XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN AMERICA

IT MOTIVATED THIS FELLOW I KNOW TO CHANGE HIS NAME

Now he is thriving, not just surviving and because he is blond and blue eyed his accent is noticeable but he is not the object of discrimination…everyone thinks he is Polish! Of course, he lives out west, in the most of recalcitrant ultra-conservative America state: Arizona.

I asked him: “What happened to your last name; that very noble and prominent last name of your grandfather who was a very honest and righteous man?” He said that he had to do it in order to survive in that environment.

I am so despondent that anybody has to divorce himself from the culture, the language, the food, the music and even shed their own identity by changing their name because their heritage or ethnicity renders them inferior in a society.

I say: maintain your identity, be proud of what you are, those who don’t approve will never approve no matter what you do. Even if you were to learn English like I did, would speak without a trace of an accent as my daughters do (THEY HAVE HAD PEOPLE TELL THEM TO GET BACK ON THE BANANA BOAT THEY CAME IN AND GO BACK TO THEIR COUNTRY) and appear to be part of that WASPH (WHITE, ANGLO-SAXON, PROTESTANT, HETEOSEXUAL) majority; even if you were to practice one of those cult-Evangelical religions, even if you were to insert your penis in a vagina; that dwindling majority will not accept you.

Do you really think that Arizona law “show me your papers” is really about their concern for their safety and their rejection of the drug trade? It is not, it is just some politicians making a point, using the immigrants as escape goats to show that they are “taking back their America”.