Latino in America

[laepelba]

Irma - your points are well taken. Personally, I support (with time and financially) organizations that work to empower disadvantaged people in other countries. I am very interested in human rights. I know that people don't come to the US because they WANT to leave their homes. That is why I am not so quick to condemn them. In fact, I recognize that, often, poverty in the United States is a much better way of life than poverty in a developing (or third world) country. But I have to live with the reality that the United States needs some type of administrative reform with immigration ... and the people of the United States also need to understand the beauty of the diversity of our country.

[CrOtALiTo]

Hey you're right.

But What is suras?

[irmamar]

I support GNO as well, and of course I'm interested in the human rights, but I'm also interested in my own rights. What would you think if you are in a shop with a Moslim woman and she's telling to the shop assistant that into a few years, all Spanish woman will wear a veil in our heads. Or what would you think if your neighbour has to close his shop but the next to his, which belong to immigrants don't suffer the crisis because they don't have to pay the same taxes than Spanish people? What would you say if you had your father in his deathbed and your next-door neighbour were listening to salsa all day long? What would you do if your son couldn't get a place in a nursery because immigrants have more points than you? Wouldn't you be worried if your son had to go to school looking everyday drugged people sitting in front of the school?

And I could give you more and more examples, everyday examples I know well. Next to may home there is a telephone booth. I've seen Muslims there and mothers with their babies in the baby carriage going down to the road, with the cars passing, because they didn't move away from their place, because she was a woman, and no man is going to move for a woman. I've seen a Muslim spitting a woman because he didn't move away from her way and she was complaining about it.

I know of a building plenty of ticks because Muslims killed the lamb in the terrace. My neighbourhood is plenty of immigrants. I assure you that some of them are integrated, they work and have a normal life. I don't have problems with them and I don't mind their customs if they don't want to change my ones. But many of them cause a lot of problems. I don't want a bad thing for them, but not for me, either.

[irmamar]

Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo

Hey you're right.

But What is suras?

If you lived here, you'd know what sura is. Sura is every chapter from the Koran.

[CrOtALiTo]

No I have never seen there before, and never I've read the Koran never.

[irmamar]

Me neither, and unless I was obliged, I won't do.

[laepelba]

Irma - what is "GNO"? When I said that about human rights, I meant to improve conditions IN third world/developing countries so that their people will benefit from staying in their countries of origin instead of attempting to seek prosperity elsewhere. And in my examples, I'm really talking about the United States.

I absolutely appreciate your frustrations. I, too, live in an area with many, many immigrants from many different countries around the world. I have been the object of discrimination from those who bring their own culture here and expect me to fit to theirs - including once from a student's father who does not feel that women are to be spoken to or acknowledged, which makes it very difficult to do a parent conference. I also agree that when moving to a different country, one should attempt to adapt to their culture instead of expecting vice versa.

What I'm talking about is when ALL of that has been done, there are still ignorant Americans who look at a person's skin color or listen to a person's accent and continue to discriminate. THAT is what grieves me.

I don't know how immigration trends are in other countries. But in the United States, it is a fact of life, and the grand majority of us are the descendants of immigrants. Very few of us are descended from Native American families - yet even THOSE groups of people are discriminated against by the white people. I want to say to so many Americans to try to understand the historic immigration trends in the United States.

[pjt33]

Irma, ¿estás segura de que es salsa? Bachata está más de moda.

Lo de hacer ruido por la noche - pues aquí en Valencia son los valencianos que lo hacen más que los inmigrantes, aunque no es música sino fuegos artificiales a la 01:00 o a las 02:00. Y en general me parece que eso de poner música no es cultural sino individual. Yo casi siempre la escucho con cascos, pero eso es ser buen vecino, no ser inglés (ni adaptarme a las costumbres españolas).

PD Lou-Ann, creo que debe ser NGO.

[poli]

Originally Posted by pjt33

Irma, ¿estás segura de que es salsa? Bachata está más de moda.

Lo de hacer ruido por la noche - pues aquí en Valencia son los valencianos que lo hacen más que los inmigrantes, aunque no es música sino fuegos artificiales a la 01:00 o a las 02:00. Y en general me parece que eso de poner música no es cultural sino individual. Yo casi siempre la escucho con cascos, pero eso es ser buen vecino, no ser inglés (ni adaptarme a las costumbres españolas).

PD Lou-Ann, creo que debe ser NGO.

Si son de Santo Domingo dudo que la música que escuchan es salsa . Seguro que lel muselmán que mató el cabro lo hizo porque no había un carncero halal en el pueblo. Es muy posible que la mujer que llevó una burqa que insultó el dueño de la tienda fue provocada por insultos que la dio el dueño. Si hay vendadores de drogas indocumentados dondequiera, ¿donde está la policia? Además, es malo condenar un grupo por las malas maneras, palabras racistas de una persona. Gente educada
debe saber eso.

[irmamar]

Yes, it's NGO, sorry (here it's ONG)

Well, I don't mind if it's called salsa, bachata, cumbia, mambo, merengue, rumba or guaguancó (I know that sort of music and I like it). What I don't like is listening to it coming from outside my home.

And I'm not racist, I'm always complaining about a neighbours I have from the East of Europe. Yes, they are muy blanquitos y muy rubitos, but I'm still thinking what those expensive car wheels are doing in their terrace. Those blanquitos y rubitos with blue eyes men and women spend the summer nights in their terrace, cooking there strange things and their smell comes into my bedroom. They drink and speak shouting until three of four in the night (or in the morning), and I have to sleep with earplugs (and close the window, of course). Later, when the blanquitos y rubitos have gone to sleep (luckily!), then the black men and women start shouting as if they were living alone in the jungle. One Argentinian neighbour, and friend of mine, is an immigrant and he says the same than I do. But we can do nothing, above all with the rubitos y blanquitos, because we don't know if they have firearms.

Bueno, los fuegos artificiales serán un día o dos de vez en cuando. Pero no todos los días...

Well, I don't know the problems of immigration in USA, of course. But I live in the Spanish autonomous region, with Madrid, where most immigrants have been settled. People from other regions don't know the problems we have. And Spanish people are not racist or xenophobic, pero conseguirán que lo seamos (I don't know how I could say this in English).