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Liberals’ View of Immigrants

By Will Freedom

  On a recent trip to south Florida, as well as the central part of that state, I was struck by the strange -- no, schizophrenic view Liberals have of Hispanic immigrants.  On one hand, the softhearted socialists decry the menial jobs, low pay and long hours worked by migratory laborers, while, on the other, they heap derision and palpable hatred on successful individuals from the Hispanic community. Hispanics most despised seem to be any immigrant of independent means from Central or South America who moves into or builds a nice home.  In the central portion of Florida, I met immigrants from Mexico and Central America who work and share the American dream and aren't looking for a handout from anyone.

  The socialist view that Hispanics are a monolithic culture that needs their special attention is the cause of extreme mental contortions for the liberals.  On one hand, the libs like to talk about how mistreated the Spanish speaking population is and then, in the same breath, to complain that everyone speaks Spanish and how the Cuban exiles rule Miami.  They complain that not only are the Hispanics in ascendancy in south Florida, but they are driving up real estate prices and are actually displacing poor people with upwardly mobile, educated, or God forbid, wealthy people.  Now, liberals are used to bashing wealthy people of northern European extraction, but it's a new thing when they must look for ways to bash successful Hispanics without revealing that they are as xenophobic as any redneck Klansman. Referring to the houses that Hispanics build, as "Spanish Castles" is one way their actual bigotry is revealed.  Homes of wealthy Caucasians are not referred to as "white castles", even though the libs most definitely hate them as well or more.  Perhaps the liberals feel betrayed by the success of folks from south of the border.  (I was already on thin ice in tropical heat, so I didn't ask my liberal guide which was more offensive -- their wealth or their ethnic heritage.)

  Speaking with working class immigrants in another part of Florida, I found they were as interested in providing for their families, educating their children and buying and fixing up their homes as any other working class person and were not particularly interested in handouts.  The only frightening thing I noticed was the zeal with which they set about their work as though they were (gasp, gulp) glad to have a job and wanted to do it so well that replacing them with someone less energetic would seem unthinkable.  Some who have become citizens are as proud of that fact as any European immigrant of earlier eras. Yes, they speak Spanish; in earlier times immigrants spoke Italian, German, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, French, or another "foreign" tongue, only to succumb to the lingua franca for the betterment of their financial situations and the education of their children.

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