California immigrants thrive where little English is spoken

fresnoBee.com State News ^ | September 2, 2002 | SANDRA MARQUEZ

[sweetliberty]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ask Odalia Ramirez if she speaks English and the Guatemala-born housewife will tell you "un poquito," or a little bit. But that doesn't limit Ramirez, 40, from getting by in Pico-Union, a predominantly Central American neighborhood where you can eat steamed corn "pupusas" stuffed with meat and cheese, put a down payment on a dream retirement home in El Salvador while doing your grocery shopping and have your taxes prepared by a Spanish-speaking accountant.

[Roscoe]

Dear Roscoe of the literally millions of immigrants who have moved to Califonia since 1980 how many Mexican citizens were admitted legally after following the appropriate proceedures within their own contry, waiting for their application to be approved and then emmigrating from Mexico.

I personally know hundreds of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens.

[bimbo]

One generation from now, this population will speak English primarily.

That's fine for that generation, but unless things change, there will be another 30 million illegals who do not speak English.

The borders must be closed, illegals deported, and legal Immigrants encouraged to assimilate.

[Roscoe]

how many legal immigrants are getting on SSI and using welfare programs, using a fraudulent "sponsor" system or the practice of "anchor babies" to collect their citizenship and welfare benefits

What percentage?

[Amerigomag]

I personally know hundreds of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens

So do I Roscoe. They are my friends and neighbors. But your obsevation demonstrates the problem.

literally millions of immigrants....hundreds.... of legal immigrants.

[FITZ]

Approximately 1.4 million immigrants receive AFDC or SSI payments totalling $4.5 billion annually. Their average monthly AFDC payment is $133; their average SSI payment is $407. Estimates using a more broadly defined package of benefits and counting benefits from state and local as well as federal sources indicate that immigrants receive approximately $25 billion annually in assistance benefits.


Refugees and elderly immigrants are more likely to receive cash and non-cash assistance than other immigrants. Five percent of AFDC recipients are immigrants, whereas 18.9 percent of aged SSI recipients are immigrants.
http://www.immigration-usa.com/immigrants_and_welfare.html

There should be NO immigrants getting welfare or any kind of government handouts. Yet they have higher rates of welfare use than native born Americans.

[hattend]

In Los Angeles, Ramirez, the Guatemalan housewife, said she sometimes has a hard time keeping up with her four children, ages 13 to 24, who speak mostly English. "Sometimes I understand them. Sometimes I don't," said Ramirez, speaking in Spanish, who moved to the United States with her welder husband 15 years ago.

Fifteen years in the US with "mostly" English speaking kids and she only speaks "un pocito englais".

She noticed the language gap last week when her youngest son refused to go to high school on his second day after gang members threatened to beat him up if he didn't dress and style his hair like they did, she said.

Ramirez said she wanted to discuss the problem with a school administrator, but she had to wait until one of her older sons could request time off from work to translate for her. "I feel frustrated," she said.

Then learn English lady. It'll ease the frutration.

Here's the reason why there will never be a sucessful "English Only" legislation in the border states (The liberal mindset is to blame elsewhere)

[Roscoe]

"California's employers, and its economy more generally, have been the primary beneficiaries of this recent immigration. To employers, immigrants are cheaper but equally as productive as native-born workers across all levels of education from high school dropouts to college graduates. This comparative labor cost advantage helped the state's economy grow more rapidly than that of the rest of the nation from 1960 to 1990. Although the state suffered a long and deep recession from 1990 to 1994, immigration has continued unabated. Currently, California's employment growth is once again exceeding that of the rest of the nation."

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR854/

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

This reminds me of a one-liner I once heard about the black/white race issue in America: "We should have picked our own cotton."

The version I head was a bumpersticker which said something like: "If I had known it was going to be this much trouble, I would have picked the cotton myself!"

[Amerigomag]

native born Americans.

These statistist would be a shocker if the only the first generation of children of immigrants (native born Americans) were included, which they are not.

[FITZ]

Chinese immigrants on welfare? The very idea seems wildly counter to the Model Minority image of the Chinese. Yet in spite of their conservative, self-reliant instincts--Rosemarie Fan, a social-service manager in Oakland's Chinatown, described them as "closet Republicans"-- elderly Chinese immigrants are flocking to the welfare rolls in alarmingly high numbers. Census data show that 55 per cent of the elderly Chinese immigrants in California who had come to the U.S. between 1980 and 1987 were on welfare in 1990--a striking contrast to the figure of 9 per cent for native-born seniors.

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/pub/Immigration/WelfareUse/NatRev.html

[FITZ]

Yes to the employers, it is cheaper to have illegals and immigrants who don't require health insurance and other benefits that Americans want. The total cost of immigration must include all the free health care and education which must be provided to them also. Also the taxes not paid on their income. The employers don't pay, the taxpayers do.

[Roscoe]

immigrants who don't require health insurance and other benefits that Americans want.

Source? BTW, naturalized citizens are Americans.

[sweetliberty]

"Appears substantilally to represent the views of this forum. Wonder where I found this quote? Couldn't have been on your personal page could it?

Good shot!

[Amerigomag]

Nice try! Only two problems.

First, the to college graduates reference does not apply to the immigrant class under discussion.

Second, the state's financial support of the real cost of this growth obviously exceeds it's benefits.

The dilema was best summerized by another on this forum. "California has successfully privatized the benfits of unregulated immigration while socializing it's costs."

[FITZ]

To employers, immigrants are cheaper

How about this for a source ---you. Immigrants are cheaper not because their health care costs are cheaper or it's cheaper to educate their children (it's more expensive in fact), or they can eat for less, they're cheaper because what they don't get from their employer, they'll get from the government like health care.

[sweetliberty]

"Productive people increase wealth and capital resources"

A vast number of these people are NOT productive. If they are working, many work for wages paid under the table and many send their money to family back in Mexico. The only thing they are increasing is the welfare rolls and the burden of already overcrowded and seriously failing schools. Oh yeah, and the number of illegal Rat votes.

[Roscoe]

Immigrants are cheaper not because their health care costs are cheaper or it's cheaper to educate their children (it's more expensive in fact), or they can eat for less, they're cheaper because what they don't get from their employer, they'll get from the government like health care.

Legal immigrants are willing to work longer and harder than slackers.

[Roscoe]

Shot down.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/743349/posts?page=39#39

[Roscoe]

A vast number of these people are NOT productive.

What people are those, sweetliberty?

[sweetliberty]

"But let's be careful not confuse to legal immigrants with illegal aliens."

You are right about that, but I believe that there should be a moratorium on ALL immigration until we find better ways to police our borders. I also believe that we need to adopt a zero tolerance policy for illegals, no matter what country they come from, unless they are political refugees or fleeing some form of slavery in their country of origin, such as prostitution. We can't save the world, however much we might like to and unless we save ourselves, this nation won't have anything to offer immigrants in the future anyway.