Argument missed a point

In Beverly Hartley’s Mailbag letter, (“Saying ‘no thanks’ to candidate and stance,” Saturday), she expresses her outrage over Barack Obama’s statement about how it is important to naturalize as many legal residents as possible so they can vote against the “people who voted against comprehensive immigration reform.”

Hartley writes, “What part of ‘illegal’ does he not get?”

In all her lividness, she failed to distinguish the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. She also makes a racially charged statement about illegal gardeners and housekeepers (presumably Latino residents) who apparently can’t mow her lawn as well as she can.

Of course, racism and discrimination are nothing new to the United States naturalization process. Congress originally allowed only white persons to become naturalized citizens. It wasn’t until the Immigration Act of 1965 that we finally allowed all persons from all nations to be given equal access to naturalization.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed this law, his hope was to confirm America’s bedrock principles of America being a free country, where everyone is considered equal. This was part of the Civil Rights Movement. I like to think of it as the “treat others as you would have them treat yourself” movement.

But the ultimate in irony is her statement that, “we are being pushed out of our homeland, and everyone is too busy to care.” Besides that fact that her homeland was established by immigrants, this blatant ignorance of historical facts only goes to show how blinded with rage someone can become when made uncomfortable by foreigners.

The fact is that the Spanish came to California in 1769 to spread the Catholic faith among the Native American residents, building what is known today as the California missions. The Mission San Fernando Rey de España was built in 1797 to baptize the Tataviam and Tongva Tribes of American Indians.

On Jan. 13, 1847, the Treaty of Cahuenga ended the Mexican-American War in California, signed where the Lankershim Metro Red Line subway station is today (look for the diagonal decorative bricks on the road surface of Lankershim Boulevard just north of the entrance to Universal Studios). The next year, Mexico ceded what was then known as Alta California to the United States.

Hartley ends her letter with, “Maybe in five years, when it is too late, we will care.” The fact is that since the 1980s, Los Angeles has been a minority-majority city. The city’s non-Latino, white population as of 2005 stands at only 28.5%.

Despite this, the sky has not fallen, banks are still open and Starbucks is still serving coffee to legal and illegal residents alike.