LETTERS TO
EDITOR
JULY 22, 2002
On:
"Illegal": a false absurd and
grossly racist poem.
http://www.hispanicvista.com/html/071502osio.htm
From: Gary S.
Leveque, Danville, CA
Thank you for this articulate and
profoundly accurate response to the
latest bigoted piece of diatribe titled
"Illegal" from the Valley
Citizen Magazine. As a teacher in
this school district I am appalled time
and again by Mr. Thompson, Mr. Arata ,
SRVUSD Board Member Greg Marvel and their
fellow Valley Citizen constituents.
The blatant
bigotry they insist on spreading through
our valley with the infusion of this
horrid magazine is intolerable.
I believe your suggestion to address the
advertisers of this Hate Rag is shared by
hundreds of community members who are
unwittingly being subjected to blatant
bigotry, racist and homophobic agendas.
Please let me know if I can support you
in your letter writing efforts.
Thanks you again for standing up against
these hate mongers who infect our
community.
From: Mrs. Mickie
Luna, State President, California League
of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
To: editor@valleycitizen.com
Subject: OFFENSIVE
JOURNALISTIC TRASH
Dear Editor
Tom and Ann Blake
Terry & Dee
Thompson
I am writing to you
on behalf of the Californiamembership of
the largest and oldest Latino
organization in the nation, the League of
United Latin American Citizens (LULAC),
to inform you that we take extreme
offense to your July 2002
publication and the insensitivity of
printing a poem called
"illegal". I have taken
the liberty to pass this journalistic
trash to Latino organizations throughout
the nation and Mexico so to inform them
of your publication that allows this type
of tasteless and offensive writings to
appear in a newspaper that is geared
toward family values and community.
We have received numerous calls on this
crude publication that has unsolicited
reached many homes of Mexican descent
families. Everyone has the First
Amendment to fall back on when writing
this type of trashy information- the
right to voice our opinions, and yes, we
also have a right to express our outrage
and demand an apology from you for the
insensitivity of allowing this to
print.
I could inform you
on the many contributions Mexican
immigrants have given to this country,
like fighting under war and giving their
lives to make this nation a land of the
free, and never asking for anything
in return. Yet all that has been
diminished for a poem that is hateful and
hurtful to so many citizens of Mexican
descent.
Let us not forget
that this Country is rich for it's
diversity and cultures and for the family
values that your newspaper writes about.
We request your
attention to this matter and request an immediate
apology to the Mexican
communities in California and the nation,
for they now have a copy of your
publication.
(Note to
HispanicVista editor:I am hoping that
local newspaper pick up on this racist
poem as the San Francisco KRON Channel 4
and Telemundo have already broadcasted
this on the news Friday evening.
I believe La
Opinion is getting this out as
well. Please encourage others to
write, call and email this
newspaper. We need to put them out
of business, what would happen if the
"mexican" residents of that
community did not purchase any items from
these advertisers for the next 6
months? That is one suggestions
coming in. Maybe we will move on
it. I will have the names of the
advertisers hopefully by Tuesday. Mickie
Luna)
From: Brent
Wilkes, LULAC Executive Director
Terry Thompson I wish you would
check your facts before you publish
racist poems or ask something stupid like
"Do you believe that giving
government welfare to illegals is the
equivalent of stealing from those
citizens who work and pay taxes?" In
fact, undocumented immigrants are not
eligible for welfare at all, although as
Mickie pointed out they do have to pay
taxes. In addition, most legal
immigrants are not eligible for welfare
thanks to the 1996 Welfare Bill.
Your question should be, "Do you
think that restricting welfare
eligibility to US citizens, but making
undocumented and legal immigrants pay
taxes to support the welfare system,
unfairly cheats those immigrants out of
benefits that they pay for?"
But then again, I don't suppose you are
really interested in facts, especially if
it means acknowledging that immigrants
benefit the US.
From: Michael
Gonzalez Angel, President and CEO NAAHP*
I believe the
purpose of this "Poem" is to
create and spread hate and
anger by the Anglo mainstream population
toward Hispanics and Latinos in
general, and Mexicans in
particular. Is this type of hate
mongering
activity not illegal under the Hate
Crimes laws of the State of
California? Perhaps LULAC can
engage in some legal research. Any
Judge
would be indeed outraged, as I am.
*(National Association for the
Advancement of Hispanic People)
From: Abel
Ramirez Magaña – Site Manager, www.HispanicBusiness.com
Thanks for noting
this blatant case of racism. It is sad
and appalling that Mr. Thompson has a
platform to disseminate his brand of
bigotry by merely labeling it as
"satirical humor." This guy is
so obtuse he thinks he doesn't recognize
where he offends. Clearly, he has no
sense of the facts regarding immigration
or the Latino community.
From: Ishgooda,
Managing Editor, Native News Online.
Mr. Thompson,So when
the British stole the land from my people
then sold it to the US, when the US
purchased land from the French (neither
of which "owned it"), when the
Spanish came and massacred numerous
tribes in California, followed by those
hungry for gold from the east who placed
bounties on Indian
people..."that" is following
the rules.
Great..now we can reciprocate and you
should have no objections.
My neighbor's house is fairly decent, the
fact that I don't own it shouldn't faze
you (never bothered your ancestors)..I
can offer a great price...let me know?
From: James May
sent to: Syndicated columnist
Roberto Rodriguez, (who graciously
distributed HispanicVista opinion piece) XColumn@aol.com
Wow, I'm stunned,
shocked and outraged at this disgustingly
crass poem!!
The last time I saw a group of
"illegal" immigrants at the
bank they certainly weren't laughing.
They were standing in the non-account
holders line and most of them looked
pretty damn grim.
The writer of this poem, distributed to a
decadently upscale area, was probably
upset about tax payments that prevented
him (and I do mean him) from getting that
third SUV. Conveniently ignoring that
government payments to corporations far
outstrip welfare payments that are only
given to LEGAL citizens. Government
bailout payments alone to a single
corporation, take your pick Chysler,
individual savings and loans, would cover
the costs of all migrant labor in the
entire country for a year.
The writer of the offending poem might
also be enlightened by visiting a migrant
shanty camp, at any one of thousands of
different sites up and down the Central,
Imperial and Coast Range valleys and he
might then be inclined to change his
views that life for most migrant laborers
is not quite the big, breeding fiesta
that he thinks it is.
The writer probably also policies that
favor corporate farmers so he can get the
lowest prices possible. These farms, the
most common in California, are about as
far from the Jeffersonian ideal as the
writer is from a laborer shanty-town. Big
corporate farms need mass labor, and they
get it by exploiting the sluggish Mexican
economy. Rather than provide a good, safe
working environment like the ranch hands
on old-style family farms, the migrants
are forced from job to job, field to
field, never being allowed to put down
roots and be woven into the American
tapestry. Then, people like this writer,
incredulously BLAME the migrants for what
is not their fault. The migrants are
blamed for poverty, crime, alcoholism,
sex abuse, drug trafficking, and violence
as if this was their natural condition.
Never once is the corporate farmer blamed
for creating unreasonable conditions of
poverty and rootlessness that create
these social calamities.
I for one am sick of these racist,
gluttonous right wingers, who have
managed to point fingers at every one
else but themselves. What they do and say
IS the problem, not the migrant workers,
who just want a real roof, food for the
family and day off every once in a while.
I don't think that's asking too much.
From: Steven A
Figueroa
President MAPA
Voter Registration and Education Corp.
I am disturbed that
you publication would print such an
erroneous and slanderous comments on the
issue of immigration and the Mexican
American community, printed in the July
Issue of the Valley citizen. What are you
thinking? What is Your Background? I
question whether you publication is a
responsible publication or are you and
undercover publication for a Hate Group ?
Do you even consider the impact that ill
words such as those that are stated in
the what only be described as a racist
poem, have on society. In the schools
or in neighborhoods. With respect to
the first amendments. There are limits
and I believe the supreme court has ruled
o these issues. You can not yell
fire in a crowded theater. Since my
family has been in California since 1769,
and in the America's since 1500's I
take the July edition of the Valley
Citizen as a statement of your ignorance
of America and it diverse peoples. My son
just returned from Afghanistan to protect
all of our freedoms. My Father is a
disabled Vet. My Uncle is a decorated
Veteran from Vietnam. The
Hispanic including illegal aliens that
have served in the U.S. Arm Forces has
more congressional Medal of Honor Medals
per capita to the population than any
other segment of society. I will be
bring to the Board of Directors of
MAPA a resolution to contact,
All Advocacy groups in California,
My Father is Active in Veteran
Organizations to contact your Advertisers
to initiate a boycott of your
publication, Unless a public apology is
issued, in writing in the major
newspapers of California. This is no
Joke!
From: Sharleen
Maldonado, BOARD MEMBER
Pacific Rim Institute for Development
& Education (a UN NGO)
President & CEO, BTC
I am offended not
because my disabled brother was beaten to
a pulp in the Army by white soldiers of
European descent and left for dead,
condemning his family forever to an
intolerable life of suffering, and not
because my father the war hero was the
son of an illegal who worked in fields
eventually hiring many people as an
entrepreneur, and that my father was the
first Mexican American navigator in the
Air Force earning two Distinguished
Flying Crosses, and not because I remain
a widow of a Vietnam Veteran whose
contribution far outshines yours.
I was an English major, who always had to
rewrite exams and essays to prove that
they were mine. I assure you that
the bad lingo of the subject poem is not Mexico
based, it is Black. On behalf of
Senator Orrin Hatch whose comments about
insulting children and causing suffering
to children remind us all of our
humanity, and as a former member of his
Hispanic Advisory Committee to the US
Senate, your approach is in your
publication aimed at an unbearable small
margin of bullies.
My counsel to you is to remember the need
to promote good English, American English
and not Red Neck English or some jaded
honky-tonk lingo. It is also
important in journalism to recognize
ethics and standards that unify a
community and not work to disintegrate a
state whose mother country is Mexico and
not England. Be mindful of your
place in a state that is increasingly
economically dependent on the Latino
dollar.
Economics will get you; now I would
like to make arrangements for the
necessary purchase of your poorly
managed paper. You obviously have
only a niche market, and this is simply
not sustainable for marginal
managers. Please have an
articulate and sensible individual
contact my office via this e-mail:
Cafexico@aol.com
From: Patricia M. De La Rosa, San
Diego, CA
Dear Mr. Thompson,
Your poem is
offensive to all Americans because of
your hideous grammar.
Only ignorance and
lack of education (academically or
maturity) would take a subject as serious
as immigration/welfare policy
and write an elementary school
level rhyme and call it a
"Poem." The part I
found most humorous is your last sentence
after the poem apologizing to "legal
immigrants" when you wrote
"that how my ancestors got here
too." Perhaps a better effort
to avoid accentuating your ignorance
of this matter was to use proper English.
I don't have the
time to research who your Congressional
representative is, but I recommend
you contact his/her office to get briefed
by his staff on the latest immigration
and welfare policies of our great
nations. You may also want to
contact your County Board of Supervisors
to find out more about your local public
assistance programs.
Our great
nation allows freedom of speech and that
includes people like you who remain
ignorant to the truth about issues
they seem to complain about the
most.
You poor man, I will
pray for you. Perhaps through your
ability to humiliate yourself, you will
become humbled in your lack of
understanding.
May God Bless you
and God Bless America.
From: J. Chavez, San
Diego, CA
(Note: Mr. Chavez
picks out sentences from Mr. Thompson’s
letter responding to “why are you
offended appearing below the
HispanicVista opinion article – Mr.
Thompson’s sentences appear in
maroon – Mr. Chavez’s answers
in blue.)
It would help me to
know what you found offensive.
The snide,
sarcastic, crude parody of non-native
English speakers. (How do you think you
and most of your readers sound speaking a
foreign language which you did not study
extensively? I speak two languages
proficiently. How about you?).
The obvious
insinuation that immigrants (some? most?
all?) come here with the expectation of
not being employed. The opposite is
true. The vast majority of
immigrants come here specifically to
work. Many work more than one full
time job and/or also attend classes, as
do most able members of their families.
The denial (in your
response letter from T. Thompson,
co-publisher, “The Valley Citizen”)
that that crude racial parody was
targeted at any particular ethnic or
racial group – i.e. “…not
at Mexicans”. The inept
linguistic and racial parodies clearly
target Spanish speaking immigrants:
“..Chebby trucks”, “Everything
is mucho good” (this is
grammatically incorrect in both English
and Spanish!), “Got lots of room in Mexico”,
etc.
Your ignorance of
the fact that most of the people on
welfare assistance in the United States
are white, Anglo U.S. citizens. Many
of these people, as well as those of
other ethnicities and racial origins,
suffer physical or severe emotional
impairment or have temporary economic
crises that they are trying to overcome.
Your ignorance of
welfare reform in the United Stateswhich
precludes chronic long-term welfare
assistance for other than certain
substantive disability situations.
Your “high
regard for the Mexican people and their
excellent work ethic”. I
interpret this to mean some form of
shallow toleration by you of Mexicans,
IF they are a source of underpaid labor
in jobs that many less motivated U.S.citizens
refuse to do for the wages paid.
This will help me to
know what to avoid in the future.
Unfortunately, Mr.
Terry Thompson, Co-publisher, “The
Valley Citizen”, it is my opinion
that we are not dealing with “avoidance”
here, but rather a case of endemic and
probably permanent ignorance and
insensitivity – yours. There
is certainly a lack of any professional
journalistic integrity in your letter and
in the poem you published. There is
a First Amendment right under the U.S.
Constitution that allows publication of
such material. However, we are
talking about taste, maturity, character,
integrity, professionalism and
fundamental human values – much of
which are lacking in your letter and the
published poem.
In particular:
o What lines in the poem were offensive
to you? Most or all.
o Do you live in our distribution area? No;
so what. (I have lived in your
distribution area in the past, however).
o How did you get a copy of the poem? Email
o Do you believe that illegal immigration
is wrong? An obvious non sequitur –
if it is “illegal”, ipso
facto, it is “wrong”.
o Do you believe that giving government
welfare to illegals is the equivalent of
stealing from those citizens who work and
pay taxes?
I believe that
paying for a subscription or advertising
in your publication, “The Valley
Citizen”, is mis-spent money that
could otherwise go to those who think
clearly and who make positive
contributions to our society. (This is
not an indictment of your readership, for
they are not the publishers; it IS an
indictment of the publishers and editors
of “The Valley Citizen”).
I also enjoy “good
satire and humor”, as you put it.
However, nothing in your letter or the
subject published poem appears to me to
resemble GOOD satire and humor. A
great U.S.journalist, humorist and
satirist once said: “The very
ink in which history is written is merely
fluid prejudice.” (Mark Twain
[Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910),
U.S. author). Unfortunately, I believe
you continue to contribute to this “fluid
prejudice”.
Reasonable tolerance
and minimal prejudice goes well beyond
visiting or working in a country (Mexico,
in your stated case), enjoying their
regional cuisine, having their natives as
neighbors or employees, etc. It is more
fundamental and less superficial than
that. In a more evolved form it
relates to fairness and equality –
you know, the same values cited in the
U.S. Constitution that also gives the
First Amendment right you have to
publish. The Preamble to the
Constitution of the United States reads,
in part: “…. in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for
the common defense, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity
…”. Often domestic
tranquility and the blessings of liberty
are overshadowed by justice and
defense. Our country was founded on
laws AND principles and values. The
laws are not at issue here; the
principles and values are.
As a matter of
history, my antecedents were living in
what is now the United Statesin a
well-established settlement in Santa Fe, New
Mexicowell before another group, the
“Pilgrims”, came to the U.S.
This is meaningless if one considers that
Native Americans (America = American
Continent = U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central
and South Americaand various islands)
have been “here” for millennia.
It matters not when a person, family or
group first arrived to this country.
It matters most that while here they are
positive contributors to our society
– economically, morally and
otherwise.
My family is mostly
of Mexican origin. We are proud to
have lawyers, corporate executives,
teachers (including a few PhD university
professors), writers, blue-collar
workers, agricultural workers, domestic
laborers, construction workers, small
business owners, military, homemakers and
other gainfully employed people making
positive contributions to our families,
communities, nation and society. In
our family we value those who exhibit
character, morality, integrity as well as
diligence and academic performance.
Many, if not most, of the members of our
family have worked more than one
full-time job and some have also attended
college while doing so – I did.
My family is not that different from many
other Mexican, Latin American and Asian
families that I grew up with. My
family is not unusual; most other
families I know who have immigrated to California
in the last 100 years are making similar
or greater positive contributions.
This is not the
voice of just one person speaking. It
is a voice representing positive human
values and virtues. It is a voice
from immigrants past and present. It
is a voice that rejects prejudice and
bias in any form. It is a voice of
the millions contributing to our country
and society. It is the kind of
voice that should be heard more
frequently in your publication and it’s
editors and contributors.
I urge you to be
more professional, discerning and
circumspect in your journalism.
From: David P.
Morales, Esq., Los Angeles, CA
I am in receipt of
Terry Thompson's reply and I have
reviewed the racist and offensive
"poem" your paper published. It
does not surprise me that one can be so
ignorant and racist that he or she could
author such offensive material.
What surprises me is that any
editor could possess such ignorance and
poor judgment as to consciously decide to
publish such racist material.
Additionally, your response sadly
confirms that such ignorance and racism
does, in fact, exist in 2002 in
communities which one might have thought
to be more sophisticated. Both the
poem and your response indicate a
profound lack of knowledge concerning
public assistance programs, immigration
history and policy, taxation and
law. The purpose of this message is
not to remedy the many shortcomings of
your untutored mind. Rather, it is
intended merely to suggest how you may be
able to acquire a better understanding of
the issues you are attempting to address.
First, in order to comment on the nature
of "welfare fraud," it would be
advisable for you to become familiar with
the eligibility requirements for such aid
so you might understand exactly what
population you are actually
referencing. Next, you should
examine all welfare fraud to obtain some
understanding of where the
"problem" lies. I believe
you will find that the bulk of such
wrongful behavior is not, in fact,
committed by illegal
immigrants as you suggest.
However, I believe your commentary
would be more appropriate if focused on
the corporate fraud on the market that is
currently being uncovered. You will
probably find that this practice of
corporate misrepresentation imposes much
greater costs on the American economy
than the fraud you purport to
identify. In an economic sense, you
appear to have focused on a non-issue,
perhaps to further an objected rooted
more in racism than in the economic
health of this nation.
Your suggestion that illegal immigration
somehow results in stealing from citizens
who work and pay taxes indicates that you
haven't even a rudimentary knowledge of
the American tax system. With even
the smallest amount of effort you might
discover that one of the primary sources
of revenue is from payroll taxes.
The payroll tax is paid by wage earners
and it is considered regressive because
it is not based on the worker's ability
to pay. It is a flat tax that
phases out as income rises, i.e., the
highest-paid workers pay a lower
percentage of their income. All
wage earners, regardless of their
immigration status, pay this tax.
Additionally, wage earners, regardless of
immigration status, pay income taxes
through their withholdings.
Accordlingly, your suggestion that
"illegal immigrants" do not pay
taxes is clearly mistaken.
You might be able to mitigate some of
your ignorance through additional time
spent reading. Given your apparent
political bias, I would refer you to the
respected, conservative paper, The
Economist. That paper has published
the results of economic studies reviewing
the exact issue you raise, i.e., whether
immigration is a net benefit or a net
cost to the American economy.
Unambiguously, formal studies determined
that such
immigration is not a "drain on the
economy" as you suggest, rather they
result in a net economic benefit.
To anyone familiar with California's
agricultural and service economy, it is
readily observable that undocumented
workers provide an enormous economic
benefit to the state.
In closing, I would request that your
publication exhibit better judgment
concerning what it chooses to
publish. At the very least, if you
insist on publishing racist and
xenophobic material, I would request that
you make an effort to exhibit a better
factual understanding of any issues you
would like to address.
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