Papers

If you know me well enough, you know that I have a degree in Spanish and French from the best university in Texas, Texas A&M. It is possible that, like my sister, reading my blog gives you the opinion that I am off-the-deep-end conservative. What you might not know is that the highest grades I ever received in college were in a class called Sociology of Minority Groups.

After taking that class, I considered pursuing a Master's in Sociology. What kept me from heading in that direction was the feeling that there were so many problems for which I did not have answers. I did not want to set myself up for the intense frustration that would surely accompany studying so many disturbing trends among the world's population and not being able to make anything better.

It turns out that if you consider all of the groups I belonged to while at A&M (being female, being in a sorority, being LDS, being married, being pregnant and married, being a Spanish major, pursuing a French minor, participating in the University Research Fellowship, but not completing it, the list actually goes on), I was a minority. I was more than a minority: there was no one in the entire university, at any point in those four years, like me. So, while I am not an ethnic minority, I am empathetic to being on the receiving end of humanity's less than noble sentiments.

The debate on immigration reform is similar to the debate on healthcare reform: technically complex, in the sense of the law, politically complex, and emotionally charged. Obama campaigned on delivering the fundamental transformation of America, but his radical changes are not the only possible radical changes out there. The Repubs had eight years to tackle immigration, but they did not. They feared losing the Hispanic vote, which they never had anyway.

I, for one am glad that they did not follow the extreme Right and build a wall or deport everyone. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Complete amnesty or the Great Wall 2.0? How is it possible that no one in Washington is intelligent enough, or courageous enough, to propose radical changes that would satisfy the needs of the immigrants as well as our budgetary constraints? If I had to guess, it is courage they lack, not ideas.

The media hype surrounding Arizona's new law frustrates me to no end. Today I heard an endless reel of soundbites comparing asking someone to show id to a Nazi asking for a Jew's papers. While I have lived in Fayetteville, the police have twice set up a road block on a nearby street, where every car on the road, had to stop and show ID. I wonder how well it would turn out for me if I called the cop a Nazi for asking to see my license? How is this, supposedly legal, violation of my civil liberties any different than what is proposed for Arizona? There is this thing called a social contract: we give up certain liberties in exchange for certain protections and services.

I have my own ideas of how to solve this, but UFC is about to come on, so saving the world will have to wait another day.