I’ve tried hard to understand where the anger comes from, but I’m at a loss.
It seems many people can’t leave a voice-mail message on my answering machine on the topic of immigration without screaming, cursing or making rude comments.
It’s baffling.
In my Sunday column, I wrote about the need for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would encompass stricter border controls and also allow a path to citizenship for undocumented people who have proven their worth by working hard and paying taxes.
I wrote that diplomatic compromise is the only workable solution.
Reasonable, right?
Well, not to the dozens of angry callers who left messages for me Sunday.
Apparently they believe all undocumented people are leeches, either “stealing” jobs or living on welfare.
Which one is it?
Here’s a news flash for them: People can’t get on welfare without a valid Social Security number. In this era of workplace raids and get-tough state laws, undocumented people are not going to risk deportation to apply for food stamps.
I go to grocery stores in immigrant neighborhoods all the time. I have yet to see an immigrant hand a WIC (Women Infants and Children) card to a cashier; it’s always cash.
But the angry people out there want to believe the worst about undocumented people.
A woman named Diana left me this message: “I read about the boycott. I hope they don’t use their food stamps, sneak into the emergency rooms, use their fake IDs or send their kids for free treatment and free food.”
She ended with this: “Why don’t you go back to Mexico and enter this country legally? I am sick of you Mexicans.”
It was hard to tell if she was suggesting that I return to Mexico. I get a lot of “Go back to Mexico” messages. I’d be proud to call myself Mexican if I were, but I’m actually an American-born Latina whose parents came from Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Oh, and to those callers, my bilingual outgoing voice-mail message is in English and Spanish. Sorry, there is no language called “Mexican.”
Another woman complained that “all of the Chicanos” at the school district where she works are on Medicaid. Though I’m dubious about the statistics she cites, I’m wondering if she understands that Chicanos are American-born people of Mexican descent.
I just hope she’s not a teacher. People with her toxic attitude should not work with kids, especially children she despises.
The same woman railed in her message that the U.S. should “send them all back!” but to where: New Mexico? Does she not realize that many Chicanos in the Southwest can trace their roots back to this part of the country 10 or more generations?
Thinking some more, she can’t be a teacher if she’s that ignorant of American history and believes that Chicanos and Mexicans are one and the same. Can she?
The angry callers come in all stripes.
On occasion I hear from “Hispanics” – their choice of word, not mine – who speak ill of their brethren. One such man named Ed told me his grandchildren can’t find jobs because “the Mexicans have all the jobs.”
None of that is true. Undocumented workers from Mexico and elsewhere are overrepresented in laborious, tedious jobs that most Americans recoil from: farm work, janitorial services, construction work.
I’m not saying that America doesn’t have to figure out a way to slow down illegal immigration, but vilifying those who come here isn’t constructive.
The anger in the voices of the people who’ve left those messages tells me they are irrational people who can’t control their emotions. They get no sympathy from me. I just hope they can one day realize that the undocumented people they speak so ugly of aren’t really all that different from them. Well, minus the anger.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Visit Cindy’s blog at denverpostbloghouse.com/rodriguez
