← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 12072 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2004-01-29
2004-01-29 12:07 | User Profile
'Illegal': Slur or accurate label? 'Undocumented' preferred by some for certain immigrants; others see cover-up. Rick Badie - Staff Wednesday, January 28, 2004
For Jerry Gonzalez, the term "illegal immigrant" packs as much vitriol as some racial slurs.
Many Latinos, he said, find it offensive.
"It's easy to dismiss someone when you use a disparaging term such as 'illegal immigrant' or 'illegal alien,' " surmised Gonzalez, who oversees the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, an Atlanta-based political action committee.
"I can't speak for other immigrant groups," he said, "but on behalf of the Latino community, many people I speak to on a day-to-day basis think it serves to dehumanize the person, makes them less than human. Similar to the way the n-word was used to dehumanize African-Americans."
It's not a pressing matter for the association, but the issue of what to call the state's 228,000 illegal immigrants has taken up space on the group's 2004 legislative agenda.
Gonzalez, the executive director, plans to lobby state lawmakers to use the term "undocumented workers" when talking about Mexicans and other foreigners here illegally.
"It's a more accurate reflection of people who provide a great deal for the economy," he said.
Gonzalez's reference that the term "illegal immigrant" prompts derision does not carry weight with some others.
"I don't think so at all," said Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming." "It doesn't describe a person in a negative, pejorative way. It means they don't have U.S. citizenship and that they didn't come to the United States in a lawful manner."
" 'Illegal' means you came as an immigrant, and broke the law," said Hanson, who founded the classics studies department at Fresno State University "It's a precise term, and not just for Mexicans."
D.A. King, founder of the American Resistance Foundation, a Marietta-based group that seeks tougher enforcement of immigration laws, said the term "undocumented workers" is "a politically correct invention to soften the brutal fact that these people are breaking the law."
"A good comparison would be to say a bank robber simply made an unauthorized withdrawal," he said.
But Mexicans who make illegal border crossings for job-rich cities like Atlanta "have no choice" but to break the law, said Victoria Chacon, founder and president of the South East Hispanic Media Association.
Term of choice
In La Vision de Georgia, the Spanish language newspaper she publishes Monday through Friday, Chacon has adopted "undocumented workers" as the term of choice.
"I don't think it's illegal to come here, work hard, and live in peace," she said. "They come for their family, risk their lives to find a better lifestyle."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and many other news organizations use both "undocumented immigrants" and "illegal immigrants" in describing foreigners who are in the country illegally.
Meanwhile, Gonzalez of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials says illegal residents fall into two categories: foreigners who never got the proper papers or those who received them, but allowed them to lapse.
"Either way they are here," Gonzalez said, "undocumented in this country. The term 'illegal alien' works to discredit the honest and thoughtful discussion that needs to take place in reforming immigration policy. It doesn't move the discussion beyond the fact that we have 8 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country because of our failed immigration policy."
The Centers for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, credits the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services) with inventing the term "undocumented workers" during the Carter administration.
"People wanted a P.C. word that downplayed the illegality of illegal immigration," said Mark Krikorian, the center's executive director. "It has no basis in law." To his knowledge, there aren't any other campaigns to encourage use of "undocumented workers." Not that it's needed.
"It's been spreading," said Krikorian, who called comparing the term "illegal immigrants" to the n-word "an outrage."
"You are either an unlawful alien, or an illegal alien," he said.
Many Latinos, he said, find it offensive.
Yes, the truth does hurt. Perhaps he'd prefer to be called a [color=brown]"spick."[/color]
State is looking for interpreters
The Georgia Department of Human Resources is looking for bilingual men and women interested in working as interpreters in various offices statewide. The department began an 80-hour training course Jan. 20 designed to prepare interpreters to work in health departments and other branches of the human resources agency.
For more information on future classes, call Gail Hoffman at 404-657-5244.
--- Compiled by Yolanda Rodriguez (yrodriguez@ajc.com) and Mark Bixler (mbixler@ajc.com).
Rodriguez is the local La Razaite who writes for the paper.
2004-01-29 13:29 | User Profile
[QUOTE]The Georgia Department of Human Resources is looking for bilingual men and women interested in working as interpreters in various offices statewide. The department began an 80-hour training course Jan. 20 designed to prepare interpreters to work in health departments and other branches of the human resources agency. [/QUOTE]
Sounds like the illegal, uh, undocumented workers are here to stay. And whom do you think will make up the bulk of those interpreters? The few whites who are fluent in Spainish will be disqualified because because their appearance, grammatically correct Castillian Spanish , and intelligence in seeing through scams would be discriminatory and offensive to the undocumented workers who can only speak ungrammatical Latin American Meztizo Spanish who are only stealing the services and money that should only go to citizens. If we returned to the original intent of the US or Confederate Constitutions, most of these taxes would not exist and private organizations and businesses would take up these services and do it more efficiently.
2004-01-29 15:18 | User Profile
SKemper,
I agree and look upon this as the founding of another unneccesary and unwanted cottage industry that not only does nothing for the economy, it sucks up tax money that could be better spent, but as a reward for illegals.
General Sherman and his army in five years couldn't do the sort of damage that our lack of immigration enforcement has done to Georgia.
2004-01-29 16:26 | User Profile
I have a semi serious suggestion regarding this immigration disaster. I say we start a campaign to have the word treason removed from our dictionaries. If the word doesn't apply here, in a situation where our leaders are facilitating a hostile invasion into the United States, then it has no meaning and we should stop murdering trees to make room for it.
2004-01-29 19:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]For Jerry Gonzalez, the term "illegal immigrant" packs as much vitriol as some racial slurs.
Many Latinos, he said, find it offensive.[/QUOTE]
[B]POOR BABIES![/B] :drool:
So instead of coming here to cruel, racist El Norte, tell all the "undocumenteds" to go south to beautiful Guatemala or El Salvador and find out what they're called there.
Hint: Those countries use stronger slurs than we do, usually accompanied by a steel-jacketed slug.
2004-01-29 19:38 | User Profile
Dehumanizing to illegals?
Are illegals above cucarachas invading your house?