American Sad to Say
	People don’t educate themselves. That was my reaction to that movie. Although I cannot say I have never been so ignorant or misinformed, I can say that I try to no longer be. “Try” is the key word as no one can be perfect all of the time, but I see so many not even going in the right direction is disappointing. In fact, my trying to be better informed has led me to find out that Fox News has misinformation or altered information or even completely fabricated stories, especially considering President Obama and his administration.
This was just a depressing reminder of what is going on in the country today and gives evidence to my belief that Americans are resisting moving forward stubbornly. The recent elections were proof enough of that for me. This country upsets me so much I even cried when I found out the results of the elections. It was ridiculous and reminded me the South Park episode “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce”:
	“Cartman: Are you saying that over one-fourth of Americans are retards?
	Kyle: Yes. I’m saying one-fourth of Americans are retards.
	Stan: Yeah, at least one-fourth.
Kyle: Let’s take a test sample. There’s four of us. You’re a retard. (Pointing at Cartman) That’s one-fourth.”
	I have come to love that quote so much it almost seems to be an anthem of America today for me. Sadly, I have to say I agree with Kyle and Stan. Now, retard in the sense that they are using does not mean mentally retarded, but more like that they are so dumb, stupid does not give the best connotation to describe the extent of their ignorance and stupidity. The meanings of words change throughout the years, decades, centuries. Sometimes you cannot go by the dictionary anymore to know what a person is saying nowadays.
I find that context is becoming severely necessary to make sure your words do not get misconstrued or misinterpreted. Fox News I have noticed has been doing this a lot with President Obama. The quotes they use can make the President sound like a huge jerk, and even scare the uninformed, making them then misinformed. One such occurrence was when the President was talking about the Bush Tax Cuts and whether or not they would be extended. They would take pieces similar to “The Bush tax cuts are coming to an end” but would leave off the “by design. By design they are to end.” Journalism has lost a lot of its credibility I think thanks to this kind of reporting.
The same thing also happened with Prop. 187. The media, political groups, and community groups made the prop look like it would solve everyone’s problems. They made it look like if you voted “yes” on Prop. 187 suddenly the streets would be clean, there would be no crime, and every American citizen could share in economic success. This of course was not and never could be true. For people to have their nice jobs in offices and stores, someone has to do the backbreaking labor of farming, construction, and factory production.
Also in the movie, people tried to blame the immigrants for the crime and unsightly state of the places they live. Do these people never think from the point-of-view of others? If they were in one of those immigrants shoes, what would they do? Would they too choose to enter a country illegally or stay in a country illegally after entering legally? Would they settle for the only housing they could find that wouldn’t ask questions about their citizenship status, even though the place is dilapidated, the rent is fairly high, and it’s located in a bad neighborhood? Would they do all of this to be able to have a job, support their family, feed their children, and hope their kids get a better life than the one they had? Wouldn’t anyone want a better future for their kids? Haven’t many already suffered for their children to have a better life?
The fact that people never seem to think of these questions is somewhat disturbing. I feel that because they do not take a moment and consider the other side(s)’ point-of-view they are limiting themselves in their ability to make the best possible decisions. In my own life I have seen this affect many. My boyfriend has Asperger’s Syndrome and has trouble having social relationships of any kind. It took a long time to help him understand that not everyone knew what he knew, could do what he could do, and thought the way he thought about things. Perspective is a primary foundation to making the best decisions possible. I don’t think a lot of the people who voted for Prop. 187 if they knew the number of kids they were sending to places they knew little about, sometimes to a culture they never heard of, and they would not have voted for that if they knew it meant starving, homeless, mentally and emotionally scarred children. And it wasn’t just a few that were impacted because of that prop.
I have been asked or told that there are other places in the world to live, and I have seriously considered moving to another country. I never would if I could help it. I love it here. Even with all the bad I feel a good, a freedom about this place that I don’t think I’d find anywhere else. I wouldn’t want to give this up. Unfortunately though, I also feel that I cannot stay around bigots and people who choose to be misinformed. To choose to be misinformed after being told and evidence being shown to you to prove that your source is manipulating, construing, or completely lying about information is just dumb. It’s just retarded. Also, I feel it is quite the insult that in France “Oh, their American,” is a sufficient excuse for quite a few wrongful actions. My friend had to get two of his trip-mates off the hook after they went into the wrong hotel room and the residents of the room were so upset and didn’t calm down until he used the “their American” excuse. His teacher, the leader of the group that went to France, had to also talk some of the students out of trouble and ended up using the “their American” excuse. It is horrible to think that Americans are expected to be reckless and inconsiderate.
In my opinion, President Obama is doing his job just fine. He may never be remembered as the greatest president, but I hope he doesn’t get remembered as the worst. President Obama definitely isn’t the first to have gotten the short end of the stick when entering office. Herbert Hoover also had an economic crisis on his hands when he went into office and everything he tried to help he ended up with a backlash. Hoover Flags, the turning-out of pockets, became very popular during his time and shanty towns where the unemployed ended up living were called Hoovervilles. I doubt he was the cause of the Great Depression, and I can understand why people were upset, but he did try to make things turn around. Even though what he did to help has basically been decided to not have helped at all, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s social programs are still in debate of whether or not they helped the economy or if it was solely the war that got the country out of the Great Depression and moving again.
I feel sorry for those children who had to suffer through that ordeal. I remember from high school the race riots. Artesia High was mostly Blacks and Hispanic. There was debate over new legislation to secure the border. There was already tension between the Blacks and Hispanic; and when the Hispanic started getting upset over the legislation being considered, the Blacks started to get on their case. There was almost an all-out war at the school that I saw from the window of the classroom I stayed in during lunch. Two large groups started walking up to each other and looked like they were going to start something. Arguments broke out but the school wasn’t about to allow anything to happen. They gathered up the students that they knew were leaders in both groups and the rest disbanded still looking angrily at each other. I transferred to Gahr High the next year, where I graduated from. I heard from friends that there were still racial problems at Artesia but things were getting better. I hear now that Artesia High has fallen under state control because the students were failing to pass the standardized tests. Some of the best teachers I’ve ever had were at Artesia, Gahr having been pretty much a cake walk in comparison.
The worry and stress those kids went through I’m certain weighed heavy on them and left mental and emotional scars. Sometimes these kids are the first to have made it to high school in their family. Some had plans and scholarships set up to go to college. Some of the most determined people to succeed in life were children of illegal immigrants. Children are sensitive to their parents’ situation; small hints can give away a lot of what the parents have tried to keep from their kids. It then becomes a burden not only on the parent, but also on the child. From my own experiences with my parents I can say that it hurts and that the children worry maybe not as much as the parents do, because they don’t know the whole situation, but it’s still more stress than a child should have to endure. I feel this to be true especially since we live in America. Your first job is supposed to be a rite of passage, a getting to do what you want without having to ask and explain why, not to help your parents meet ends meet. It’s a suffering to see others get to have the childhood you never could because your family couldn’t afford for you to just go to school.
I just wish people cared more than they do about their fellow man. “Love thy neighbor” seems to fall on deaf ears most of the time. I can understand not wanting to love your neighbor, but can you at least try to tolerate them? I don’t like the quinceaneras that go on till four in the morning with blasting music you can hear blocks away, but we don’t call the cops because that’s a special event in a young women’s life in their culture and I’m not about to take that away from them. And I definitely would never want to take away the American Dream from anyone, because sometimes, it’s all someone has left to hold on to.