If All Immigrants From Mexico Were Like This ...
06/05/2011
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... then only the number of them would matter.

That's the clear conclusion from an article about ace, and contrarian, mutual-fund manager Bob Rodriguez (of First Pacific Advisors) in the latest issue of Fortune magazine, specifically these two paragraphs:

Rodriguez grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles. His father, Joseph, was a Mexican immigrant who plated jewelry for a living (the family's otherwise modest house had gold-plated doorknobs). Though neither the mother nor the father, now both deceased, went to college, they taught Rodriguez and his older brother, Dick, about history and ethics. Joseph used to carry a copy of the Constitution in his pocket and would quiz his sons on it.

Joseph refused to teach the boys Spanish. "He was adamant that we be Americans," Rodriguez says. "He did not want my brother or me to grow up with an accent. It was not a good time to be of Mexican or Spanish heritage." Rodriguez's father proudly hung his certificate of U.S. citizenship in a "place of honor" in the family's den. (The Man Who sees Disaster, by Mina Kimes, Fortune, June 13, 2011; apparently not available online)

Because Rodriguez was 61 in 2009, we can identify his formative years, under the guidance of those assimilation-determined parents, as the late 1950s and early 1960s. What a vastly better United States we would have now if it were still, as back then, everyone's bedrock understanding that, while immigrants should have no shame in their heritage (how could they be responsible for that?), it's up to them to adjust to us, 100%.

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