I personally really enjoyed Paul Cuadros' speech. First off when he was speaking of American reactions towards Latinos I think he was mainly discussing illegal immigrants, however often times people see a latino and assume that they must be illegal. I didn't ever feel attacked and I do think that Americans in general need to change their attitudes and prejudices they have towards the Latino population in the United States.
On a different, but similar note:
Coming into the US legally isn't as easy as most think or would wish. There are so many hoops to jump through in order to obtain legal status and even more to jump through to become a citizen.
Also every time I hear about the American companies advertising in Mexico and near the border to entice people to come to America to work, it makes me really frustrated. It's the greedy big businesses who are looking for a cheap and disposable work force. If we should be angry at anyone it should be the big business who try to seduce people to come here so that they can treat them poorly and put them in dangerous positions in plants and job sites. Everyone should check out the movie fast food nation to get an idea of the relationship between food processing plants and illegal immigrants. its heartbreaking, but eyeopening.
so anyway, i guess i'll see everyone in class on tuesday!

Abby, I agree.

Although I have to say that Cuadros did kind of stereotype all Americans into one large group of people who discriminate against the Latino population, mainly the illegal immigrants, and that really bothered me, I do think that he made some good points.

What most Americans don't know or realize is that while we think life in America is the norm, in many countries, even the poorest Americans would be incredibly wealthy in countries like Guatemala, Puerto Rico, or even Mexico. So if you were living in a country where you were barely scraping by, wouldn't you try to make a better life for you and your children? Americans are constantly saying that immigrants should come here legally, and I agree that if they are able, they should....but it's incredibly difficult!! My cousin just married a French woman who came here from France on a visa to go to college. Now she is trying to become a citizen, and it has been an incredibly difficult process so far, and there's not much much hope of it becoming easier. If this is hard for an intelligent woman with a college degree, I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a person who has no knowledge of the English language, is impoverished, and has little education to even come here legally, let alone become a citizen as soon as they arrive.

I think that Convocation may have been better understood by those that have read the book already. Cuadros is/was not trying to make the point about Americans being solely discriminatory as much as he was trying to just put it before us, showing us how the perception is from the immigrants stand point. In the book he makes a point saying that the immigrants were more American than those of us that were born here. The immigrants are part of a dwindling part of society that appreciate the power of freedom the rest of us take for granted. If we think about what our ancestors went through it's much the same as what is going on today. For example, particular nationalities were only welcomed in certain areas of town perpetuating an unspoken segregation. Through our looks and acts we're still doing the same thing today. Just because we were born here doesn't make us any more important than the immigrants. Like Cuadros said, the Constitution starts with "WE THE PEOPLE" not We the Citizens. Our nation was founded by those seeking freedom, why close the door on people that are carrying that American Spirit. Welcome the diversity, challenge the barriers and share your kindness.

While speaking on immigration, stereotypes, and looking down upon certain cultures I think it is important for all of us to look at ourselves. While we would love to say "I don't do this" think about all the other cultures and sub-cultures that you (not anyone in particular!) observe on a day to day basis. I think this can be taken far beyond Latinos and into Gender, Race, Class, Sexuality and the list goes on and on....so I challenge each person to think of this as more than just Latinos.

Cuadros' speech would have been better understood by you if you had read the book previously. He talks a lot in the book about we as Americans get so angry about illegal immigrants not paying taxes and them being here but they do not think of all the dirty jobs they do that keeps our economy going. How many Americans would do what they do and for their pay? That really made me think.

I loved Paul Cuadros' speech at Convocation. I am very interested in the treatment of immigrants to the United States. I did not feel attacked at all. I think Cuadros was addressing the American government for the most part. I really enjoyed that he talked about both sides of the issue. My favorite part of the speech was when he said that immigration was not an invasion but an invitation because the advertisements that American companies make in Mexico and other countries.

Ashley G.,

I wanted to commend you, though, for being willing to state your perceptions and responses. Any further thoughts that might amplify your perspective for those who felt differently?

What Mr. Cuadros said that made me really think about was the point made by big corporations going to Mexico and recruiting workers for the states. I want to know where they are in all this and if any legal action has been taken against these companies?

First of all, I wanted to say to Ashley G that this is a touchy subject. It can be very confusing because we are all exposed to different aspects of the situation.
Secondly, I wanted to give some support to the statements made by Abby and Whitney about the difficulty that immigrants have in coming to the US. As Abby mentioned in class, we both we to a talk last semester put on by EL PUEBLO: "a statewide advocacy and policy organization dedicated to strengthen the Latino community." (They are stationed in the Research Triangle Park area.) One of the most astonishing things for me was the information we were given about the HUGE application backlogs for coming into the US. There are people that applied in 1984 that are still waiting to come in. As of this spring, those that applied in 2001 were the most recent getting in and they were coming from countries OTHER than those in Spanish speaking countries.
If you are interested in more info check out www.elpueblo.org.
Stephen, you may find some answers to your questions there. This organization was the first that informed me about the recruiting of corporations.

_________________

Audrey Fowler

Sorry that is it has taken awhile to comment back. I did go to the Writers Series that night as well so i could see if i was misunderstanding this. I must say i needed more background information on the topic. I did not realize that the big American cooperations are trying to get illegal immigrants. I was under the impression that yes they were enticing them to come to the US and work for us but at the same time come over legally. I know this is a touchy subject and my political side of me just wants to jump out but i have to really learned about the truth and not just what the politics say. Because we all know that politics has tons of misrepresentations. I do feel that maybe after reading the book i will get to understand it better but i must say i still feel the words he used could have been better said. But that is what i think and i know that is not what everyone else has stated in the blog.