Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Immigration / Legislature / Phillips Ketron and Faulk Did Not Get Enough of Schoolyard Bullying in School, Apparently
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 6:00 AM
Just when you think you've heard it all in terms of mean-spirited legislation, some fools
Yes, people, SB 2693/HB 2490 would legally require school districts to document how terrible it is to have to serve all segments of their communities. It would also punish the school districts who refuse to participate in their cruelty.
It's one thing to talk about adults. But to demand "research on the adverse impact of the enrollment of students who cannot prove lawful residence in the United States" in order to measure the impact of their presence on taxpayers is just hilariously evil.
I mean, what comes of this? You can't not educate kids who live in your community. So ... what? You just want to make sure that everyone knows they're different and that they need to be observed at all times? Should we spit on them, too?
Maybe there's some moment when we step back and say, "You know what? These are children. It's reprehensible to make life harder for children." Maybe that moment is now.
Comments (14)
Showing 1-14 of 14
You're spewing leftard rubbish.
These kids you speak of don't have much chance to learn or succeed because we allowed their parents to come here without even requiring the basic tenets needed to integrate (you know, integration, the old 'melting pot' meme that's served America for centuries). We do not demand of these 'immigrants' that they learn English; that they understand the basics of our economics or of our government and how a free society system should work. Oh, but they do know and understand how to get the free liberal-mandated stuffs, like education for their kids, because we care.
The first thing they, and you, should learn:
TANSTAAFL.
Now get busy and pump my free gas and healthcare.
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Actually, Betsy, its even worse than you point out. As a threshold matter, before they can report on how awful undocumented kids are, local school systems will have to search out and identify those kids.
This casts local county-and-state-funded school systems in the role of a super INS. And what will be the school system's obligation once it determines a child is here illegally? Like any citizen or government entity which has knowledge that a crime has been committed, won't the schools have a duty to report the crimes to the authorities? This is nothing less than an extension of the deeply-flawed 287(g) process from our county jails to our county schools.
Tennessee public schools face enough challenges right now without loading a law enforcement obligation onto people who are supposed to be educating our kids. We ought to be helping schools achieve their primary responsibilities; not burdening them with extra jobs that have nothing to do with the three Rs.
This is just another example of lawmakers who are unwilling to confront the real issues before us - like unemployment, education, and health care - and would rather dump red meat distractions out on the table to pander to the worst of their constituents.
serr8d, whatever. The German side of my family has been in America since before the Revolutionary War and my Grandpa was the first generation to speak only English. And his is not an unusual situation. So, we've been a melting pot except for the stubborn bits of bratwurst?
I doubt it. The melting pot metaphor has always been flawed. (As you know, so I don't even know why we have to go through the theater of having this fight.)
Mark, I think that's exactly right, and like 287(g), it can't help but be deeply racist. The whole was we know a "problem" exists is that there are now brown kids in schools that used to be predominately white and/or black. And the way to judge whether the "problem" has been solved would be if there are fewer brown kids.
When the measure of a problem and the recognition of a solution to that problem are based on race, that's textbook racism.
"Theater", AuntB? The metaphor is "flawed"? Really?
When did immigrants to this nation become such a problem as they obviously are right now? Certainly not when your Germanic sorts came to our shores. The catch in your logic is the phrase 'speaking only English'. These 'immigrant' kids want to learn zero English, because their parents want to learn zero English; they want to bring their foreign culture with them, taking only as much from our safety nets as they need to to stay functioning. Do you think their parents are actively learning English, which should be a mandated requirement for staying in this country? Why, no.
Keep allowing these 'immigrants' to pick away at our hard-earned American culture, keep giving away Other People's Money to buy votes for your far-left party. You and yours may very well live to regret your leftist, EuroSocialisty ways.
"Melting pot?" Does anyone who walks, talks, and breathes still believe in that rubbish?
The United State are, and ever have been a nation of immigrants. But when the mass-murdering Butcher of Springfield destroyed the Republic and gave us an involuntary nationalist "union" we became a domestic empire.
A scant few decades later, we became a militaristic international empire. The welfare state was an inevitability.
With the existence of the unsustainable welfare state that has consigned our children to serfdom, it is not the immigrants we oppose. Merely the illegal aliens who refuse to go through proper channels to enter our coercively generous nation.
Of course, the only sustainable solution is to eliminate the entitlement state completely. Then there will be no need to limit immigration. For all will of necessity, pull their own weight.
Eliminate entitlements & subsidies (both corporate and personal), and you eliminate the parasitic vampire class.
Actually, serr8ted, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Do you personally know any children of illegal immigrants? I know a number of them (though I didn't know their status at the time I began tutoring some of them). Here's the thing. The parents don't speak English, but ALL of the kids do. They know Spanish and hear it at home, but English is their primary language. So whatever else you contribute to the debate, don't continue the BS that these kids don't know English and aren't interested in learning it.
Dear serr8d:
The answer to your question lies in the question itself. Immigrants are not now, nor have they ever been, "a problem."
The anti-immigration venom directed at Hispanics right now is exactly what it was when it was directed against the Irish in the 1860's, the Chinese in 1882, and the Italians from 1881-1920. It is driven by the same prejudices, and is fostered by the same kind of cynical politicians who would rather demonize newcomers than deal with real problems.
If you're really concerned that immigrant children learn English, why would you not want them mainstreamed into public schools? On that same note, since when are public schools a "safety net?"
Having immigrants and children of immigrants in a population does not "pick away" at the culture; it adds to it. Since I know you won't take my word for it, just ask Justice Antonin Scalia, Gov. Bobby Jindal, or Rep. Devin Nunes, all of whom hate health care reform as much as you do.
serr8d, you obviously don't have any contact with the immigrant community, legal or illegal. You obviously don't know anything about language acquisition, either, because children are natural language sponges. You take a 6-year-old and plop him in an environment where people outside of his family speak another language, and he'll be speaking that other language in no time. I've seen it happen more than once, and most frequently in Central America with American families who were there for extended stays.
I live in South Nashville. In my neighborhood there are white folks (some relative newcomers to the neighborhood like myself, some whose families have lived there for generations), Hispanics, Africans, and more. Sure, on a sunny Saturday afternoon there is norteno music blaring from cars, but many of those brown teenagers are just as likely to be listening to hip-hop. EVERY person under the age of 21 that I've ever run into speaks very good, if not native, English. The older folks? Most of them speak at least rudimentary English.
Are there immigrants who don't learn English, our laws, etc.? Sure. But to stereotype ALL such people as illegal, or on the flip side to stereotype all illegals as willfully refusing to learn anything about living here, is ignorant in the extreme.
When did immigrants to this nation become such a problem as they obviously are right now? Certainly not when your Germanic sorts came to our shores.
You don't know too much US history, do you? In the first half of the 19th century German immigrants here were excoriated for their perceived refusal to assimilate. For their language, their food, their politics, their clannishness, all the same complaints I see against immigrant groups now. And yet look at how unhyphenated-American their descendants have become: so much so that you can't even imagine a time when they weren't.
The catch in your logic is the phrase 'speaking only English'. These 'immigrant' kids want to learn zero English, because their parents want to learn zero English; they want to bring their foreign culture with them, taking only as much from our safety nets as they need to to stay functioning.
Gee, the ones I've taught (and that's many classroomsful) are all eager to learn English, to be educated in it, to do meaningful work that requires its use, to pay taxes on the money they earn from that work, etc., etc. To be Americans, in short.
The ignorance you display is no crime, but basing opinions on ignorance just makes you look like a fool.
Statistics also support that position that 2nd & 3rd generation Hispanics are English literate. The number of 2nd gen Hispanics who are either bilingual or English dominate is 93%. Sadly for 3rd generation Hispanics, none are Spanish fluent and only 22% are bilingual.
http://enclave-nashville.blogspot.com/2007/02/generations-of-hispanic-immigrant.html
So, not only does Americanization work in an impressively quick manner, but it seems to overextend and destroy incentives for the grandchildren of immigrants to retain the bilingualism that generates greater job prospects in a global marketplace.
Also note that a quarter of all 1st generation immigrants are bilingual. To suggest that we need to force immigrants to learn English is ridiculous when they are learning English and there is no hard evidence beyond prejudice that they are not.
serr8d
Ever been to NYC? You have China Town, Little Italy, and a thousand other neighborhoods with their own ethnic flair.
In Poston you have Southy, which is Irish through and through, so much so that in the 1970s-80s it was a major transdhipment point for IRA weapons and a major recruiting are for the IRA. Then the North End which is so Italian that you see more Italian Flags then American Flags.
In Pittsburgh, you have the strip district which has dozens different ethnic stores. The West side is mostly polish.
Cleveland has dozens of different little enclaves.
Every ,ajor American City I have ever been to has ethnic enclaves, I even know of a city in Eastern Massachusetts where Portuguese is spoken more then English.
I am a conservate Republican and even I can;t buy into your BS.
Ron Jones:
Any belief system that forces its adherents into the tortured grammar contained in your post is insupportable. I refer to your sentence, "The United State are, and ever have been a nation of immigrants."
I'm assuming "United State" was a typo, since that ain't the name of this country. I'm familiar with the Shelby Foote argument that it took the Civil War to make the United States an "is" instead of an "are," so I assume your choice of the word "are" was deliberate. That being the case, your use of the plural phrase "and ever have been" was properly in number agreement with the plural word "are."
The trouble comes in the next clause, where you identify "The United State" as "a nation." Whoops! You're now back to the singular.
You can't have it both ways, bubba. If the United States is one nation (as the Pledge of Allegiance says), then the use of the word "are" is never the correct choice of verb to follow the country's name. On the other hand, if you really believe the United States is fifty sovereign nations, then you can't refer to it as "a nation" or "a country."
Like it or not, Ron Jones, this question has been settled for 145 years next month. You are free to spout your nonsense anywhere in this nation -- but it IS nonsense, and this IS one nation.
"When did immigrants to this nation become such a problem as they obviously are right now?"
Hmmm, let's ask the Native Americans who lived along the eastern seaboard during the early 1700's?
Let's ask the New Yorkers who rioted to protest Irish immigration during the Civil War.
Let's ask the white supremacists who cried the influx of Italians, Germans, Jews, Poles and Eastern Europeans who flooded through Ellis Island during the early 1900's would be the ruin of this country.
Lets ask the New Orleaneans who gathered at the docks to welcome the slave ships from West Africa (no, wait, that's the kind of immigration Americans LIKE).
For three hundred years, the descendants of immigrants to the U.S. have been wailing that the arrival of MORE immigrants would mean "the death of our way of life."
Dude, you may want to check out the demographic profile of the U.S. military. A lot of those immigrants children are over in Afghanistan risking their lives to save your sorry a#@.
I want to protect American jobs too, but I refuse to subscribe to the xenophobia that these two guys subscribe to--especially when it involves targeting children as scapegoats. It's ironic that many of these conservatives who give lip service to family values and to the justified rights of our children to be protected from violent predators and molesters to start acting like these very offenders when they put the blame on the chilren of illegal aliens. These children have not committed any crimes! All children when they are in our jurisdiction have the same right to a decent education so that they'll become productive adult citizens, whether citizen or alien. It is cowardly to hide behind little children, especially when it is for the purpose of fomenting bigotry!
