Althouse: "I came from Peru in 1963. I was legally given a visa. At the time when I came into this country..."

January 22, 2016

"I came from Peru in 1963. I was legally given a visa. At the time when I came into this country..."

"... they didn’t give us money or anything like that. You came in. You put your money in the bank. And then you supported yourself. Nowadays, this country gives all the Muslims or whoever is coming, welfare, money, housing, furniture. I worked for the city of La Mesa in California and I used to deal with a lot of people from Afghanistan. They come into America and they give free rent, free food, free money and all of that. I worked all my life. I went to school. And, now, we have to work harder to support those people."

Adolfo Villalobos, 75, quoted in a NYT feature called "Of the People/Americans share their hopes, fears and frustrations in interviews from the campaign trail."

31 comments:

Big Mike said...: Yes! It's about time people started to recognize that pushing back on unrestricted immigration will not cost Trump or Cruz or any other Republican the Hispanic vote. The people of La Raza can go screw themselves.; 1/22/16, 9:00 AM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: I live part time in South Texas with a centuries-old Hispanic community and no one, and I mean no one, hates recent Mexican arrivals on welfare more than they do.; 1/22/16, 9:04 AM
Sal said...: I suspect that our generosity now is due more to maintaining a huge welfare bureaucracy than meeting actual material needs of immigrants.; 1/22/16, 9:05 AM
Curious George said...: No Sal, it's about getting votes for Democrats.; 1/22/16, 9:16 AM
wendybar said...: Welcome to America, now vote for Democrats so you can maintain this standard of living we are giving you!!!; 1/22/16, 9:20 AM
PB said...: When government acts as a charity the problems begin. When to stop? It's part of the "give free stuff" to get votes and push the bill way into the future that is only a con game, because there is no intention of sticking when the bill comes due.; 1/22/16, 9:34 AM
Hagar said...: Yes, Sal, it's about getting votes for Democrats.

FIFY.; 1/22/16, 9:58 AM
Carter Wood said...: I've heard this sentiment expressed repeatedly in my German travels, going back to the late '70s. The resentment has been there for a long time: "I worked for years, and they get everything free and demand even more than I have?"; 1/22/16, 9:59 AM
traditionalguy said...: Trump was right on target calling for the Wall defense. That brought in massive and ongoing barrages from haters telling lies that he is a racist for defending the USA from foreign invasion.

Trump is right in the way and blocking the invading Army's intentions and is holding on through it all.

Who has the time to debate how many Conservative Principles can dance on the head of a pin. The Battle to hold America is on. And we need Red Trump leading us just as much as the First Marine Raiders needed Red Mike leading them on September 12-13 , 1942.; 1/22/16, 10:05 AM
lgv said...: Fact, Mexican Americans will be the first to report a company for hiring illegals.

There are two camps: 1) those who have family that they would like to see emigrate to the US, or those who benefit from a higher hispanic population and 2) those who will lose their jobs to the new legal illegals. The breakdown isn't what the press would have you believe and it maybe because hispanic citizens keep it to themselves.; 1/22/16, 10:19 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: R-r-r-raaacist!

What's the Spanish word for "xenophobe," I wonder?

It's too damn bad we can't find a non-Leftist candidate with the balls to highlight and harness divisions like the one pointed out here among pupportedly solid voting blocs...; 1/22/16, 11:47 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Try to imagine sometime how a legal immigrant who went through a very long and very expensive process to become a legal American citizen must feel towards people who sneak in, incur none of the expense or hassle of a long legalization process, and are nevertheless warmly embraced by the Left/Democrat politicians, called fun things like Dreamers, and allowed almost all of the rights and privileges of citizens just 'cause they're here now and it'd be wrong and racist to do otherwise.
What a damn sucker someone like that must feel like! How silly to have obeyed the law when it was costly to do so and the consequence of not obeying the law is nearly the same!
Yeah, too bad the Republicans are too stupid to use that line of attack to divide the committed Leftists (who just want to import more Dem voters no matter how it's accomplished) from the hardworking law-obeying recent legal immigrants and their communities.; 1/22/16, 11:53 AM
gerry said...: As an Hispanic, is Mr. Villalobos immune from charges of Islamophobia? Or, is he a "white Hispanic", and so, in the view of MSM folks, liable to bogus charges of racism?; 1/22/16, 12:11 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/22/16, 12:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Carter Wood: I've heard this sentiment expressed repeatedly in my German travels, going back to the late '70s. The resentment has been there for a long time: "I worked for years, and they get everything free and demand even more than I have?"

Yeah, we resent it, but that's all we do. And the PC enforcers go right on bullying people in the West into submitting to ever greater economic parasitism, insolence, hostility, and outright treason from people that no healthy society would ever have allowed in in the first place.; 1/22/16, 12:48 PM
n.n said...: The welfare state is a multi-trillion dollar industry. His concerns of progressive corruption fall on mostly deaf ears.

Then a bull enters the farm and confronts both the snorting jackasses and trumpeting pachyderms. The consequences of anti-native policies can no longer be easily ignored. The babies of planning past are resurrected. The causes of mass emigration are exposed. The uprooting of millions of people in a refugee crisis will be ended. The rainbow divided is now a unified front.; 1/22/16, 12:49 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: In 1963, there was no quota on immigration from independent countries in the western hemisphere.

That was only out into effect with the 1965 immigration law, effective January 1, 1968.

As Donald Trump would say: A BIG MISTAKE.

People from the western hemisphere only had top to meet quality requirements - mostly that they would not be a public charge (which usually meant a sponser) and maybe a small tax. AND VISITING WAS NO PROBLEM.; 1/22/16, 1:29 PM
furious_a said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/22/16, 1:34 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: * Only PUT into effect.

\Doesn't anybody know anything about the history of U.S. immigration law?; 1/22/16, 1:35 PM
furious_a said...: Five bucks sez el Peruano will be a Trump voter.

I remember standing in the checkout line at the old San Francisco 34th&Clement Safeway for my weekly shopping, routinely surrounded by bling-bedecked Russian emigres with nicer clothes than mine paying with Food Stamps. They are pros at getting their layabout relatives into the country and on the dole.; 1/22/16, 1:37 PM
Rusty said...: v said...
Fact, Mexican Americans will be the first to report a company for hiring illegals.

There are two camps: 1) those who have family that they would like to see emigrate to the US, or those who benefit from a higher hispanic population and 2) those who will lose their jobs to the new legal illegals. The breakdown isn't what the press would have you believe and it maybe because hispanic citizens keep it to themselves.

Here it's even simpler. 1 All of those who came here legally and worked hard. 2 All of those that are here illegally and get free housing food and credit and healthcare. There have been fistfights in the parking lot where I work.; 1/22/16, 2:13 PM
n.n said...: The problem for the national socialists is not that monopolies are well established causes of catastrophic misalignments of control and capital, and that excessive immigration disenfranchises citizens, but that their ulterior motives sponsor corruption. Americans are taking notice of the class diversity schemes, selective-child, planned replacements, Female chauvinism, constructed congruences, devaluation of capital and labor, and anti-native policies.

The problem for the minority leaders is that the fiefdoms denied to them in their native countries and promised to them by Democrats are the cause of a progressive conflict between their respective charges. The usual tactics of human and civil rights lobbyists to deny a voice to the majority of Americans is progressively falling on deaf ears. It's too late for them to reconcile their selective or unprincipled positions.; 1/22/16, 2:32 PM
CatherineM said...: Visit your local Social Security office. While you are there, talk to a security guard too. What an education.

The media acts as though our grandparents just walked in over a huge welcome mat and got a job. Reality, the had to provide ID, have a sponsor (name address and statement) who would be responsible financially while you looked for work. My grandmother was the last in her family with her mother to arrive because dad, went first, stayed with a cousin, got a job as an elevator man, got a place and slowly brought family over when he had the money (those who could work/contribute came first). I know this because it is DOCUMENTED!; 1/22/16, 2:40 PM
Hagar said...: When I came over in 1953, there were national quotas, but enthusiasm for emigrating to the U.S. had been somewhat dimmed at the time, since word got around that the local draft boards here were happy to draft immigrants and send them to Korea in preference to the sons of their constituents, so I only had to wait a year for my turn to come up.
I then had to provide an affidavit from my hometown police that I was of good character, had no criminal record, and definitely no association with any known Communist entity. My uncle was my "sponsor" and had to provide evidence of "financial responsibility" and certify that he clearly understood that he would be charged with any costs incurred by the United States in rounding me up and deporting me back to my homeland if I should commit any crimes or in any way whatever become a burden to the American taxpayer while residing in the United States on my visa.

I could also mention that since I was not yet a citizen when I was drafted, I apparently was not eligible for any state benefits as a "returning veteran" when I was discharged on completion of my service, though I am sure the State of Washington took credit for me on its quota.; 1/22/16, 2:56 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Islam and slothful lefties want free stuff. Vote Bernie.; 1/22/16, 4:01 PM
Anonymous said...: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” fixes all of this. Work can be the same as bringing into the country a lifetime worth of wealth. See Switzerland. Government and compassion are opposites, oxymoron’s. The only entity capable of compassion is the individual and their voluntary organizations, starting with families and then fraternal organizations. Compassion, a hand up, without the uncomfortable sense of a personal obligation to do better, or do as well as you can, and pay the gift forward is the essence of compassion. Where the obligation must be freely taken and not coerced to have the desired effect and benefit to civil society. There’s no possibility of a government creating this sense of obligation because obligation is a very personal thing. It’s what causes children to leave the nest and strive for an independent life because they no longer want to be obligated or be treated like a child incapable of accepting responsibility for self.

I wager pTb would be happy to place the same demand on every citizen, not just immigrants, and invite those who work to stay even if only for pennies an hour, and those who choose not to, to leave. There is no such thing as a birthright, which is little more than discrimination at its worst. I wager pTb would happily welcome workers if he could banish the takers. Consider that insurance covering a mistake or a tragedy is not compassion. Those who believe social security is an insurance policy or an investment where the individual has nothing but a check written on a future citizen’s bank account need to remember that with this compassion comes an obligation that returns them to their childhood, taking direction from others. Or they should provide for their own non-work years. As your Mr. Jefferson said something similar to “the dead don’t vote” which means that today’s citizens can’t obligate tomorrow’s, and when they attempt to do so, it’s the ultimate immoral acts The Constitution (should be) no different. You should formally accept the contract shortly after you are of age, or leave, or if in the majority change it, or revolt.

This, governments being incapable of compassion is no different than morality. Governments can’t be moral. Only its individual citizens can be. Which is why government is also the opposite of morality since a decision made and paid for by a group makes each of us morally responsible. Even for the most repugnant of acts committed in our name. I’ve admired GWB at a distance for insisting the U.S. manage extracting life-saving information directly from prisoners rather than what Mr. Clinton did when he handed these poor souls over to an ally to extract the same information If not worse. The Sauds and Jordanians have none of the U.S. sensibilities or inhibitions. GWB understood that rendition didn’t change the moral calculus, rather all it did was allow Mr. Clinton to claim his and the U.S. citizen’s hands were clean, irrespective of the facts. Few admit that Mr. C caused 1000s to suffer and 100s of deaths while Mr. B. did it three times and was damned for it. Quite a difference.

Since citizens bear the full responsibility as individuals for their government’s actions it’s no wonder some are willing to revolt to avoid responsibility. Consider the conscientious objector that a government permits to nurse and evacuate the wounded on the battlefield so they don’t have to kill a human which they believe condemns their eternal soul. Ditto for those who believe all human life in any form must be preserved. To avoid personal damnation to the best level possible a non-believing civil society must provide an out, that at least one that minimizes their personal responsibility. An easy out is to not tax everyone for an abhorrent behavior to a minority. Let those not encumbered by that personal belief pay the bills, carry the weapons. In the modern age, we certainly have the information technology to allow opt-in and opt-out with sufficient granularity to maximize civil society rather than poison it.; 1/22/16, 4:12 PM
Paul said...: Free stuff? Well Ann, you voted for the king of free stuff, Obama. Deal with it.; 1/22/16, 6:23 PM
CatherineM said...: Hagar - my German neighbors got their citizenship in Korea. You did not?; 1/22/16, 6:45 PM
Hagar said...: No. At that time you get apply for citizenship after having served 90 days in the military, but I did not bother, until much later it dawned on me that if I became a registered voter I would be eligible for in-state tuition. The Admissions Drector at UNM did not like it, but I then undeniably became a citizen of New Mexico.; 1/22/16, 6:57 PM
Hagar said...: I have never understod this in-state, out-of-state tuition deal. It seems to be a violation of the Constitution, and in any case each state, except perhaps Massachusetts, must have as many or more young people going to school elsewhere as in-state.; 1/22/16, 7:09 PM
Annie said...: His story was my grandmother's story (1915ish) and my in-laws story (1950s). Someone had to sponsor them, they had to learn English, and find employment. They were not given nor did they expect any welfare.

Fast forward to the 90s when all the Bosnians were coming over. My uncle-in-law rented out the upstairs apartments of his four family flat to two Bosnian families. Our government paid all of their expenses for two years whether they learned English or got jobs or not. They sat on their butts and refused to look for work during those two years. Uncle (who came from the same region and could speak their language) charged them very little per month and many times was made to wait for the rent. They told him their 'check' was late. Pissed Uncle off as he thought the government was making them lazy.
From what I'm hearing now, many immigrants coming over, get on and stay on welfare indefinitely, contributing to the killing of the Golden Goose.; 1/23/16, 12:53 AM