July 17, 2004
Memo From Mexico, By
Allan Wall
Oklahoma—Another State Follows California’s Example
I recently returned from a
visit to my home state of Oklahoma.
I wish I could tell you that my
beloved home state is somehow immune from all the
immigration insanity described in a typical
VDARE.com article. But of course I can’t.
When it comes to
mass immigration and multiculturalism, Oklahoma is
pretty much following the same script as California and
most other states.
We still have some catching up to
do. But the signs are unmistakable.
Too many immigrants are entering
the state, too many are illegal, too many are not
assimilating. Hispanic activists are beginning to assert
themselves, demanding special privileges and Balkanizing
the culture. The next decade or two should see some real
demographic change.
According to FAIR's
State Report for Oklahoma,
“Oklahoma’s immigrant population more than doubled
during the 1990s, increasing by 101 percent….53 percent
of Oklahoma’s immigrant population has arrived in the
state since 1990.”
Most Oklahomans are simply clueless
about what is happening. I sure was myself, when I
still lived in Oklahoma,
before I moved to Mexico.
You’re not supposed to mention this
in polite company, but along with high immigration,
crime and poverty have increased. In fact, 23% of
immigrants in Oklahoma have incomes below the poverty
level, so the state is importing poverty. According to a
2000 INS estimate, there are 46,000 illegal aliens in
Oklahoma, although it’s likely the real figure is
higher.
Immigration law enforcement?
According to the FAIR report,
“Local
police officers say that federal immigration officials
rarely show up when police call, even when illegal
aliens are arrested for serious crimes. State troopers
cite recent incidents where illegal aliens arrested on
criminal charges simply disappeared out into the
community after federal immigration authorities declined
to detain them. In some cases, immigration officials
have told local police to release illegal aliens because
there weren’t enough immigration agents to process them.”
This is a problem all over the
U.S.A., where local police are impeded from
enforcing immigration law. In contrast, here in
Mexico, local police are required to enforce
immigration law. And they
do so.
Oklahomans used to pride themselves
on being hard-working and self-reliant. Nowadays,
illegal alien Mexican labor is gaining more and more
adherents. Construction, agriculture and even the oil
patch are becoming more and more reliant on it.
My brother, who has worked in the oil fields as a
roughneck, once showed up at the oil
rig for a new job. But he was surprised to be informed
that he didn’t have that new job after all. My brother
had just been
replaced, you see, by a Mexican illegal alien
without experience.
Yes, it was that blatant.
Oklahoma City and Tulsa now have
large
Spanish-speaking barrios, where practically none
existed before, with the typical social problems
associated with such neighborhoods. The illegal alien
population in rural areas is growing as well.
Immigration-induced population
growth and sprawl is another taboo that can’t be
discussed. According to FAIR, the average commute in
Oklahoma increased 12% in the 1990s, crowded housing
increased 60%, and each year the state loses 35,300
acres of agricultural land and open space. At 607 square
miles, Oklahoma City is already one of the biggest
cities in the country by area. But, as elsewhere,
immigration and urban sprawl must never be connected.
On a previous visit, several years
back, I arrived to the Oklahoma City bus station and
purchased a copy of The Daily Oklahoman
newspaper. Lo and behold, it contained an article about
a growing social problem in Oklahoma City.
The problem? Mexican immigrant
women who are abused by their Mexican immigrant husbands
can't communicate with social workers because they
can't speak English.
Now, I can think of several
sensible approaches to this problem:
1. Don't
import
immigrants who beat their wives.
2. If
they're
caught beating their wives,
deport them.
3. Require
all immigrants to be able to
speak English.
Needless to say, none of these
sensible solutions were presented in the article.
Naturally, the solution was that we need more
social workers who speak Spanish. All at
taxpayer expense, of course.
And we have the gall to call
Californians and New Yorkers liberal!
The growth of the Spanish language
in Oklahoma is transforming what was formerly a nearly
monolingual state. And rather than demand that
immigrants learn English, the Oklahoma
media/political elite is encouraging linguistic
balkanization. It’s just as they want to say to folks in
New York and
LA: “Hey, we’re not a bunch of rednecks out here.
We can betray our culture just like you can!”
In January of 2004, The Daily
Oklahoman, considered a conservative periodical, ran
a 5-part part puff piece on the joys of linguistic
balkanization, entitled
“Spanish in Oklahoma.”
A few years ago concerned
Oklahomans put together initiative petition 366, which
would have declared English the official language of
Oklahoma. The petition had more than enough signatures
to appear on the ballot as a referendum, but was
nixed by the Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2002. The
court declared in a 7-1 decision that the
petition was unconstitutional. Why? Because,
according to the court,
“...Petition No. 366 would disenfranchise segments of
Oklahoma citizens by interfering with their ability to
access vital information necessary for a self-governing
society and cause self-censorship by inhibiting
communications with government officials.”
You see what I mean? Out-of-control
judges on the East and Left Coasts have no monopoly on
judicial activism. Okie judges can play that game too.
As my California colleague Joe Guzzardi has
previously informed us, agitation for in-state tuition
for illegal aliens
has also reached Oklahoma.
Driver's license tests can now be
taken in Spanish.
And
Vicente Fox has already interfered in several
Oklahoma
death penalty cases.
In other words, what’s happening in
Oklahoma is far from unique. It’s the familiar litany of
Mexican Invasion characteristics happening
throughout the nation.
Of course, if the numbers were much
more manageable, and if we really believed in
assimilation and citizenship, Oklahoma could absorb a
limited number of immigrants and be enriched by them.
Immigrants like my Mexican sister-in-law, who speaks
English fluently, is integrated into the community and
is married to my brother. But the quantity of immigrants
is such that more and more immigrants find assimilation
less and less necessary.
On the day I departed Oklahoma, I
picked up a few Oklahoma Hispanic newspapers.
“El Latino American,”
emblazoned on the front cover with a Mexican coat of
arms, included ads for document translation, ambulance
chasing attorneys and a bail bond service with the
slogan “¡Salga De La Carcel RÁPIDO!” (Get out of
jail quick!).
Another paper was entitled
“El Nacional de Oklahoma.” (Hmm, which nacion
is it referring to?) This paper contained an editorial
bashing Professor
Huntington’s able description of the Hispanization
of the United States. The editorialist, Matías Menis
(email him at
nacional@swbell.net), in an article entitled “¿Qué
sería los Estados Unidos sin hispanos?” (What would
the United States be
without Hispanics?) wrote that
“One of
Huntington’s fears is to know if the United States
will continue as a country with one single national
language and a core
Anglo-Protestant culture.
The
transformation of the United States into a bicultural
country does not have to be the end of the world. But it
would be the end of the country that we have known for
the past three Centuries.” (Uno de
los miedos de Huntington es saber si Estados Unidos
continuará como un país con un solo idioma nacional y
una cultura anglo protestante central. La transformación
de Estados Unidos en un país (bicultural) no tendría que
ser el fin del mundo, pero sí sería el fin del país que
conocemos desde hace tres siglos.)
Exactly. And Sr. Menis believes the
country should be transformed whether its
non-Hispanic majority desires it or not.
He continues, explaining why he
believes that the new nation will be superior to the old
one:
“It
could happen and it could result in the formation of a
new nation that is much better than the old one—a
country without prejudices or narrow-minded thinking, a
country without discrimination and racism.”
(Puede que ocurra y puede que sea
para formar una nueva nación mucho mejor que la
anterior, un país sin prejuicios ni pensamientos
estrechos, un país sin discriminación ni facismo.)
Menis is promoting the fantasy that
Latin America is some sort of color-blind Arcadia,
which is of course pure bunk.
Racial stratification in Latin America puts
whites squarely at the top, and is one of the
reasons Latin American elites promote mass emigration—to
avoid a racial rebellion.
So what’s the future for Oklahoma?
If present trends continue, as more and more Mexican
immigrants (many illegal) will arrive and pressure for
them to
assimilate to our culture will continue to decrease.
The middle class will be squeezed
out, urban sprawl will eat up more farmland, wages will
drop, Hispanic activists will gain more clout and the
Mexican government will get more say in how Oklahoma is
governed.
Sounds a lot like
California. And eventually, the
whole country.
Wake up, Oklahoma.
American citizen Allan Wall lives and works legally in
Mexico, where he holds an FM-2 residency and work
permit, but serves six weeks a year with the Texas Army
National Guard, in a unit composed almost entirely of
Americans of Mexican ancestry. His VDARE.COM articles
are archived
here; his
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived
here; his
website is
here. Readers
can contact Allan Wall at
allan39@prodigy.net.mx.
