A Former California Teacher—Environmentalist, Liberal Democrat—Says Sen. Dianne Feinstein Is Wrong On AgJobs
06/27/2008
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From: Carol Two Pines (e-mail her)

Joe Guzzardi's Column: Dianne Feinstein: You May Not Agree—But I Say She's Senile

I am one of the VDARE.COM readers that Guzzardi referred to in his column as having contacted Senator Feinstein to strongly protest her stealth efforts to add an AgJobs amnesty onto a bill to increase funding for the Iraqi war.

In her reply to me, Feinstein said disingenuously that she posted help wanted ag jobs in welfare offices throughout California's 58 counties without getting one single taker. 

That's because the welfare system is rife with Catch-22s that make it stupid to take a job that pays less than welfare or is temporary employment only.

For example, among other the obstacles to taking an ag job is that you and your family could starve by the time crop work ended and before welfare kicked in.  I was on welfare for 13 years before I finally got my B.A. and eventually a decent job so I know whereof I speak. 

And my background is such that I know the real agriculture/labor story is.

I lived in either Stockton or Lodi for over twenty years. My white husband helped out at neighbors' farms doing tasks that Mexicans do now to earn spending money.

When I went to Stockton's Franklin High School, lots of my fellow students (girls) picked cherries on the weekends for spending money. And it wasn't just the Mexican girls—there were lots of white girls working in the cherry packing shed. 

Although I am against both legal and illegal immigration, I am also, unlike many in your audience, a lifelong liberal Democrat.

Two Pines earned a B.A. in environmental studies from California State University, Sacramento and taught in Stockton for eight years, three of which were as an educator for Native American Indians. Currently, she is an artist whose work on environmental themes appears under the name of Cloud Basket. Her previous letter calling for less immigration into California is here

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