Reply #25: i realize most of these things, but

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

1) But I still argue that the wave of Mexican immigration has had mostly, maybe entirely, positive effects for American cities that were abandoned by European Americans 50 years ago. What's a nice city that has faced problems? Please give specific neighborhoods. This is a topic I'm interested outside of politics, so I'm genuinely interested in your information. My family lived in a German neighborhood when they first came to America, and they thought it was a really nice place, but after doing historical research a couple years ago I found out other people thought it was a "ghetto". So a lot of times the problem is more seeing people who are different than you rather than any actual crime problems. I buy that some southern cities have drug related problems. I also buy that some first ring suburbs have decreased in value based on immigration trends. But suburban sprawl is going to continue to decline in value, because...well, people are going to continue to realize how much suburbs sucks and it's eventually all going to become pretty run down and cheap. That's just a historical trend that has really nothing to do with immigration.

2) Food service jobs have never had dignity. Stuff like dishwashers. Fast food workers. Busboys. I'd love to see more dignity in these jobs. I have friends who have tried to unionize their workplaces, and that's great. But when have these jobs ever paid any kind of good wage? We're not trying to regain dignity...we're trying to get dignity we never had. We've been ignored by traditional labor unions, and mostly still continue to be ignored. I think it's basically a complete divide of how people who work food service view their job versus how people who have never (or only briefly) worked food service. I feel way more solidarity with any illegal immigrant I ever worked with as opposed to some well paid overweight trade unionist who just treated me or someone I work with like an animal.

Anyway, solidarity with fellow workers being one of the most important things to me, and having worked with a good number of likely illegal immigrants, I have to say, that I have solidarity with them. I realize this is going to be the minority view here, if for no other reason, most people on here probably have never worked or lived among them. And it's easier to stay stuff that people are saying here about other people if you can't humanize them, and you base your opinions more on what the media says than on what you can see. But that's fine, I don't expect anything better than that. I still stick with my first two points which are more factually based.