Not A Good Thing!

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

WATSONVILLE — They are Mexico’s migrant workers, but they aren’t exactly Mexican.

They follow the crops from as far south as the Guatemalan border to as far north as Baja California.

Short in stature, dark in color and with a language all their own, they’re the poorest of the poor in Mexico. And they have long been discriminated against by the Mexican government: their land taken from them, their culture criticized, their different dialects ostracized by those who speak Spanish.

In many ways their history parallels that of the American Indian. And for the past five years they’ve been coming to Watsonville by the thousands, lured by the jobs in the fields, their center of gravity perfect for picking strawberries — Santa Cruz County’s No. 1 cash crop.

And these days dozens of Mixtec and Zapotec Indians can be found inside a small classroom at La Manzana Community Resources on Main Street in Watsonville, where they are learning how to read, write and, in some cases, even speak Spanish.

And in interviews conducted in rudimentary Spanish, they all say they are taking Spanish for one reason: To become literate in a language that is not their own but which is the key to getting a better job in agriculture.

That the class is taught in Spanish and not English is but another indicator that English may be the official language in the United States, but Spanish is the official language of agriculture in the West — at least at the bottom and middle rungs.

So, can you even pretend we are importing future citizens here, or can we just acknowledge that these are and will remain an imported serf class?

As always, feel the pride, that American slave owning pride!

H/T immigration Watchdog

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