Personally I don't find it offensive (I am pretty hard to offend) but it is tremendously, aggressively stupid.
"It isn't necessarily racist or nativist to worry about what these new demographics mean to the larger American story."
Racist, no, but opposition to immigration rooted in the concern that new arrivals don't reflect "American values" is pretty much the textbook definition of American nativism.
"They can spot a poser a mile off..."
Presumably, quintessential everyman George W. Bush was a rare slip-up...
"...their forefathers fought and died for an America that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years."
Sure, except for slavery for the first century, segregation for another century, and the genocide of, um, full-blooded Americans...
"And, the truth is, Mrs. Clinton's own DNA is cobbled with many of the same values that rural and small-town Americans cling to."
What was that part about posers again?
"That God, for instance, isn't something that comes and goes out of fashion."
A wide enough view of even American history suggests that religiosity absolutely does come and go out of fashion. This is, of course, completely irrelevant for the individual for whom faith is a cornerstone of their values, but since Ms. Parker is speaking about God in the context of some Great American Narrative I think this is a fair point.
"It is not necessary to repair antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land and who dismiss the struggles that resulted in their creation.
Full-blooded Americans get this."
Yes, because clearly people who are willing to risk an exceptionally nasty death crossing the desert, to endure separation from their family and friends, to leave everything they know behind...all for the opportunity to lay pinestraw, cook, clean, and care for the privileged spawn of people who will use them as political punching bags every time the economy hiccups...clearly they don't "get" America. And they certainly don't have any appreciation for struggle.
Some of the most fervent American patriots I have known didn't come from West Virginia or Pennsylvania or North Carolina. They come from Egypt, from Brazil, from India, and yes, from Mexico. I--a native-born American whose ancestors came over so long ago that in most cases we don't actually even know when they came over--am no more personally connected to what ancestors I may have had fighting in the American Revolution than I am to Alexander the Great. The struggle to create this country is a complete abstraction to me. This doesn't mean I don't appreciate it--I do--but to suggest that recent arrivals have less of an appreciation for what this country offers and is all about than I do is absurd.
And yes...perhaps even offensive.
3 comments:
when comparing today's mexican to last century's irsh/italian you need to take into account a few things.
-travel times. it took a month, or more, by boat to get back home to italy. ties to the 'old country' along with nationalist zeal in disregard to america was not an issue.
-the welfare state. hard working, while sucking the nipple today, just doesnt compare. it never can.
of course, there is the 'legal' follow the rules attitude that seems to be missing as well.
You know, I actually realized some time after putting this up that in commenting on Parker's article I got sucked into (one of) her most egregious error(s):
She completely and utterly conflates legal and illegal immigrants.
Moreover, she is, in fact, referring primarily to people like Sen. Obama--the immediate, American-born offspring of immigrants, who are American by constitutional definition, when she spouts off this creepily Nazi-esque nonsense about "blood equity".
And you're right Gino...Mexicans today don't compare to 19th century Europeans.
They are assimilating faster.
assimilation is how you define it.
but for marriages, and other factors spoken of, remember:
in 1900, your social contacts, and by extension marriages, were limited mostly to walking distance, keeping you basically among your own kind.
income: todays low wage migrant actually makes a much higher standard of living after the welfare state is factored in. in CA, one has to earn nearly $20/hr without welfare to be on par with the $8/hr dishwasher who lives a highly subsidized life.
just two examples.
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