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When Trump Rants, This Is What I Hear
The New York Times ^ | Oct. 13, 2024, 1:00 a.m. ET | Carlos Lozada, Opinion Columnist

Posted on 10/13/2024 12:08:01 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

I’ve never considered “immigrant” my calling card, even though it’s one I’ve always carried.

I arrived here first as a 3-year-old boy in the mid-1970s, settling with my family in Northern California, in a small town with trees so thick that their branches mingled high over the roads. My mother introduced us around the neighborhood not just as a new family, but as a Peruvian family (she signed cards, “from your Peruvian friends”). It mattered to her that people knew, whether to convey her pride or pre-empt their questions. Even when you’re trying to fit in, you can’t help standing out.

She connected with other women in the area from Spanish-speaking countries, forming a group they called the Lovely Latin Ladies. The food, music, laughter and nostalgia infusing those Triple L gatherings remain among my most vivid childhood memories. It’s taken me this long to realize that in Spanish the verb for “longing” and the noun for “stranger” — “extraño” — are the same word.

I am older today than the lovely ladies were then. After some back and forth between Lima and California in my childhood, I’ve made my home in the United States for decades now — going to college and graduate school, passing the citizenship test, marrying a native-born American, even seeing our children born in the nation’s capital. I’m an immigrant, but over the years the label has moved lower on my drop-down menu.

Is immigration something you do or something you are? Is it a step on the way to becoming something else or does the passage itself forever define you?

The longer I’m here, the more it’s become a memory, an evocation of a long ago that I share with my children, much as we might construct a family tree.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


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To: RetiredTexasVet

Their rants will become more strident as the calendar moves inexorably to November.


21 posted on 10/13/2024 1:26:46 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: chrisser
Nope, we are full. One of the many reasons ‘natives’ were conquered, was via migration. Immigrants conquer, that has always been the history, legal or illegal. No more immigrants.
22 posted on 10/13/2024 1:57:26 PM PDT by Theoria
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I am a great,great,great,great, great grandson of immigrants.


23 posted on 10/13/2024 2:36:44 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Carlos Lozada '93 joins Institute for Ethics and the Common Good as Visiting Professor of the Practice for Public Discourse

Deep State's common good.

24 posted on 10/13/2024 2:40:58 PM PDT by mewzilla (Never give up; never surrender!)
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To: jmacusa

That was the attitude of my immigrant grandparents on both sides, for themselves and their children to be patriotic Americans in full.


25 posted on 10/13/2024 4:12:35 PM PDT by Rockingham
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wow, he’s really knocking the stuffing out of his straw man, isn’t he? But what does this have to do with Trump?


26 posted on 10/13/2024 4:19:10 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy (;-,)
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