Settlers Smuggled Selves in, Founded U.S.

TUCSON (By Salomón R. Baldenegro, Tucson Citizen) April 21, 2006 — In light of recent local marches—one of 10,000 people, the other of 17,000—focusing on immigration, some facts should help put things in perspective.

First, the United States was founded by people who came here without papers.

This land was occupied before 1776. The immigrants who came over from England didn't have permission or legal papers to enter. They smuggled themselves in.

Then they waged war on the people whose house they invaded, declared themselves citizens and smuggled in other folks.

The much-heralded Minutemen were card-carrying members of this gang of smugglers.

Second, illegal workers pay many billions in taxes (of every kind) and are major contributors to the national and local economies.

Third, illegal workers come for the noblest of purposes: to work to support their families.

The Mexican haters would make felons of hardworking, taxpaying people and those who interact with them, including clergy, which is what HR4437, by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., does.

Doing stoop labor harvesting the food that feeds America is a felony? If the haters were principled, they'd stop eating "felonious" food and import all their foodstuffs.

HR 4437 manifests the disdain with which right-wing Republicans view Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, millions of whom have served in war under this country's flag.

Indeed, an Arizona Republican legislator characterized the recent Tucson-Phoenix anti-HR 4437 demonstrations as an "invasion" by "foreign" people.

You know, "foreigners" such as me, U.S. Reps. Ed Pastor and Raúl Grijalva, state Sen. Jorge García and tens of thousands of other brown-skinned Americans who were in those marches.

In the 1930s, in a similar atmosphere of Mexican hating, hundreds of thousands of Mexican-Americans - U.S. citizens - were deported because they "looked foreign."

Two years ago, several "foreign looking" Mexican-American youngsters from Phoenix, who didn't have school-issued ID on them, were deported.

There's nothing subtle about this Mexican-hating campaign.

On radio station KFYI, a Phoenix talk-show host recently proposed that rather than deport illegal workers, people "play immigrant roulette" whereby " . . . we'll randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border."

Such rantings can get people to act out racist fantasies. I remember well a Mexican-hate campaign in the 1980s that led to the torture of illegal workers.

A revealing insight: Right-wingers such as Fox News' Bill O'Reilly and some Arizona politicians are having a conniption over Dolores Huerta's comment at Tucson High that "Republicans hate Latinos," but their silence regarding a radio personality urging people to kill Mexicans is deafening.

That millions have marched and rallied against HR 4437 exemplifies the law of unintended consequences—the right-wing Republican ideology of hate has united Mexican-Americans to an extraordinary degree.

Another fact: The Mexican-American community has fought this fight many times - and we always win. The Mexican haters hate that, too.

I end as I started: Illegal immigrants have a rich tradition in our history. The United States was founded by them. We know who some of these "illegal aliens" were. They signed the Declaration of Independence. c/s

Political historian Salomón R. Baldenegro is a lifelong Tucsonan and longtime civil-rights activist. The "c/s" at the end of his column is a Chicano barrio term that stands for con safos, which denotes closure, along the lines of "that's all I got to say." E-mail: SalomonRB@msn.com