A few weeks ago, some Jewish groups expressed outrage when a Los Angeles commentator had the audacity to compare the Arizona immigration law—which allows police to arrest anyone they “suspect” of being an illegal immigrant (that is anyone who appears Latino) if they don’t happen to be carrying their birth certificate with them as evidence that they are “legal”—with Nazism. There was never a “Holocaust” in this country, they say, ignoring the fact that 90 percent of the original Native American population was killed-off by 1900, or that an estimated 2 million mostly U.S. citizens of Mexican extraction were “repatriated” to Mexico during the 1930s for very much the same reasons the 500,000 Jews in Germany were under assault. They choose to ignore the fact that while Nazism and fascism in the U.S. has never taken on the horrific aspect it did in Germany, American Jews are not only being hypocritical but purposefully blind to the fact that racism, nativism and xenophobia fueled by racist propaganda both by politicians and the media that defines the social philosophy of Nazism has existed in this country as long as it has been a country. In Germany, Jews were propagandized as common vermin, stealing jobs from “real” Germans, and draining the country of its wealth. Jews were also accused of destroying the “culture” of the nation. Does any of this sound familiar?
Although they have been discriminated against in the past, Jews have never suffered from racism in this country the way African-Americans did. Today, Latinos are under racist assault from all sides, even from the so-called “progressives.” Latinos are accused of all manner of evil and insidious designs on the American People: “Stealing” jobs, not paying taxes, draining public funds, spreading diseases, engaging in rampant crime—all the while being portrayed by the mainstream media as little more than vermin. The Southern Poverty Law Center devoted a webpage citing legitimate studies that refute all of these myths in regard to Latinos, yet most people still prefer to rely on personal prejudice as their basis of reality. Like the Jews in Germany, once a group is reduced to “subhuman” status, they are mere game to be hunted. Latinos caught in the web of racism may not be sent to gas chambers, but the political and media propaganda that has created a poisonous atmosphere for which racism can exist in is real enough.
An op-ed in the Seattle Times recently commented on the aftermath of a recent ICE raid on a large orchard in the state, which ended in the reduction of most of the labor force. The writer, Danny Westneat, noted that “To replace their depleted Mexican work force, Gebbers Farms posted help-wanted ads for 1,280 jobs picking fruit,” which stated ‘Must be able to lift 60 pounds, climb a ladder while carrying 40 pounds and endure "wet orchards in temperatures from 30 to 100 degrees.’ Laborers were to be paid a minimum of $9.19 an hour, plus bonuses that could double that pay according to how much produce they picked. How many “natives” did this advertisement attract? Apparently, not many, because Gebbers has applied for 1,000 guest workers—from Jamaica. Because so few “natives” were willing to do this work, and because anti-Latino racism is running so high in this country, the federal government is apparently discouraging any hint of “amnesty” or even work visas for Latinos who have already been doing the work for years, the only option for Gebbers is to be forced the expense of flying people from 3,000 miles away. Most of the Mexicans have been doing farm work all their lives, and many of these are people who lost their farms in Mexico due to competition from U.S. produce in Mexico itself—one of the effects of NAFTA that American whiners ignore. But who in the U.S. wants to unduly burdened by such thoughts? Certainly not the hundreds of angry racists who responded by assailed Westneat and his revelations.
The following appeared in the local weekly a few years ago, in regard to the Emerald Downs race track in Auburn, Washington:
“The panic over the Mexican groom shortage ushers to the fore a noisy band of hypocrites within America's capitalist machine: unemployed citizens who decry job shortages yet don't have the temerity to start at ladder's bottom…’There are no white people who want to work, and [the Mexican grooms] love their jobs," said trainer Belvoir, who's Caucasian. "White people don't want to work; they just want to bitch and say there are no jobs.’”
After the work visas of the missing Mexican grooms were mysteriously delayed, there was a three-month “window of opportunity” for the “natives” to respond to advertisements offering work as grooms. Two-count-them-two people made initial inquiries, were not heard from again. The Mexicans “loved their work,” but the natives looked askance when they found out that part of the job required such “blue collar” tasks as shoveling horse leavings. “Americans” just don’t do that kind of work. It’s only fit for “Mexicans”—except that “real” Americans like to complain when they are doing it.
Back in 2006, the ICE raided the Crider poultry plant in Stillmore, Georgia. Hundreds of undocumented workers were arrested. Xenophobes and racists rejoiced, claiming that hundreds of mostly African-Americans were thus able to find work at the plant. You see, you can find a “native” workforce if you offered a dollar-an-hour more. The Wall Street Journal had a less sanguine take on the story:
"In the months since Crider began hiring hundreds of African-Americans, the answer has become more complex. The plant has struggled with high turnover among black workers, lower productivity and pay disputes between new employees and labor contractors. The allure of compliant Latino workers willing to accept grueling conditions despite rock-bottom pay has proved a difficult habit for Crider to shake, particularly because local, native-born workers who replaced them are more likely to complain about working conditions and aggressively assert what they believe to be legal pay and workplace rights."
The story also quoted some long-time workers of accusing new hires as being “indolent,” suggesting that the complaints were less based upon pay or worker rights than on the desire to make excuses after finding the work unattractive. What happened next? Crider began hiring homeless people from a local shelter, and felons on probation from the Macon Diversion Center. Productivity continued to plummet, because of poor attendance and a tendency to quit after a few days. In the end, Crider was forced to “import” Asian immigrants from states as far away as Minnesota.
The bottom line is that U.S. has an immigration problem because the current guest worker program is designed specifically to take into consideration bigotry against Latinos, and keep them out in favor of “favored” foreigners—apparently anyone who isn’t Latino (Asian immigrants are always portrayed in a positive light by a media that never mentions the fact that 13 percent of all illegal immigrants in this country are Asian. Latino immigrants also engage in entrepreneurial enterprises, but the media never shows this). The odius fact is that Americans (that is, those who are not of Latino extraction) save their greatest paranoia and hatred for those who occupy the same hemisphere as they do. You know—Central and South AMERICA. We already have a willing and able workforce that to fill the gap created by “native” American lethargy. But the “natives” just don’t want “them.” In my book, this is American Nazism.
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