Friday, November 2, 2018

Trump immigration stance bad demographics, bad economics — and immoral

Hiroshima
     Their children were grown. The house, empty. My parents missed having kids around, so they hosted a student from Japan, a young woman, part of a group of a dozen staying around town. Not long: six weeks or so.
     During her stay, the group took a trip to Niagara Falls, but the student staying with my parents refused to go.

     After the tears and drama, the reason was revealed. Half of Niagara Falls is in Canada. Another country. She was ‘chosen-seki,’ the descendent of Koreans who came to Japan when it occupied Korea between 1910 and 1945. Her grandparents were Korean and, as far as the Japanese were concerned, so was she, as would be her children, and their children, into eternity. She worried about going through customs with her friends; somebody might see her passport, discover her shame.
Harajuku district, Tokyo
      Sound cruel? It is. It’s certainly un-American. We don’t judge people by measuring their grandparents. The law is, if you are born on American soil, you’re an American citizen. It’s written into our Constitution; the 14th Amendment, Section 1: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
     Donald Trump’s campaign was built on fear of immigrants, from the moment he proclaimed Mexicans criminals and rapists. Faced with possible rebuke at the polls Tuesday, he returned to stirring up fear and hatred, demonizing a band of Central American refugees walking toward this country.
     Promising to dispatch 15,000 soldiers to spend Christmas waiting for them didn’t do the trick. So Trump is talking about unilaterally abnegating part of the Constitution (Gosh, is that a thing? Because then gun control becomes easy).



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9 comments:

  1. It's not fear of illegal immigrants, it's fear of brown illegal immigrants. If there were a bunch of Canadians marching into the US seeking asylum, does anyone really think he'd be sending 15,000 troops to Detroit to stop them from crossing the border from Toronto? He's wants the military to be armed. Will there be orders to shoot? Could he get away with that? A year ago, I never thought our government could kidnap children, but it did. The spineless sycophants in Congress will apparently let him do anything he wants.

    If the Democrats don't succeed in minimally getting a majority in the House, we're really screwed. Trump will have managed to establish exactly what the founders were trying to guard against: an American monarchy. I just hope nobody tells him what Marshal Law is. A year ago, I would have thought that comment to be silly; now, I'm not really sure.

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    1. Based on the events of the last year or so, a substantial Democratic victory may be the only thing keeping us from the likelihood of Civil War 2.0 within the next three or four years. It's as basic as that.

      When the haters began obstructing everything Obama championed, many people laughed derisively and told me to STFU when I suggested that possibility. Since 11/9, far fewer folks are laughing.

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  2. I just don't understand WHY the Republicans are so afraid of people who are different than them. Is it because Hispanic people who come here and gain citizenship are more likely to vote Democrat in the future? Are they that scared of the idea that the entire world may one day be one color? Whenever you see a terroristic attack on US soil lately, it's a white man doing the terrorizing (but heaven forbid, don't call it a terrorist thing - reserve that term for people who look different). I teach middle school in a fairly diverse district, and I'm frightened for my students, who might be those birthright citizens whose rights are being threatened. Is a 13 year old student who speaks 2 languages really that frightening?

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    1. The same dynamic underlying so much bigotry: sex panic.

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    2. Not fear hatred and greed .not big on sharing. You know like infants

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    3. That 13 year old is probably not threatening to fellow students, unless he is the actual school bully. My 12 year old niece started school in the city before moving to the suburbs and she has been singled out to help developmentally challenged classmates. She gets it that the unpopular kids need friends too. At some point the realization of 'others' kicks in, hopefully today's children might start to break the cycle of fear, despite the example of some of our leaders. But how about adults? When Donald Trump claims fear of gang infiltration by asylum seekers, as excuse for denying entry to a Honduran woman and child who are fleeing gang violence, the irony is disgustingly obvious. When we can all push back on that attitude we will have made America great again.

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  3. The Japanese despise Koreans, except when they're K-Pop entertainers, which has a familiar feel to it.

    john

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    1. From what I understand, the Koreans aren't any too crazy about the Japanese, either.

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    2. True, but they send their kids to elite schools in Japan.

      My wife "hates" the Japanese the way the Irish used to "hate" the English, as she grew up in a Korea dominated by the Japanese in the 30s and 40s, but she likes to show off her knowledge of the Japanese language when the opportunity presents itself.

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