paying-attention

Just an update to last week's comments. First, in my discussions with people who are alarmed by immigration figures, I've noticed a couple of assumptions that don't seem to follow. Are we talking about legal vs. illegal immigration, European vs. Latin American immigration, or just the annoyance of having to deal with someone who speaks with an accent?

I used to help college students with their writing skill, some foreign students and some born and raised in the United States. The American-born students were by far the worst to work with. Some of them didn't know the difference between common words with dramatically different meanings. This went way beyond substituting "antidote" for "anecdote" or "flaunt" for "flout." (Note to Hillary Clinton: The president has been flouting his own intelligence regulations, not flaunting them.) The difference between two groups? The native speakers thought they already knew English. I'm here to tell you, their written efforts were far more incomprehensible than the ones from the foreign students.

Yesterday during mass, the priest made reference to the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan. Our pastor asked us not to feel smug about having been born into a Christian society, and into a land of economic and social liberties. He pointed out what should be obvious, that our favored status includes responsibilities -- to take our faith seriously and practice it sincerely, and to participate in the political life of our democracy.
His emphasis was really on the practicing our faith part. Instead of thinking the accident of our birth made us better and entitled us to oppress others, he said, we should try to be an example of Christian attitudes. Here's an example of Christian attitudes that father didn't mention: Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles has been sticking his neck out all over the place in the defense of the human rights of immigrants.

Here is an anecdote that may or may not be pertinent.
A couple of years ago, I was sitting in an eighth-grade classroom listening to a couple of the boys rag at each other on various topics. A "white" Euro-American kid started complaining about a court decision giving land and water rights to a group of Spanish-American land grant families. The decision invalidated land titles held by more recent purchasers, some of whom were now being asked to repurchase the land under their houses or pay a rental fee to the land grant group for the use of the land -- or just to tear down the houses.
Billy White -- It's not fair. It's our land. We paid for it fair and square.
Guillermo Blanco -- It was ours first, ese. Just give us our due.
Billy and Guillermo (obviously not their real names) argue and curse each other in a friendly manner for a while.
Meanwhile their friend, a quiet kid from the local Indian pueblo, is sitting there listening, smiling and about to laugh. Just as the bell rings, he says to both of them, It's not either of your land. It's mine.

Here in New Mexico, they call the kind of debate that is going on about immigration the "pull up the ladder behind me" argument. Do I need to explain that?

I'm having trouble getting to the point here, but to me it seems obvious.