most of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1801 and 1802 as being unconstitutional. (Fortunately, the Alien Enemies Act is still in effect today.) Question: What did this guy know about our Constitution? He didn’t write it. He wrote that other thing. (Writing the Constitution was a committee thing headed by Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania. AKA as “We, the people…” guy. No, he wasn’t the governor of PA; “Gouverneur” was his first name. His parents had great hopes for him—sort of like giving your kid a first name like “Senator” or “Judge.” For you nit-pickers, James Madison is called the “Father of the Constitution” because of all the work he did to get everybody to agree on stuff, but Gouverneur wrote it up.)
NB: The “FLM” (Free Labor Movement), AKA “slave trade”) was opposed by Gouverneur (slavery “damns them to the most cruel bondages”) but he was definitely in the minority. Eight of the first 12 U.S. presidents took advantage of the FLM. There’s a very steamy story about Tom Jefferson and FLM member Sally Hemings, The FLM membership was composed of folks mostly from Africa, and the misnamed (thank you Chris Columbus!) “Indians” who had the temerity to live in lands for thousands of years that was supposed to be for us! The nerve!
And those Germans. Where do you think “sauerkraut” got its name? Sauerkraut (German) and corned beef (Irish), my very favorite. Busting down the doors of Castle Garden (predecessor of Ellis Island) like nobody’s business! You won’t believe this: In 1854, about 200,000 “sauerkrauts” immigrated to the U.S. About 100,000 did it illegally! (That would be about four percent higher than the illegal immigrant population that exists today.) And now Anheuser-Busch (i.e., BUD, a German “immigrant” AND “America’s Beer”) is owned by a bunch of Belgians! What about that Austrian, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger? Who gave him his green card? We need to know this stuff! And his wife is Irish! See what I mean?
Unlike today’s Congress, in 1882 those forward-thinking elected officials banned all Chinese immigration to the U.S. (The Chinese Exclusion Act) because non-Asians on the West Coast said the Chinese (who came over to help build the Transcontinental Railway) caused high unemployment and lower wages. That little piece of legislation kept Chinese out of the U.S. for 80 years! (That’s when the shameful Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 — abolished an earlier quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States – got passed!)
Then, of course, there was General John L. DeWitt who was told Japanese war planes were sighted over San Francisco Bay in December, 1941 (Where do you think the phrase “alien invasion” came from?). Pay attention to this one, Congresspersons: He got President Roosevelt to put all those Japanese spies and traitors (who mostly happened to be U.S. citizens) in internment camps!
DeWitt, along with Army Major Karl Bendetsen, convinced President Roosevelt, without proof of any spying or other stuff, and contrary to several reports of the President saying this was a really dumb idea (including first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin’s wife), had well over 110,000 “Japs” ( you had to be 1/6 Japanese to “qualify”) interred (i.e., moved to the “camps”).
Neighbors of these traitors were able to buy their homes, land and personal possessions for something like a penny on the dollar. Talk about lucky. And talk about foresight! Wow, there are several prominent California families who would never have made it big (I mean billionaire big!) without that Jap land they bought.
But this is where our immigrant problem gets tricky. See, the so called “unintended consequences” of putting all those saboteurs in those camps created a problem for California farmers, because those Nippon traitors (who would work for pennies a day) were the folks who did all the hard work in the fruit and vegetable fields. Millions of acres of fruit and vegetable fields, unpicked, in wartime, were going to waste.
So the farm owners “invited” (“herded” is also a word frequently used, but I am sure it is said humorously) Mexicans to replace those traitor Japanese (it turned out the Mexicans would work for less than pennies a day…wow!). So, that’s how all those immigrants (illegals?) started flooding our borders!
And wouldn’t you know it! Today, those immigrants from the Mexico, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador (to name a few) who wanted to get citizenship in the U.S. via military service, represent, proportionally (many) more deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other ethnic group except African Americans. And believe me, it is really tough for those folks to get citizenship papers when they’re dead.
My solution to the immigrant problem? Get Congress off the dime and in focus. Forget the 47 million without health insurance. Forget the so-called mortgage crisis. Georgia? When’s the last time you saw a Ruskie tank on Peachtree Street? Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea, Sudan (i.e., Darfur). Excuse me, aren’t those all foreign countries? Isn’t that where immigrants come from? Let them duke it out.
What oil crisis? Remember whale oil? There are still whales out there, right? They’re sort of renewable.
Congress, get that fence built down there! And the rumor I own stock in a new ladder manufacturing company in Tijuana is totally false! All the stock is in my kids’ name.
You’re welcome.
Saron Press Ltd. © 2004 (text only)
Some images: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information