IMMIGRATION: A clash of cultures

Remembrances of U.S. history are often cast in the lore of the Great Melting Pot, the nostalgic notion that Americans not only tolerated differences, they embraced them.

But immigration has from the start created flash points over whether newcomers were becoming American enough, fast enough. Beginning with Germans in the 17th century and continuing through the Irish, Italians, Chinese and others in the 19th century, successive waves of immigrants arrived to a welcome of resentment and fear.

More than 12,00 Latino citizens and illegal immigrants marched together in Austin and rallied at the Capitol last year to press for new laws allowing the immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

Tensions & Alliances: People of Mexican heritage divided To Tejanos, music is sound of heritage Immigrants, citizens marched in unprecedented numbers in 2006 A fight for respect from people seemingly like their own A Chicana questions: Is dwelling on Mexican-heritage tensions fair? East Austin church strives to include immigrants A stranger in a strange land, learning to adapt People of Mexican heritage distinguished by wide diversity History, experience deeply intertwined

Now, a microcosm of the perennial backlash is playing out in Austin between some Mexican Americans and first-generation Mexican immigrants who are in the country illegally. The friction, largely nonconfrontational, is tied to the explosive growth of both populations and to the national debate over illegal immigration.

Tensions are spilling over in the workplace, churches, schools, neighborhoods, cyberspace and letters to the editor. They are even a factor — unintentionally, supporters say — in a long-running campaign to get Tejano music back on local radio.

"It's a culture clash," said Leonard Davila, 59, a self-described Chicano — an American of Mexican descent — and a leader in the radio campaign, whose supporters say they feel snubbed by corporations that they say chase immigrant dollars while abandoning Mexican American consumers.

The rancor of the immigration debate subjects many Mexican Americans to hostility from some non-Hispanics who equate being Hispanic with being illegal, a presumption that ignores their centuries-old presence here and implies a connection with Mexico that no longer exists. That hostility breeds Mexican American resentment of the undocumented and reawakens painful memories of the Mexican American struggle to be counted as equals in U.S. society.

"The white guy says, 'Those Mexicans,' but the Mexican says, 'We're not Mexicans,' " Davila said.

That uneasy feeling of standing outside both societies is reflected in a phrase uttered by generations of Mexican Americans: "Ni soy de aquí, ni soy de allá." (I'm neither from here nor from there.)

Ironically, grievances about cultural differences often mirror the rhetoric of the immigration debate.

Though a wide body of research indicates that Mexican and Spanish-speaking immigrants are "becoming American" in time, some Mexican Americans with long-established roots in Austin assert that many of the newcomers are not fitting in: They're not learning English, not assimilating, and they don't care to. The natives rail about immigrants who don't appreciate Mexican American culture and upset venerable neighborhoods, packing rental houses in large numbers, turning front yards into parking lots and drinking outdoors long after bedtime.

Another common complaint: that the newcomers are too demanding, expecting special treatment from social service agencies or local businesses or even churches.

"They want us to adapt to their ways," Davila said, recounting a story told to him about immigrants who groused about the Tex-Mex fare at a popular East Seventh Street restaurant because it wasn't real Mexican food.

"Mexicans put us down," said Leon Ramirez, a 62-year-old manager at another Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin, where he estimates that 90 percent of the kitchen and wait staff is from Mexico. "They say, 'You're pocho.' " Pocho is a slur Mexicans use to describe Mexican Americans who "act American" or forgot their heritage.

Ramirez says his co-workers, some of whom he said he suspects are here illegally, routinely deride Mexican American customers behind their back with put-downs about their dress, mannerisms and culture.

But some Mexican immigrants say it's the other way around: that it is Mexican Americans who discriminate against people of their own heritage, treating them disrespectfully and without compassion, giving them poorer service than others.

"Not only have I witnessed these things, I've lived them," said Juan Manuel, a painter from Veracruz, who asked that his surname not be used because he is living in the United States illegally.

It is one of many paradoxes infusing a complex phenomenon that defies stereotypes and challenges expectations.

"It's kind of surprising how poorly some Mexican Americans can treat Mexican immigrants, given that they have so much in common," said the Rev. John Korcsmar, pastor of Dolores Catholic Church in East Austin, which like many Central Texas congregations has seen an influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Korcsmar and other Catholic leaders say that in their parishes, it is often Mexican Americans who treat undocumented immigrants the worst.

"You would think that they would say, 'Gee, somehow we're related' or 'We're both Mexicans,' but it can be very bad," Korcsmar said.

"They're not us," said Danny Camacho, 61, an amateur historian who chronicles Austin's Mexican American history and who can trace his own family's roots in Austin to the 1870s.

"It might be cold-hearted, but we don't" share a sense of identity, Camacho said. "If anything, we Mexican Americans who have been here for a time see (undocumented Mexican immigrants) in some aspects as a nuisance."

Feeding that annoyance, Camacho said, are complaints that immigrants are changing the fabric of neighborhoods with their living arrangements and late-night lifestyles.

A volunteer at Metz Elementary near his East Austin home, he and others say they see growing friction in the schools between U.S. Hispanic children and Spanish-speaking immigrants. At Metz, he says, kids ridicule the newcomers' culture and their inability to speak English.

"What the native population is responding to is not what those immigrants are going to look like 20 years from now. They're dealing with what's immediate," said Roberto Suro, who until recently headed the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization. "It's very hard to say under any circumstance that, 'Look, everything is going to be all right in 20 years.' "

The conflicts are remarkable on several fronts. Tensions over illegal Latino immigration have famously erupted in the U.S. before, but usually between majority white populations and immigrants in communities that had never had significant Latino populations.

In Texas, however, the Mexican American presence is as old as the state itself, and Texas and Mexican histories are inextricably intertwined.

Noteworthy, too, is that the rancor is occurring in Austin, which cultivates an image of tolerance and where last year, Latino citizens and illegal immigrants first marched together — more than 12,000 strong — to press for new laws allowing the immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

Such ironies complicate discussion of issues already fraught with conflicted feelings and cultural sensitivity land mines. "Brown vs. brown" clashes trouble people of Mexican heritage in both groups.

Analysts point out that America's earliest immigrants — Irish, Italians and other Europeans — suffered some of the most hateful rhetoric from U.S. citizens of their own heritage who settled here during earlier immigration waves.

"They would say 'They're ignorant; they're backwards; they eat stinky foods.' There was this fear they would ruin the country," said Luis Plascencia, an assistant professor of anthropology at Arizona State University.

Clashes are also common in areas where immigrant populations soar. The Austin metro area's foreign-born population (legal and illegal) exploded nearly 2,500 percent, from about 6,000 in 1970 to 153,000 in 2000, according to a 2004 Brookings Institution report, which named Austin an emerging destination for immigrants. Fifty-five percent of new immigrants were from Mexico.

"Before, we didn't have as many illegals," Ramirez said. "Growing up (in Manchaca), I didn't see any."

Today, neighborhoods in large pockets of the city bear witness to a booming immigrant population. Restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, beauty salons and other businesses that cater to Spanish-speaking clienteles dot the landscape.

Though much research indicates that first-generation Spanish-speaking immigrants are indeed assimilating, learning English and becoming citizens if legally able, the process takes a generation or two. The inability of many Mexican Americans to speak Spanish today is perhaps the most prominent evidence that it occurs.

Yet Mexicans often take offense when Chicanos don't converse with them in Spanish, unaware that they may not understand the language or aren't fluent enough.

"Some of us believe that Chicanos think they are too good for us" to speak Spanish, Juan Manuel said.

The language issue, another irony in a state where older generations of Mexican Americans were punished for speaking Spanish in school, highlights the false expectations that strain relations between locals and newcomers.

Here, in a land that was once Mexico, the Mexican American presence goes back a dozen generations or more, before Texas became a republic. Yet most Mexican American adults also have an immediate or inherited memory of a time when their people battled racial discrimination.

"There's a good deal of understandable pride among (them) about the struggle," Suro said.

But Mexican immigrants know nothing about that and shouldn't be expected to, he added: "They don't get discriminated against for being Mexican in Mexico."

Unburdened by such history, they see the United States simply as the land of opportunity, Suro said. Many quickly reap the gains of their labor, opening bank accounts, buying cars and homes — stoking resentment among native citizens.

"They look at us and say, 'How has he, who's been here just (a few months), afford to buy a nice truck or a house?' " said Jaime, a 27-year-old from the state of Mexico who works in the kitchen of an upscale Austin restaurant and is in the country illegally. "They resent that the immigrants are progressing."

Gonzalo Barrientos, a former state senator from Austin and a soldier in the Chicano civil rights struggle, said Mexican Americans he's spoken with don't begrudge anyone getting ahead; they simply have a problem with those who are in the country illegally taking jobs from citizens, and driving down wages and receiving social services.

"I've heard a story of someone having a baby and paying (the hospital) little or nothing and some Hispanics saying 'I paid $5,000 or $10,000, and I don't have anything,' " Barrientos said.

"I, along with thousands of other Chicanos, fought for equal rights, fairness and justice. But there are some of those people feeling now that Mexican immigrants are taking advantage of all that while they didn't drop an ounce of sweat to achieve it," he said.

Employers who take advantage of immigrants willing to accept cheap wages must bear some responsibility for the perception that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Mexican Americans, said Rita Gonzales-Garza, a leader with the local League of United Latin American Citizens.

"I don't necessarily blame the immigrants for taking those jobs," Gonzales-Garza said.

Unschooled in the Chicano civil rights fight and surrounded by Mexican Americans in the workplace and in working-class barrios, the immigrants question why the Americans haven't achieved more considering their advantages of citizenship and language, said Plascencia, who conducted extensive interviews with Mexican immigrants in Austin from 2003 to 2005.

"From their perspective, these people were born here, and they've had all the opportunities that this great country offers, so why aren't they all middle class or wealthy?" Plascencia said.

"They don't know about 'Mexican swimming days' at public pools in Texas or that there were restaurants with signs, "No Mexicans or Dogs." They don't know the long history, everything from Jim Crow to employment discrimination to segregation."

In his interviews, Plascencia found that conflicts in the workplace usually involved issues that can flare between people of any race or ethnicity.

"Immigrants might say, 'The Chicano is always sticking it to us,' but really it's about the supervisor, that he's a slave driver or whatever," he said. "But because sometimes the middle men are Mexican Americans, it gets filtered through Mexican American vs. Mexican kind of lenses."

A 2002 Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that foreign-born Latinos are more likely than native-born Latinos to report that same-heritage discrimination is a problem.

False expectations, Suro said, are a contributing factor. He explains what can happen when immigrants encounter someone in a position of authority — it could be anyone from a police officer to a sales clerk — who looks like them: "If there's an expectation they're going to relate to them as paisanos rather than as someone in a position of authority, you're going to get friction."

Yet Suro and others point to clear signs of alliances, such as the April 2006 march in downtown Austin. Some recent immigrants report that they get along fine with Mexican Americans and are grateful for their help in finding jobs and navigating the English-speaking world.

Polling consistently shows that native-born Hispanics who have been in the United States for generations have more positive views toward recent immigrants than do non-Hispanics. Among Latinos, however, negative views of immigrants are highest in the native-born, middle-aged, middle class group.

"So there's some sympathy, but that doesn't mean that you eliminate all the friction," Suro said.

Language is the most important guidepost when measuring how well immigrants assimilate in a new country, analysts agree. And research indicates that English is the favored language for the children and grandchildren of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the U.S.

A 2004 analysis of census data by the State University of New York at Albany found that 72 percent of Hispanic children whose families have been here three generations or more spoke English exclusively. Researchers said the results closely mirror historical patterns set by the descendants of most Europeans immigrants in the late 19th century who became exclusively English-speakers within three generations. They found one notable exception: Larger percentages of Hispanics maintained bilingualism in the third generation than did their earlier European counterparts.

Another prime marker of acculturation: becoming a naturalized citizen. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, the number of naturalized citizens from Mexico rose by 144 percent from 1995 to 2005, the most of any major sending country.

47 Percentage of Latinos who think Latinos discriminating against other Latinos is a major problem

57 Percentage of foreign-born Latinos who think immigrants have to speak English to say that they are part of American society

But some Mexican immigrants say ... that it is Mexican Americans who discriminate against people of their own heritage, treating them disrespectfully and without compassion, giving them poorer service than others.

"Not only have I witnessed these things, I've lived them," said Juan Manuel, a painter from Veracruz, who asked that his surname not be used because he is living in the United States illegally.

Juan Manuel is not a Mexican immigant, he is an illegal alien from Mexico.

"It's kind of surprising how poorly some Mexican Americans can treat Mexican immigrants, given that they have so much in common," said the Rev. John Korcsmar, pastor of Dolores Catholic Church in East Austin...

They obviously do not have "so much in common."

I think the real problem is that most Americans "of mexican extraction"....citizens and legal residents...either turned a blind eye toward, or tacitly abetted, illegal immigration for decades. Previously those folks would quite probably treat the illegal like a cousin instead of a criminal.

The border states have always exploited this and for most of the recent past the numbers were within comfortable limits, the skills being exploited were not a threat, because "our mexicans" were progressing right along with the rest of "us".

Numbers and political activism have pushed the issue into more of a family confrontation than in the past. People are definately going to feel heat because of the Home-Depot commandos and street protests and the bottom line is that those who came here first and got here legally (including those still hiding that 'cousin' in the garage) will be the second ethnic group to suffer most after Black Americans.

There are some interesting dynamics that play out here, and they are dynamics about which our leaders have expressed a complete lack of understanding.

People of Mexican heritage DO NOT stand as a unified block behind illegal alien immigrants, in support of them.

Illegal alien immigrants are not viewed by legal residents from Mexico with any less disgust than us. It is a little understood dynamic, the one of shared culture and background, that causes the legal Mexican on U.S. soil to dispise what the illegals are doing to the reputations and customs they value from Mexico. The real laugh here is that their eleveated disgust compared to ours at the same things we non-Mexican ancestry U.S. Citizens are disgusted with, will never be challenged with words like xenophobic or racist. And the real topper to this, is that they are absolutely right to feel as they do.

What is your ancestry? I don't care what it is, if others from your family's ancestral home were to illegaly sneak into the United States in a similary fashion as the Mexican illegals have, would you be pleased? If it escalated to the point that people who shared your ancestry felt embarassed by the actions of the illegal alien movement, would you tend to support the illegal alien immigrants? You would have come to this nation, or have been born here and respect the nation. You would have respected it enough to entery legally, or to have been born here and respect it as your home. You would be even more disgusted at the illegals who were tarnishing your hard fought achieved respect as a race of people. And you would be justified in your disgust.

The illegal alien invaders find no quarter with people who respect our nation and the rule of law. Those that speak out to defend them and what they have done are nothing more than insullent children always trying to skirt the meanings of laws and the need for them, that don't conform to their true objectives. If someone speaks out in favor of the illegal alien invader, you have every right to wonder what prompts that support. Is it truly compassion? Legal Mexican immigrants don't share that compassion. Is it truly because they are unable to support themselves back home in Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrants don't buy into that excuse? Is it the libertarian belief that borders shouldn't be used to keep anyone wanting to cross them out? Legal Mexican immigrants don't share that view.

People develop their beliefs based on other things they support. It's a world view that their beliefs conform to. They don't just pick one issue out of a hat and decide this will be the one I support that conflicts with every other belief I have. If someone is willing to front for criminality and the savaging of our nation that is taking place at the hands of thirty-million foreign illegal alien invaders, then they have less love for this nation than the legal Mexicans that rest on our soil. That is something we should always keep in mind. And if a person is willing to back the illegal alien invaders, you better wonder what else they are or are willing to support.

Legal Mexican ancestral residents of our nation, whether citizen or not, deserve our respect and appreciation for sharing our values. Of course, those few who support La Raza, MAADEF and La MechLa don't, but that isn't limited to those with Mexican ancestry. The U.S. Citizens who do support the illegal alien invader, deserve nothing other than our contempt, for that is what they have earned. From me they will always get what they have earned. And the U.S. Citizen or resident with Mexican ancestry that respects and observes the laws of this nation, will alway get from me what they have earned, my respect.

“The illegal alien invaders find no quarter with people who respect our nation and the rule of law. Those that speak out to defend them and what they have done are nothing more than insullent children always trying to skirt the meanings of laws and the need for them, that don’t conform to their true objectives. If someone speaks out in favor of the illegal alien invader, you have every right to wonder what prompts that support. Is it truly compassion? Legal Mexican immigrants don’t share that compassion. Is it truly because they are unable to support themselves back home in Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrants don’t buy into that excuse? Is it the libertarian belief that borders shouldn’t be used to keep anyone wanting to cross them out? Legal Mexican immigrants don’t share that view.”

Good. I think most Mexican-Americans love and respect the USA, while retaining part of their old culture. Illegal Mexican aliens bring a ghetto culture, create slums, and do not respect our institutions, and especially our laws.

There is a difference in ILLEGAL immigrants & legal immigrants and they KNOW IT!

Consider the source:

The second speaker, Juan Castillo, shared his frustration over the impasse in fixing a 20-year immigration problem. He focused on the Hutto Detention Center for detained illegal immigrants. Castillo discussed his challenges obtaining information and reporting over its controversial accommodations.

“The human consequences of this impasse and how states and cities are trying to deal with the impasse is unconstitutional,” said Castillo. “The core of the problem is that mothers, fathers, and babies are in jail, although they call it a detention center, it is a jail.”

Castillo emphasized that these detainees are not criminals, but are housed at Hutto Detention Center which used to be minimum security prison. Many of the immigrants at the Hutto Detention Center are waiting on asylum. Presently, there is a congressional subcommittee investigating the conditions in the detention centers.

“Our objective is to shed some light on things that are happening in the shadows, such as Hutto Detention Center,” said Castillo. “It’s a human story, no matter how you think.”

To me this is more of an issue that blood is thicker than water. From what I have observed over a number of years is that legal hispanics will always side with illegals.

I know an 80yo hispanic who was born in this country. She has been saying for years that we need to take in the “Poor Mexican”. She has no qualms about the illegal alien. As a matter of fact she buys food stamps from them.

I also know that many of the government employees doling out food stamps and welfare in the Valley are legal hispanics. They have no problem accepting lies from illegals.

You still can’t get a PO box anywhere. The borders are wide open with shopping cards and many Mexicans get food stamps. I have seen many hispanics help illegals.

I have also seen hispanics snub illegals. Go figure.

People of Mexican heritage don’t come up to you and express their digust with what is going on because they sympathize with it. I have had this happen a number of times. I don’t walk up to them and ask what they think of it. They blurt it out from their own hearts.

I am careful not to insult people as a general rule. I wouldn’t bring this issue up in a setting with people of Mexican ancestry in attendence. The question is raised in those setting none the less, and by the people of Mexican ancestry.

We can look at the gay parades in Hollywood. Is anyone operating on the idea that every person who marches is a homosexual? Is everyone operating under the impression that all homosexuals like those parades? LOL, the vast majority of homosexuals are appauled at what takes place in those parades.

Some lamebrains see the marches in support of illegal aliens as the same as marching with Martin Luther King. I don’t. I’m sure you don’t either. I’m sure many hispanics are as disgusted and offended if not more, than we are when they see this.

I’m not convinced we can extrapolate widespread hispanic support for illegal immigration from these marches.

The numbers in some of these marches are large, but the largest have more than hispanics marching. And as large as some of those marches are, there are litterally millions upon million who are not marching in solidarity with what is taking place.

You and I are from 2 different worlds and see things differently. The South Texas valley is approximately 95% Hispanic.

I have Hispanic neighbors, Hispanic friends, legal and possibly illegal. I don’t know if all are legal. However, I do know a few are illegal. Yes, we do talk about it as I have known most of these people for 20 years or more. I have seen some of them get naturallized also. Even those naturalized will sympathize with the illegal. Somehow, they seem to have a guilt trip of becoming a citizen while the illegal is struggling.

We talk politics both local and national as this area is the capital of the Democrat party in Texas. Hillary usually makes a yearly trip down here.

We had a good time when Clinton was in office talking about Monica. I was probably the only Republican they knew. They were all trying to get me to support Clinton so I had to endure listening to all kinds of true confessions. LOL! It was hilarious.

I’ll be quite honest that I don’t know how much support the legal Hispanics give to the illegal. Quite possibly, since this is such a heavily Democrat area, the support is more widespread and outspoken.

Immigration would not mean a clash of cultures if it were kept legal and in moderation as it used to be until Ted Kennedy stuck his nose in it. We also have to do away with the family chain laws that encourages mass immigration from only a few countries. And there has to be an end to the anchor baby scam, the 14th Amendment was never meant to apply to illegal aliens and the good news is that someone is finally stepping up to the plate to have the abuse challenged in court:

Legislator plans new reforms

Terrill, R-Moore, said he wants to crack down on so-called anchor babies, children whose mothers come to the United States to give birth. The U.S. Constitution states children born in this country are U.S. citizens.

His idea to deal with babies born to illegal immigrants would be for Oklahoma to refuse to issue a birth certificate, he said. Instead, the state would send an acknowledgement of birth to the U.S. embassy or consulate of the parents' nation of origin requesting a birth certificate.

"That would set up the legal challenge because you would have unlawfully present, foreign national parents who would be suing the state of Oklahoma to try to get a birth certificate for a child who they would be claiming is a U.S. citizen,” he said.

Well I am surprisingly to see that another side to the immigration story is coming out.

Folks, I am an American of Mexican & Spanish ancestry. I do speak Spanish because of my father. With my mother always English.

I can tell you that there are some of Mexican ancestry feel resentful that Illegals are coming in here, and bringing down wages and getting benefits that we as citizens can’t.

I had my own experience when I had to go to see a doctor. I didn’t have insurance and was unemployed, so I had to go to the county. I had to give $240 bucks UPFRONT or no service. As I did, and sat there in the waiting room. This Mexican lady comes walking in with her 2 kids. She told the receptionist she didn’t have insurance. The receptionist asked her if her kids were insured and she said no. Then the receptionist then asked her if her kids were born here in the US, and she said no except for one who was not with her. The receptionist told her she can try to help her by signing up her child that was born here under some Healthy Children program, and then the rest of them can get coverage thru the child.

That really opened my eyes and I was pissed. Here I am a true blue American, and cannot even get a financial assistance. Yet this woman and her dam Anchor Baby got help.

So yes, there are many Americans with Mexicans who are against Illegal Immigration. This will affect ALL AMERICANS no matter whether your of Mexican, Spanish, Irish, Polish, German, Italian, etc. Ancestry.

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