when i later moved north to the SF bay area, my next door neighbors were the martinez's (i remember moving here and seeing quito road then thinking; "that's my friend!") mrs. martinez would make a million tamales once a year, and i still eat tamales regularly (i love mexican food)...
after my mother passed away, mrs. martinez became a surrogate mother of sorts to me - and when i cried after seeing my brothers' body in a coffin she was there with her hand on my shoulder (i honestly believe she is an angel in human form) - and to this day; one of my best old buddies is a martinez family cousin nicknamed yogi (see yogi's chicken recipe in THE BACK DOOR section of www.likroper.com) i saw him at the bar the other week and we bullshitted and hung out for quite a while...
then when you add in the fact that practically everything under the sun is named after something of hispanic origin (santa cruz, san francisco, san jose, los angeles, san luis obispo, san juan capistrano etc etc etc) this unresolved immigration issue is nothing more than a slap in the face to all of us - in fact; i have never had a bad encounter with anyone who appeared to be an illegal visitor to this country...
(you know; one thing no one ever takes into consideration is the fact that almost all mexican people are at least 1/2 native american and/or mayan in descent, and in america all you need to be is 1/13 native american to be considered for tribal status, so why can't the native american tribes step in and help resolve this issue?)
anyway, my point is this; the united states is essentially a country comprised of immigrants; and while this country cannot possibly develop the amount of land needed to satisfy the demands of every immigrant wanting to relocate to this country at this point in time (due to sustainable land use issues, ect) we can still allow people to visit in a way that is safe and organized...while there are no easy answers; the immigration issue is something that must be resolved in a timely fashion for the good of all...
LRE NOTE: UNITED WE STAND ~ DIVIDED WE FALL - it makes me wonder if the federal government is not dragging their feet on this issue; 1) to purposefully destabilize our democratic voting bloc and/or; 2) to help shut down the agricultural industry by depriving it of necessary workers to therefore force farmers to sell of land to bush administration developers?...either way; the republican party's racially divisive policies have once again created purposeful ethnic unrest by causing the police in 'liberal' areas of the country to become more forceful and use less discretion while at work, which is now causing increased friciton between races - even though i am a caucasian and i had wrongful force used against me by a latino cop (in fact; i had a black and a latino giving me dirty looks just today, and this is exactly what at least some people in our government want; CHAOS DISORDER AND HATRED amongst the races) and! the san jose police having a news conference and admitting to using force more against black and latinos than caucasians only throws fuel on the illuminati's purposeful fire, a fire the police will be called in to put out when/if another republican-sponsored race war like the rodney king an/or zoot suit riots occurs - believe me; there are forces at work within our government (and even in the media in certain aspects of MTV/VH1 and CNN programming like lou dobbs tonight and/or glenn beck; two white guys being paid by CNN to essentially give one side of the story and create racial unrest in america) that want the races to be divided and fight amongst themselves for fun and profit, but all this really does is destabilize democratic voting blocs and cause unrest - and this is precisely the trap that has been laid out; because if 'they' can get us all fighting amongst ourselves then who will be focusing on them?...at the end of every republican presidential era the grand finale is a race riot, so let's all please quit being pawns in the game and show some restraint so 'they' do not get their way this time around...
