Tim Zank posted Newt Gingrich’s 10 step plan on immigration. One of them is:
Ensure that becoming an American citizen requires passing a test on American history in English and giving up the right to vote in any other country.
I think maybe I could get behind this if it was required of every would-be American, whether born in the country or out. There is also a provision about making everybody learn English. Again, there are plenty of native born Americans with abysmal knowledge of English. I think making people pass a basic American history test and a basic grammar test before they can vote would dramatically alter electoral politics in this country.
“Literacy tests” were a powerful tool in disenfranchising Black voters — who gives whom the right to devise pass/fail questions on determining basic citizen rights?
In the 1970s there was a so-called “Black IQ test” – using those questions might disenfranchise you!
It’s ironic that in my travels to Mexico, Americans I encounter are the *least* likely to try to communicate with the locals in their native tongue. The Germans, French, and Dutch who I encountered a couple hundred miles inland were happy to use their limited Spanish to communicate, as was I. On return to Cancun, most of what I encountered out of the Americans was cartoon Spanish like “Arriba arriba!” and other such crap, along with a mocking attitude toward the locals that they didn’t even try to conceal.
I believe the same tends to hold true with our expatriate communities around the globe. A while back I read a book about how to retire in Mexico, and one of the major pitches was that the expat communities in places like Guadalajara were so large that you can get along fine without learning Spanish.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that our country, whose citizens make less effort than others to understand or appreciate other cultures, should want others to have to adopt our language and customs as a condition of living here.
Thank you, Wilson. Has everyone else forgotten that literacy tests were used to disenfranchise people in the past?
T: very true. I’m kinda ashamed that my knowledge of French is so poor and my Spanish is pretty much nonexistent. I participate on a sports message board with people from all over the world. Most of the people who post there are fluent or semi-fluent in English, French, Spanish, sometimes German, plus their own language. Those of us who are American typically have a rudimentary knowledge of whatever language we took in high school or college.
People that speak several languages are called “polyglot”. Folk that speak two languages are called “bilingual”. Those who speak just one language are called “American”.
Sadly.
Wilson: I was referring to the Americans on the message board, not all Americans. :) Although, if those of us on the message board are any indication of the linguistic abilities of Americans as a whole…
fwiw, the U.S.A. is the 5th ranking country in the world in terms of number of Spanish speakers…
I suppose most here would support THE GRAND BAGAIN Immigration reform currently up for debat in the U.S. Senate once again.
This is a pathetic piece of legislation that’s sole purpose is to grant a amnesty to 12-20 million illegal immigrants and create a guest worker program seperate of the agricultural guest worker program of 200,000 persons each and every year who will surely overstay their work visas and become the next illegal immigrants.The Congressional Budget Office states the plan will reduce illegal immigration by only 25% couple that with the fact that the end to CAHIN MIGRATION provision contained in it does not start until 2016 plus tripples the number by 440,000 people allowed under this rule until 2016,the fact tht we already allow 1.5 million legal immigrants each year and you have a recipe for disaster.
The social costs will be enormous to the tine of 2.6 trillion dolars over twenty years.All of this just so business can have cheap labor.
TREA a nonpartisan seniors group with 1.2 million members has a article JUNE 15 http://www.tscl.org which talks of a loop hole in this bill telling of how social security will pay out more than $966 billion to two million illegal immigrants.
This bill was written by 12 Senators meeting in secret out of the normal committee process along with business interests,LARAZA, Homeland Security Chief Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Guiterez.Behind the scenes it is being rigged to pass the Senate.
The bill also prevents the deportation of criminals. The Cornyn amendment addressed this two weeks ago but failed.I can certainly see why the Senate would not want this to pass.As reported in the New York Times last week at least 12 places in this bill it states “the security measures are subject to availability of appropriations” a convenient out claus.There are many of these such provisions in this legislation.The whole bill is available on The Heritage Foundation web site.
I like the provision in the bill that states illegal immigrant gang members(est 30,000) can get the Z visa if they sign a paper and renounce membership in the gang.In fact this is pretty much the same garbage that was pushed in 1986.I find it interesting when I can find a few people that think the U.S. and it’s citizens should subsidize poverty from Mexico and Central America.
The bill states any business must try to hire U.S. workers first but there are ways around this.A video turned up a while back showing a immigration lawyer tutoring business representatives how to get around this measure.
O’Bama talks of the high unemployment among African American males. Does he really believe it will help these folks by importing hundreds of thousands of low skilled under educated workers?He did vote against the guest worker program so I give him credit for that,but he should vote No to this bill.
Would not the citizens of the Sudan or Darfur like to come here also if they were connected by land to the U.S.?That would be a real boon to businesses think how cheap they would be willing to work.Unfortunately I have two amnesty Senators in Indiana but at least I have a congressman who has said he will vote NO to this bill if it reaches the House.
I see today the illegals have resorted to starting fires in the Coranado National forest to divert attention so they can cross the border.
My plan is easy.Secure the border first and prove the spigot is shut off!In a few years if it is secured grant the amnesty.Hell let them even have there relation come but only after this incompetent government has proven they can stop the flow.The shadow people will be fine waiting a few more years to become citizens.If they don’t they can leave.Continue the present agricultural guest worker program because I do believe Americans will not do those jobs.Americans will however do meat packing jobs and construction and lanscaping.After the raids at the Swift plant Americans filled all those positions.
When two cultures speak different languages and have economic bases then there’s the beginning of problems for the whole country.People are identified even by the accent we have ( like I dont tolerate well any kind of religious/political message with a Southern accent,but that’s just my prejudice).So language and culture cannot be divided.
When americans do go overseas those who speak English to us are usually in the tourism trade in that country. We have never had the the ‘Dutch experience’ where we just answer back in whatever language was addressed to us. When foreigners come here to live they have historically learned English willingly and fast and by the time their kids were in school they were a functioning English-speaking american family,but now there seems to be a new agenda where Spanish is supposed to an equal to English and we’re become a bilingual country officially according to many.Therein lies much of the emotional backlash to immigration.
I wouldn’t equate those who were born here and badly educated in English as natives to those who came here speaking a foreign language. My father was a 10th-grade drop out and my paternal grandfather signed his name with an X as he was quite illiterate.Those were different times,but having been raised in the culture and understanding English gives a person at least ‘street smarts’ and they should be able to vote with guidance given if asked for..but still I wouldn’t require government to write ballots in Spanish,but I also wouldn’t require an English test to vote..I think requiring English competency to get a driver’s license would be a great motivator however..
I think Doug was suggesting disenfranchizing the clueless (of which, I am ashamed to admit, I am probably a member). This does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, origin, gender, sexual orientation, pet-ownership, etc.
In reality, as soon as there is a test to administer, there is the chance of corruption which could skew in one or all of the above directions.
Correction.. Doug wasn’t *suggesting* anything, he was…uh… what’s the word (clueless, I tell ya’)… postulating? on the effect it would have in politics.
I was just being a goof. In seriousness, I wouldn’t get behind such a proposal. But, I do think it’s worth pointing out that many folks who complain about the durn furriners not knowing the culture often times don’t know squat about American history themselves. And plenty of our native born are damn near unintelligible in the only language they know.
That being said, I know that any such test is subject to abuse by the people administering the test. If I’m not careful, I’m likely to find myself disenfranchised because I answer “False” to a question about whether this country was “founded as a Christian nation.”
I would agree with that assessment Doug, it’s interesting though, in spite of the challenges our country faces, that we are talking about building a wall to keep foreigners out, that so many people want to come to the ‘ole good USA, I think that in itself speaks volumes about what so many take for granted about the liberties we enjoy here, including the liberty to criticize our government without being dismissed as “anti-patriots”, or thrown in prison. My political thinking has shifted somewhat since I was first eligible to vote. I started out voting Democratic, I was first eligible to vote in 1976 and voted for Jimmy Carter in the ’76 elections (I turned 18 that year, so it was cool to be eligible to vote in the Presidential Election, I voted Democratic in ’80 and ’84 as well, for Carter and Mondale, then switched to Republican in ’88 for George H. and then switched back again to Democrat in ’92 and ’96 for Bill, and switched again (I am ashamed to say for George W. in ’00 and ’04.) I’m not sure where I come in on Reagan, but I do have to agree when he made the statement to Gorbechev about taking the Berlin Wall down, it was one of his better moments. I can’t remember for sure, I think it was an American president (maybe JFK?) who made a statement that “we don’t have to build a wall to keep our people in”, we are doing the opposite here, we are building a wall to keep people out. Of course we all know what happened to the Berlin Wall. I used to work with a Chinese lady, who was born in Shanghai, and escaped with her family on a boat to Taiwan on one of the last boats out of Mainland China in 1949 when the Communists took over, she eventually made her way to the U.S. and is very grateful to be here. I do have to say that she came from a very wealthy family in Shanghai, I don’t profess to know anything about her family personally, but I worked with her for about 9 years, and saw the American work ethic first hand from someone who wasn’t born here. It seems like the immigration debate has denigrated into a “they’re foreigners=bad”, and “we were born here=good”. Not a good way to pigeonhole people.
We who support border security are not saying illegal immigrants are bad.Some are as there are some bad people in every population.Only because our Federal government does not enforce it’s own immigration laws people are getting killed by people who shouldn’t be here in the first place.The border patrol are being subjected to fire bombs and rock throwing on a day to day basis on that border.I just do not understand the thinking by some people that just because these poor people come from a third world country it is up to the people of the United States to take care of them and provide for them because their country will not.They need to effect change in their own countries.If some of the Democratic presidential candidates are so worried about the division between rich and poor,wages and poverty I would not think importing hundereds of thousands of low skilled immigrants will help that situation will it?
This country currently has six guest worker programs but to hear the president talk we do not have any.
Why on earth does anyone think that LARAZA,Mexico itself,and some political leaders are so against this large double layered fence with a road between it like outside of San Diego?The reason is they no it is a useful tool in this effort.The border patrol is for it by the way but what would they know.They also say this new reform won’t work either.
Mexico,LARAZA,and some of those politicians favor the “virtual fence” because they know it doesn’t work as well.If this proposed fence did not work those afore mentioned groups would have been all for building it already.As far as border enforcement just do some research and find out how Mexico enforces it’s southern border!
Wow: Phillip, Lou and others: I don’t think that expecting immigrants to learn English is a bad thing. It is not going to happen overnight, however. Since none of us were alive back in the old timey days, can we really say how quickly immigrants learned English back then? Maybe they learned quickly; maybe they didn’t. I do not support businesses replacing American workers with immigrants–legal or otherwise–just because those businesses don’t want to pay decent wages and/or offer decent working conditions to their employees.
I also realize that Doug wasn’t suggesting that tests be administered, just stating that such a requirement would dramatically alter the political landscape. Tests on English proficiency, history, civics, etc. probably wouldn’t pass constitutional muster. Then again, with the current crew on the SCOTUS, who knows how they would rule if some state or locality tried to require that potential voters pass tests.
Pila wrote: Wow: Phillip, Lou and others: I don’t think that expecting immigrants to learn English is a bad thing.
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I think immigrants and others should learn English,but there should be no testing required to vote.
Lou: I think we are pretty much in agreement. I do think that we Americans might try to be multi-lingual, ourselves. Not saying that we need to do business in multiple languages, but there are benefits to being fluent (or even semi-fluent) in other languages. One benefit is that learning another language deepens a person’s understanding of English.
Pila,
What another language does is give us a way to communicate directly into a culture that we can see in the original,rather than trough translation from our own point of view of our own language.Imagine a bunch of Americans in a tour bus going through France discussing what they see in English. Then imagine one American,who has learned French to a point of basic comprehension, on a French tour bus of French speaking French tourists who are discussing what they see. Who gains the most insights? Be wary of anything translated( including the Bible). I still get angry with the Bush administration for encouraging and supporting the change of ‘French fries’ to ‘Freedom fries’ in the Congressional Cafeteria.It kind of sums up the whole administration for me.
Phillip, I agree that we need to do something about border security. I wasn’t proponing that we give a blanket amnesty to illegal immigrants. I have a problem with illegal immigrants who deliver their babies here, (and with those infants getting automatic U.S. citizenship, and then getting free medical services), which we all end up paying for, but at the same time a problem related to illegal immigration is the number of businesses that hire illegal immigrants. I am studying now to take the CFE exam (Certified Fraud Examiner) and have testified in several trials as a witness in regards to fraudulent financial records. To me it seems the bigger problem isn’t necessarily whether someone was born here or not, but whether someone (born here or not), is just trying to play the system or really has a desire to work hard and play by the rules. I think we should deport those who are just milking the taxpayers, but I think we need to be careful in making a blanket statement, pro or con. It is a difficult problem to be sure, one I think Congress (both Republican and Democrat) are playing political games with. I have to agree with Doug, (I really don’t know that much about Michael Bloomberg, but I would take a look at him also, and see what he has to say before dismissing him).
unioncitynative,
We agree on this issue about the employers.The employers lure these people here because they can pay them less and control them.The reason I know none of this will change in the new bill being proposed is that the corporations helped write or consulted on however you wish to phrase it on this legisaltion along with LA RAZA,Homeland Security Chief Chertoff,Commerce Secretary Gutierez,and 12 Senators who met behind closed doors out of the normal process for a new bill since February.The business community in Texas and Georgia are even running ads for this legislation on TV.
Do you really believe these business communities are running these ads because they’re worried about the illegal immigrants or future immigrants??