Immigration issues

Interesting discussion. Three assorted observations.

1. 'Hispanic' is not a race. The issue in question would be xenophobia.

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2. Opposition to free trade is the flip side of opposition to immigration. Both oppose foreign workers taking 'our' jobs. The only difference is which side of the border the foreign workers are on.

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3. The US is not 'singled out' internationally for restrictive immigration policies. It just has a well-earned reputation for disaster at processing applications in a sane amount of time.

All US immigration services are badly underfunded. The US has simply gone cheap on this for too long. It's been easy to cut services involving run-of-the-mill foreigners. Foreigners don't vote.The time has come to spend real money.

- Hire and train the people needed to move the applications.
- Hire and train the people needed to guard the borders.
- Hire and train the people needed to enforce the laws.

Do that, and it's feasible to consider common-law amnesties and major policy changes. Without that, neither works._____Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Just like the terms 'New Yorker' and 'Methodist' and 'American.' Sure.The details you offer in your post illustrate the point: 'Hispanic' functions mainly as a cultural, rather than racial, designation.It's a spectacularly loose term, as you note. It doesn't have much to do with one's nationality, And the people can look like anything, just as New Yorkers, Mehodists and Americans do.I'd say the term 'Hispanic', in American usage, is understood mainly in reference to language--a person's mother tongue, or the mother tongue of his or her immmediate ancestors.Language is an important denominator of culture. A lot of things follow from it. Other factors being equal, a native population will generally feel more threatened by an immigrant population that speaks a different language than it will by one that speaks the same language it does.

That's funny. I don't think of any of those as races.But now I just realized something. I asked myself 'So what group do you consider a race?' And the answer suprised me.None.Interesting.Thanks for prompting that moment of self-realization, subbie. But you make an important point. Race is imaginary. No gene for it exists. The concept is socially defined.So ultimately the word, in American culture, will mean anything Americans say it means. I can't push my statement dogmatically.But even by the prevailing social definitions, 'Hispanic' isn't a race. brenna, for example, calls it 'several.'Like the American race, yes?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.