America … Melting Pot … and NOT!!!

The recent activity in Arizona and a conversation with my "idea person" brought this incident to mind ...

A couple of years ago, when ICE was still INS and I still had my own business and wasn’t dealing with high school teen-agers everyday, I had a client who owned a 1,500 unit apartment complex – one of the largest in Houston - and a number of other properties around the US and Canada. They were based in Montreal and the CEO (and client) went to college at Cornell. Houston was their US headquarters.

My company did the newsletters and much of the other printed materials required for running the operations in the United States … including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, flyers, and bandit signs. We even designed the advertising for newspaper, magazines, malls, and bus stops.

So, one day, members of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services show up at the apartments on Gulfton Drive in Houston and orders the owner to round up all his housekeeping, maintenance, grounds and other assorted support staff and asks them to produce their Green Cards. He does and they do ... every one of them is “legal” and some are second, third and FOURTH generation Americans!!!

“You need to see anything else?” the owner asks. “Anyone else???”

When informed they were satisfied with seeing all the ID’s they’d requested, the owner (CEO) and the accountant (CFO ) then produced their own Green Cards, from Canada and India, respectively.

The INS leader paused and stammered … “y’all didn’t look ‘illegal’.”

LOOKS??? What did “looks” have to do with the “raid???”

Unfortunately, we’ve used “looks” many times in America. Today, we call it “racial profiling” ... and I have, in fact, been racially profiled and “mistaken” for a Hispanic in a multimillion dollar neighborhood (twice). My "crime" was driving a beat-up little pick-up truck that was favored by lawn maintenance workers .. and being in the neighborhood after 6:00pm.

Forget all the problems of segregation in the South, perhaps the greatest (and most disgusting) instance of racial profiling took place in the 1940’s when thousand of Japanese Americans were herded into “relocation camps” based on the color of their skins and shape of their eyes ... when at the same time on the East coast of America, millions of Germans and Italians were allowed to go “free” because there were NOT as easily identifiable!

But ain't that America ... for you and me ... ain't that America ... something to see, baby ... ain't that America ... home of the free!!!

40th Anniversary - May 4, 1970

Lest We Forget ... Four Dead in Ohio

I remember the Kent State shootings and wrote about it in my ninth grade journal in Mr. Stander's class. That was 40 years ago today. I lived less than 200 miles from Kent State University.

After Lyndon Johnson left the presidency, I had really hoped the Richard Nixon would quickly bring an end to the war in Vietnam. It wasn't as quick as we thought (sound familiar?).

In the late 1990's, I was in a group in Houston and one gentleman's name sounded familiar. When I asked him if he was perhaps in someway related to a victim of the Kent State Four, he said, that yes, one was his daughter.

"I am so sorry to have asked," I said.

"No, thanks you so much for remembering," he said.

As I teach, I have become so attached to the students. They are our future. How sad we lost William Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause on May 4, 1970.

for more info ...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/05/04/kent-state-40-years-on-why-four-died-in-ohio/

Four Dead in Ohio

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are gunning us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.
Four dead in Ohio.