I Touched a Nerve

By Chuck McKay

 

"You sir, are a fool and an idiot," said the first email.

Hey, at least I'm multitasking.

 

Another one began, "After reading your column I believe a more appropriate sobriquet might be Head Up Rectum."

 

Congratulations, Captain Vocabulary. I had to look that one up. "Sobriquet" means "nickname." Of course, you can't say "nickname" because that doesn't sound pompous enough. 

 

This is just a small sample from quite a few messages I received in response to my recent column "Immigration: Ruining America Since 1607," in which I criticized the new Arizona law that allows police to arrest "suspected" illegal immigrants simply for not having ID with them.

 

I guess I touched a nerve. 

 

Nearly all of those who wrote in attacked me for being a bleeding heart sympathizer of law-breaking scum, which shows that people who are pone to launching angry, insulting emails into cyberspace are not the same people who are adept at close reading. My column focused on the impact of the law on legal immigrants - U.S. citizens who look and sound different from white people, but are not breaking any laws.

 

Even though race is not supposed to be a factor in deciding who is a "suspected" illegal immigrant, I have a hard time believing this law won't disproportionately impact Latinos. Just a hunch.

 

One reader suggested that racial profiling is perfectly OK, which is a very logial position to take as long as you're not among the race being profiled.

 

Captain Vocabulary, on the other hand, would have us live in a country where everyone talks the same, so that we can all get along. "A polyglot society leads to suspicion and estrangement," he said. Then how do you explain all the suspicion and estrangement between two Anglophile white guys in Maine who have never even met in person? It takes more than a language barrier to get people snippy with each other.

 

Another writer criticized me for not being a lawyer. I guess non-lawyers aren't allowed to have opinions about laws.  

My previous column also argued that offering driving tests in lots of different languages is a perfectly reasonable and fair thing to do.

People could not believe I could say such a thing. The best argument against my position came from a man who said other countries, such as Germany, don't make accommodations for immigrants; they expect people to take driving tests in German.

This was a pretty compelling point, except for being absolutely false.  Less than five minutes of research about German driving laws revealed that the German government is happy to let you cruise the Autobahn as long as you hold a valid license from pretty much any country.

If you do need to take their driving test, it is offered in lots of different languages, including English.

So, overall, not a great showing from the Tea Party nuts in their attempt to flood my inbox. Do they all live in a Fox News cave of skewed logic and propaganda, or just the ones who have the debate skills and social decorum of a Doberman pinscher?

Is it possible we've blown this problem out of proportion?  People have been moving to our country illegally for generations. In spite of this gargantuan injustice, we've certainly done okay as a nation. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to enforce immigration laws, but you have to wonder how much of this intense reactivity is warranted. Don't we have larger problems?

Immigrants: Ruining America Since 1607

Maine has a reputation for not being friendly to outsiders. It turns out we could learn a thing or two from Arizona and Alabama.

Arizona, as you probably know, just passed a law saying you can be jailed if you aren't carrying your driver's license with you.

Oops, I meant to say, you can be jailed if you don't have your ID with you and you have brown skin and an accent.

Under the new law, local police are required to arrest and detain any "suspected" illegal immigrants, with the word "suspected" being defined as "you guess is as good as mine."

You can potentially avoid the arrest by producing your immigration documents or some form of state ID. Forgot it at home? Tough luck.

If a state government wanted to authorize police to arrest anyone, regardless of skin color, for not carrying ID, the libertarians and tea baggers would have a fit and fall in it, as my mother used to say.

Complicating the issue is the fact that there are plenty of people who don't want immigrants to be able to get driver's licenses in the first place.

Tim James, candidate for governor of Alabama, just released a TV ad pledging to offer driving tests in English only if he gets elected. Currently, Alabama offers the tests in a dozen different languages.

"This is Alabama," James drawls. "We speak English. Learn it."

So much for Southern Hospitality.

Have you ever tried to learn a language? It can take years to become proficient in a new tongue, especially one as inconsistent and bizarre as English. It's even worse if you're trying to learn it in a Southern accent.

I hate to point this out, Tim, but the "English" you speak in Alabama doesn't really sound like any English I'm familiar with. You sound like a race of people descended from the love child of Jeff Foxworthy and Droopy Dog. (Google it, kids)

That places many legally naturalized U.S. Citizens at a disadvantage if they haven't been here long enough to master this peculiar version of our language.

Historically speaking, many immigrants (I know your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Tim, but for some of us, this is kind of personal) did not learn English instantly upon crossing into the United States. They gradually picked up enough to get by.

I'm probably not being very fair here. Maybe this isn't really about racism and xenophobia.

For example: Here in Maine, some of our signs have French translations. Have you noticed that the only places where we bother to translate the signs are where they point to tourist money pits like Old Orchard Beach?

You see, there are two types of foreigners: those with money, and those who need money.

If the average non-English speaker in Alabama made $85,000 a year, something tells me Tim James would be happy to let them take their driving tests in Klingon, if it suited them.

No, this is really about class. We're talking about legal American citizens who maybe haven't managed to master English instantly upon crossing the border. In Arizona they could be arrested and jailed for going for a walk without their ID or immigration papers, and in Alabama, walking might turn out to be the only transportation available to them a year or two from now.

"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" -- as long as they look and talk like we do.