(Teagbaggers, Don't Let the Facts get in Your Way!)
It seems as if the people of Arizona have been deluded into believing that "illegal immigrants" are why they no longer have jobs.
What we have to teach people, if it's within our power, is to go into a local Lowe's or Home Depot or some other corporate store. Stand near the cash register and look to the left and then to the right. Look at the aisle identifiers hanging from the ceilings. Note that the contents of the aisles are written in both English and Spanish.
Ask people, "Do you really believe that those who risk their lives coming across the desert into The FUSA have that much influence over American corporations? Do you really believe that these people warned corporate America that, if they didn't put documentation in their stores in Spanish as well as English, they'd refuse to sneak into this country?"
If they have any inkling of an open mind -and I realize that's a stretch -they'd see who the real culprits are. People from poor oppressive countries wouldn't come to this country if they had no reason to come.
So, if corporations didn't take advantage of their illegal status by paying them dirt wages and refused to hire anyone who wasn't an American citizen or at least legally in this country, there would be no reason for people to put so much at risk to come here.
Maybe then you can start to talk to them about how Western Europeans obtained the land that they now call The United States of America. They not only stole it violently from people who'd been living here for centuries, but decided they needed to violently steal land from a sovereign Mexico as well. Arizona, Texas, parts of California and a few other states and territories were already inhabited by Hispanic people. One would think that, once Western Europeans violently took those territories over, they would have had enough compassion to allow the people to maintain their own language and culture.
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