Thank you, Henry, for this wonderful, moving post. This should be reprinted in every major newspaper and run repeatedly as a podcast on NPR. Maybe you will do it on youtube. It would go viral. There are too many ignorant people buying the pro illegal narrative that was written by people who have had no experience of the reality.
I find family backgrounds to provide fascinating reading and thank you. When we all grew up immigration wasn't much of an issue. I didn't think illegals were much of an issue back 20-30 years ago. My wife Ann with her tendency of being a "people magnet" made many Hispanic friends that had "walked across the border" from Mexico working in the restaurant industry. One of her Hispanic friends, starting out at Jeannine's and Renaud's (Alex who once made artwork in coffee drinks) has recently purchased a home in North Carolina, he became a successful hairdresser. Another working at Jeaninne's at the coffee machine wore his shoes out quickly and we would buy him a new pair of shoes each year from Redwing next door ... eventually we gave him our retired Honda Civic. My wife and I felt no burden by the very low flow of illegals. But now we have had an uncontrolled flood of immigrants, a mixture of good and bad, invading our country and impacting our schools, medical industry, personal safety, housing, food and clothing ... and the list goes on and on. We were given an administration with obvious hate for Americans, opening up the immigration flood gates with no concern of the American taxpayers which were in a new phase of inflation. Now thanks to our lucky stars, there's hope for a change and government will return to some level of normalcy, at least in the control of spending for now. Trump was a gift from God.
Thank you for your mini-autobiography, Henry! A good glimpse into the reality of the immigration saga over decades, even centuries.
As the great-grandson of many legal immigrants over the past couple of centuries, I grew up in the Los Angeles educational system which (at the time) honestly embraced and taught about our historical Hispanic heritage.
John Steinbecks "The Grapes of Wrath" told the story of internal emigration, focused on the agriculture industry, and the Armenian immigrants also got involved in the ag industry while fleeing their own national tragedy.
My own German and Norwegian ancestors took advantage of the homesteading offered in the Northwest, and some of that land is still in the family. Farming, ranching, are very hard
work, but lessons learned are invaluable and the "fruit of the effort" is quite visible.
Legal immigration is one thing, illegal immigration is quite another.
Interesting story Henry, reminds me of another compelling story; Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. During the 30’s s and the Dust Bowl it was down and out “Oakies” looking for work in the fields, not necessarily Mexicans. Yes, we are dependent upon labor in our fields, picking the crops. Why not support documented, seasonal labor? It’s the migrant extended family needing health care, education and committing crimes which drastically complicates public sentiment.
I fully understand why migrants would want to leave Latin American countries to include Mexico. The standard of living in these corrupt and impoverished countries is truly dreadful. The PRI which has ruled Mexico since its revolution in 1910 is no more than a criminal enterprise.
As a kid growing up in Lompoc, I spent a summer working for our friends in their bean fields, taking out the Morning Glory. It taught me a lot about hard work and how necessary education is. Those days are gone now, life has become so much more complicated. There is an obvious role for government to assure all those working the fields and other roles are vetted, documented and leave when their Visas have expired!
Great article Henry as usual. I get your point about really liking and needing our friends from south of the border. I have so many as customers and friends and I know that so many are a value to our community. I know also that many have achieved their legal status by doing the hard work, learning the language and all of them after working multiple jobs to survive. I just don't get it that so many just failed to do this, probably because there was no inventive but now that this is threatened, we are the bad people. I want these people here but they have to now wake up to what is required.
There was a telling exchange at the past Saturday UCSB Community Arts and Lectures series presentation by Historian Niall Ferguson (Why Study History - sponsored by Wendy McCaw)
The community event was moderated by some UCSB Professor of PC Wokism -name escapes me. While the Ferguson talk was disjointed and disappointing, the later Q&A revealed a great deal about the state of UCSBB academics.
Historian Ferguson mentioned the recent economic boom provided by "immigrants" to the US, which was immediately pounced on by Mr UCSB Profession of Wokism, requiring speaker Ferguson to immediately claim that economic boom was from *legal* immigration, such as the high tech power value added to Silicon Valley. Historian Ferguson also touted the rigors it took to be a legal immigrant and now US citizen himself.
Professor Wokism smugly kept pressing wanting to get a validation for illegal immigration being an economic boom too, to which Ferguson claimed - yes, if you call illegally working off the books and underpaying illegals, this too can become a form of economic advantage. Both speakers however failed to acknowledge the direct costs illegal immigration was also foisting on tax payers.
Each question posited by Mr UCSB Professor of Wokism additionally went down hill, as he tried to get Historian Ferguson to agree to the value of his own one-sided progressive agenda and throw in some gratuitous Trump bashing at the same time. Historian Ferguson side-stepped them all.
It was an enlightening evening after all, but not in the way Mr UCSB Professor of Wokism intended. If he was chosen from his fellow faculty members in the UCSB history department for the honor of moderating this discussion, it was a complete embarrassment. Heaven help the generation of students exposed to this UCSB department's leftist agenda.
Love to hear there still remains a bit of common sense in the higher levels of indoctrination. When kids go off to college most have no idea the level of brainwashing they might get.
Looking back to my own days at UC Berkeley in the early 1960's, our required freshman English class (Speech) had two objectives: destroy any delusions incoming freshmen, from that relatively conservative 1950's era, had about both religion and government.
This led to fiery discussions with my parents when I came home on vacations, only to hear my mother who had attended UC Berkeley in the 1930's claim they did the same thing to her back then too. Not unlike military boot camp - destroy the ego before building the soldier. Or in this case, build the scholar.
Yet at least at that time before the ill-named Berkeley Free Speech Movement, we still had a mix of liberal and conservative professors and perhaps the early shock treatment was necessary to least open our nicely conformist 1950's brains.
No further comments about Berkeley after the "Free Speech Movement" (1965) when all balanced discussions ceased, and the college even lost their long-standing college humor magazine The Pelican which specialized in whimsy and irony. Which to me were the most valuable educational insights of all that I gained from my time at Berkeley. Now gone.
It was my senior year. I missed the later campus chaos. Yet one could not escape its reverberations. One certainly could not wear their Berkeley degree as any badge of honor or personal achievement due to the public mood at the time. We also had to worry about the draft and the Vietnam War at the time too. College friends were now dying, which had much more immediate gravitas.
Thank you for a story that took me down memory lane. We had a number of Latinos who worked on our ranch in San Diego and our home as well. Great people with a fantastic work ethic and reverence for family.
Where I’d shift the narrative is in regard to the focus on this being a Biden and democratic created problem.
One of my dad’s patients was the head of border patrol in San Diego. He often complained about the politicization of border policy. As the immigration problems started getting out of hand in the mid-90’s every administration, Red or Blue, didn’t have the testicular fortitude to pass needed border policies.
If you go back to every election cycle, there was finger pointing and chest pounding but no substantial legislation.
As I posted last week, Trump was willing to pull off the bandaid when no one else was.
We do need fair, doable immigration policy. What we don’t need is more finger pointing and certainly not more demonization of immigrants and Latinos as a group. The latter may be difficult for an administration that loves to belittle and bully.
But we first need to get matters under control. Send as many back as we can. Secure the border. Then establish a process and some form of application under our terms, not the cartels terms. You know the cartels are losing their minds. Their fortunes are drying up. Poor guys. Their human and drug trafficking business is coming to an end that is unless the democrats have something to say about.
Gene - what you wrote here captures everything. "As the immigration problems started getting out of hand in the mid-90’s every administration, Red or Blue, didn’t have the testicular fortitude to pass needed border policies."
1982 SCOTUS mandates free K-12 for all illegals. Teachers unions growing in power during the same time. US demographics showing fewer domestic births. Illegals do supply high birth rates of school age populations, as long as the borders stay open. Minor incentive or major incentive? Or does this continue to be ignored as a non-factor driving any Democrat border policy incentives.
Great story Henry. Mine is very similar as I grew up the son of a local contractor and my contacts with Mexicans were through the construction field, but my experience is very much the same. Wonderful hard-working folks quick to laugh and extremely generous. They are needed and welcome. As you say, they need to be vetted and come with a purpose other than their hands out. Homeless veterans not getting the help they need is only the tip of the iceberg. Importing the equivalent of a couple new states in four years was nothing more than a voter registration drive to the Democrats. We love your writing and are looking forward to your next.
Mr. Schulte, your family was truly blessed that you were able to plan for your emigration to America. Unfortunately, too many people are forced to flee their war torn countries , or genocide, or other insurmountable problems. They don’t have the luxury of planning and saving, they are forced to flee with whatever they can carry and the clothes on their back.
I’m glad you were able to experience real Mexicans, not the ones trump and his lackeys are continuously demonizing and calling criminals. All countries and peoples experience criminals, but when you specifically target one kind of people, that’s disgusting. Having white privilege is also helpful to achieve the American dream.
Yup. Reagan did make a bunch of all legal and then was supposed to fine anyone heavily if caught with illegals working. None of that ever happened. Your government at work.
You are correct. I didn't like it one bit even though I was complicit in the process. So we can see this issue goes way way back and everyone does a lot of talking. But to open the border completely is way way worse and wrong. As I said, this has gone way past being a Mexican issue. We have been swarmed with Chinese and dozens from other countries with no clue who they are and what they may be up to. Far different that someone who just wants to earn a fair living.
Thank you, Henry, for this wonderful, moving post. This should be reprinted in every major newspaper and run repeatedly as a podcast on NPR. Maybe you will do it on youtube. It would go viral. There are too many ignorant people buying the pro illegal narrative that was written by people who have had no experience of the reality.
Polly, forget NPR. Apparently it will no longer receive federal funds, thanks to trump’s hatchet man musk.
Yes, bravo Musk.
See Polly, I’m not always antagonistic. ✌🏼
I find family backgrounds to provide fascinating reading and thank you. When we all grew up immigration wasn't much of an issue. I didn't think illegals were much of an issue back 20-30 years ago. My wife Ann with her tendency of being a "people magnet" made many Hispanic friends that had "walked across the border" from Mexico working in the restaurant industry. One of her Hispanic friends, starting out at Jeannine's and Renaud's (Alex who once made artwork in coffee drinks) has recently purchased a home in North Carolina, he became a successful hairdresser. Another working at Jeaninne's at the coffee machine wore his shoes out quickly and we would buy him a new pair of shoes each year from Redwing next door ... eventually we gave him our retired Honda Civic. My wife and I felt no burden by the very low flow of illegals. But now we have had an uncontrolled flood of immigrants, a mixture of good and bad, invading our country and impacting our schools, medical industry, personal safety, housing, food and clothing ... and the list goes on and on. We were given an administration with obvious hate for Americans, opening up the immigration flood gates with no concern of the American taxpayers which were in a new phase of inflation. Now thanks to our lucky stars, there's hope for a change and government will return to some level of normalcy, at least in the control of spending for now. Trump was a gift from God.
Thank you for your mini-autobiography, Henry! A good glimpse into the reality of the immigration saga over decades, even centuries.
As the great-grandson of many legal immigrants over the past couple of centuries, I grew up in the Los Angeles educational system which (at the time) honestly embraced and taught about our historical Hispanic heritage.
John Steinbecks "The Grapes of Wrath" told the story of internal emigration, focused on the agriculture industry, and the Armenian immigrants also got involved in the ag industry while fleeing their own national tragedy.
My own German and Norwegian ancestors took advantage of the homesteading offered in the Northwest, and some of that land is still in the family. Farming, ranching, are very hard
work, but lessons learned are invaluable and the "fruit of the effort" is quite visible.
Legal immigration is one thing, illegal immigration is quite another.
Interesting story Henry, reminds me of another compelling story; Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. During the 30’s s and the Dust Bowl it was down and out “Oakies” looking for work in the fields, not necessarily Mexicans. Yes, we are dependent upon labor in our fields, picking the crops. Why not support documented, seasonal labor? It’s the migrant extended family needing health care, education and committing crimes which drastically complicates public sentiment.
I fully understand why migrants would want to leave Latin American countries to include Mexico. The standard of living in these corrupt and impoverished countries is truly dreadful. The PRI which has ruled Mexico since its revolution in 1910 is no more than a criminal enterprise.
As a kid growing up in Lompoc, I spent a summer working for our friends in their bean fields, taking out the Morning Glory. It taught me a lot about hard work and how necessary education is. Those days are gone now, life has become so much more complicated. There is an obvious role for government to assure all those working the fields and other roles are vetted, documented and leave when their Visas have expired!
Great article Henry as usual. I get your point about really liking and needing our friends from south of the border. I have so many as customers and friends and I know that so many are a value to our community. I know also that many have achieved their legal status by doing the hard work, learning the language and all of them after working multiple jobs to survive. I just don't get it that so many just failed to do this, probably because there was no inventive but now that this is threatened, we are the bad people. I want these people here but they have to now wake up to what is required.
Very good story. I like it so much about your truthful post. Thanks!
Excellent
Who would ever vote for Democrats?
People who hate America and freedom
Now nobody wants to work.
Great article
There was a telling exchange at the past Saturday UCSB Community Arts and Lectures series presentation by Historian Niall Ferguson (Why Study History - sponsored by Wendy McCaw)
The community event was moderated by some UCSB Professor of PC Wokism -name escapes me. While the Ferguson talk was disjointed and disappointing, the later Q&A revealed a great deal about the state of UCSBB academics.
Historian Ferguson mentioned the recent economic boom provided by "immigrants" to the US, which was immediately pounced on by Mr UCSB Profession of Wokism, requiring speaker Ferguson to immediately claim that economic boom was from *legal* immigration, such as the high tech power value added to Silicon Valley. Historian Ferguson also touted the rigors it took to be a legal immigrant and now US citizen himself.
Professor Wokism smugly kept pressing wanting to get a validation for illegal immigration being an economic boom too, to which Ferguson claimed - yes, if you call illegally working off the books and underpaying illegals, this too can become a form of economic advantage. Both speakers however failed to acknowledge the direct costs illegal immigration was also foisting on tax payers.
Each question posited by Mr UCSB Professor of Wokism additionally went down hill, as he tried to get Historian Ferguson to agree to the value of his own one-sided progressive agenda and throw in some gratuitous Trump bashing at the same time. Historian Ferguson side-stepped them all.
It was an enlightening evening after all, but not in the way Mr UCSB Professor of Wokism intended. If he was chosen from his fellow faculty members in the UCSB history department for the honor of moderating this discussion, it was a complete embarrassment. Heaven help the generation of students exposed to this UCSB department's leftist agenda.
Incredible how the one with the most degrees, is often the most ignorant.
Love to hear there still remains a bit of common sense in the higher levels of indoctrination. When kids go off to college most have no idea the level of brainwashing they might get.
Looking back to my own days at UC Berkeley in the early 1960's, our required freshman English class (Speech) had two objectives: destroy any delusions incoming freshmen, from that relatively conservative 1950's era, had about both religion and government.
This led to fiery discussions with my parents when I came home on vacations, only to hear my mother who had attended UC Berkeley in the 1930's claim they did the same thing to her back then too. Not unlike military boot camp - destroy the ego before building the soldier. Or in this case, build the scholar.
Yet at least at that time before the ill-named Berkeley Free Speech Movement, we still had a mix of liberal and conservative professors and perhaps the early shock treatment was necessary to least open our nicely conformist 1950's brains.
No further comments about Berkeley after the "Free Speech Movement" (1965) when all balanced discussions ceased, and the college even lost their long-standing college humor magazine The Pelican which specialized in whimsy and irony. Which to me were the most valuable educational insights of all that I gained from my time at Berkeley. Now gone.
JL - excellent post. Wow! You survived UC Berkeley in the '60's? What a mess that was!
It was my senior year. I missed the later campus chaos. Yet one could not escape its reverberations. One certainly could not wear their Berkeley degree as any badge of honor or personal achievement due to the public mood at the time. We also had to worry about the draft and the Vietnam War at the time too. College friends were now dying, which had much more immediate gravitas.
That was my reaction, too.
Thank you for a story that took me down memory lane. We had a number of Latinos who worked on our ranch in San Diego and our home as well. Great people with a fantastic work ethic and reverence for family.
Where I’d shift the narrative is in regard to the focus on this being a Biden and democratic created problem.
One of my dad’s patients was the head of border patrol in San Diego. He often complained about the politicization of border policy. As the immigration problems started getting out of hand in the mid-90’s every administration, Red or Blue, didn’t have the testicular fortitude to pass needed border policies.
If you go back to every election cycle, there was finger pointing and chest pounding but no substantial legislation.
As I posted last week, Trump was willing to pull off the bandaid when no one else was.
We do need fair, doable immigration policy. What we don’t need is more finger pointing and certainly not more demonization of immigrants and Latinos as a group. The latter may be difficult for an administration that loves to belittle and bully.
But we first need to get matters under control. Send as many back as we can. Secure the border. Then establish a process and some form of application under our terms, not the cartels terms. You know the cartels are losing their minds. Their fortunes are drying up. Poor guys. Their human and drug trafficking business is coming to an end that is unless the democrats have something to say about.
Gene - what you wrote here captures everything. "As the immigration problems started getting out of hand in the mid-90’s every administration, Red or Blue, didn’t have the testicular fortitude to pass needed border policies."
1982 SCOTUS mandates free K-12 for all illegals. Teachers unions growing in power during the same time. US demographics showing fewer domestic births. Illegals do supply high birth rates of school age populations, as long as the borders stay open. Minor incentive or major incentive? Or does this continue to be ignored as a non-factor driving any Democrat border policy incentives.
Bravo.
Great story Henry. Mine is very similar as I grew up the son of a local contractor and my contacts with Mexicans were through the construction field, but my experience is very much the same. Wonderful hard-working folks quick to laugh and extremely generous. They are needed and welcome. As you say, they need to be vetted and come with a purpose other than their hands out. Homeless veterans not getting the help they need is only the tip of the iceberg. Importing the equivalent of a couple new states in four years was nothing more than a voter registration drive to the Democrats. We love your writing and are looking forward to your next.
Right on Brian.
Mr. Schulte, your family was truly blessed that you were able to plan for your emigration to America. Unfortunately, too many people are forced to flee their war torn countries , or genocide, or other insurmountable problems. They don’t have the luxury of planning and saving, they are forced to flee with whatever they can carry and the clothes on their back.
I’m glad you were able to experience real Mexicans, not the ones trump and his lackeys are continuously demonizing and calling criminals. All countries and peoples experience criminals, but when you specifically target one kind of people, that’s disgusting. Having white privilege is also helpful to achieve the American dream.
Yup. Reagan did make a bunch of all legal and then was supposed to fine anyone heavily if caught with illegals working. None of that ever happened. Your government at work.
You are correct. I didn't like it one bit even though I was complicit in the process. So we can see this issue goes way way back and everyone does a lot of talking. But to open the border completely is way way worse and wrong. As I said, this has gone way past being a Mexican issue. We have been swarmed with Chinese and dozens from other countries with no clue who they are and what they may be up to. Far different that someone who just wants to earn a fair living.