thank you!! that is a great way to start.
I want to know two things:
1)Did you hear about the renaming of a street in Dallas and one of the choices was Cesar Chavez, well there were 20.000 votes for that name and now the city council is having second thoughts.Hello people, Cesar Chavez was an American citizen and a Civil rights hero,learn some history. Some ignorant fool said that if they rename is Cesar Chavez Blvd it will make all the illegals think it is okay to live in Dallas. I have been in this state (Texas) for 32 years ( I am originally from Az) and I am still amazed at the ignorance and hate that prevails.
2)Did you hear the one about the Armenina illegal immigrant who is a valedictorian that is going to be allowed to stay in the US?
What a bunch of bull.........enough said.

mhg, that is crazy!!! oh man that first item is ripe for comedy. the fears of people, that is. thanks for telling me.

the other item, i know about, pretty sure someone blogged on it at http://thesanctuary.soapblox.net recently. but...you are upset that the immigrant was allowed to stay? why? (i didnt know how it turned out yet). isn't that a good thing? more smart and motivated people here?...hmmm.

I discovered you through a link on a post that I was reading. This is a great blog and I enjoyed reading your post. I'll be back through to check you out.

Nez,
Thanks for reading my comments. I understand what you are saying about the Armenian immigrant. All I am saying is I wonder what it would have been if the immigrant would have been Hispano? Would there have been such an outcry?
thanks!
you are the best.
mhg

msladydeborah, i greatly appreciate your words and presence. thanks for comin around.

--

mhg, okay i get ya! yeah. good point. reminds me of this post.

This is what I was talking about Nez, this is an opinion written in the paper.
Let me know what you think.
thanks,
mhg

Navarrette: A valedictorian of a Fresno, Calif., high school is undocumented -- and Armenian, not Mexican. Is that why support for him to stay is building?
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.Washington Post Writers Group
Fresno Bee/Mark Crosse
Arthur Mkoyan earned straight A's at Bullard High in Fresno, Calif. His family faces deportation June 20, and their plight has drawn many supporters.

SAN DIEGO -- Let me say a few words in defense of deporting illegal immigrants. I wouldn't have thought such a defense would be necessary, since being in the United States without proper documents is a crime and the penalty is deportation.

But try telling that to the folks in Central California who are experiencing warm and fuzzy feelings for 17-year-old Arthur Mkoyan. The high school valedictorian in my hometown of Fresno, Calif., should be thinking about the same things that other graduating seniors think about this time of year: planning to go to college, going to parties and all the rest.

Arthur has certainly earned it. He studied hard to earn a perfect grade-point average. And, for his hard work, he was admitted to the University of California at Davis, where he planned to study chemistry.

And yet, Arthur will probably never make it to freshman orientation. That's because, on June 20, the extension of his deportation order will expire and federal immigration authorities will likely apprehend the young man and his mother and send them to Armenia. His father is being held in a detention facility in Arizona until he can be deported. There is also Arthur's 12-year-old brother, a U.S.-born citizen who the family plans to take with them.

According to The Fresno Bee, Arthur's father came to the United States from the former Soviet Union in December 1991 and sought political asylum. Arthur and his mother joined him a few years later. No one came with the proper documents. And so, when their asylum application was rejected, and their appeals were denied, they were targeted for deportation.

That is as it should be. The law is the law.

Still, it's a heartbreaking story. Here you have an all-American kid who hasn't seen Armenia since he was a toddler, and who is now headed to a country where the people, language and customs are foreign to him. Besides, this is precisely the kind of young person we should want to keep in this country.

Say, maybe we can work out a trade. Armenia lets us keep Arthur, and we send a dozen of our lazier, less-productive U.S.-born teenagers who think themselves entitled to the good life but don't want to do the work to make it happen.

Many people are going to bat for Mkoyan -- from Armenian advocacy groups to Republican Rep. George Radanovich, who represents part of the Central Valley and has many Armenian constituents. The family has also approached Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the hopes that she'll introduce a rare measure to grant legal status to a specific individual. There's also plenty of support for the young man on the Internet and on talk radio.

Not that it is likely to do any good. Arthur, and his parents, will probably be deported. And they should be.

I said the same thing six years ago when a similar story surfaced. In August 2002, The Denver Post ran a front-page story about Jesus Apodaca, a recent high school graduate with a 3.93 grade-point average who wanted to go to the University of Colorado but couldn't afford the tuition -- because he was an illegal immigrant. In Colorado, the undocumented have to pay out-of-state tuition rates, which are higher than those for residents.

A member of Congress involved himself in that case as well, albeit in a different capacity. Anti-illegal immigration crusader Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., called what was then the Immigration and Naturalization Service and asked them what they were planning to do about Apodaca. The young man and his family were apprehended and, last we heard, were slated for deportation. That won applause from many immigration hard-liners.

But here's the part that bothers me: I wonder why more of them -- including Tancredo -- aren't making a fuss over Arthur Mkoyan. The fact is, Apodaca didn't get nearly the amount of public sympathy that Mkoyan has received up to now.

Why the double standard? I believe it's because, while Mkoyan might not have a leg to stand on legally, he at least has the benefit of not being Mexican.

Much of the immigration debate is fueled by a fear of a changing culture, competing languages, an altered landscape, and what loopy Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist calls the "colonization" of the United States by Mexican immigrants.

Arthur Mkoyan isn't considered a party to any of that. For some people, that makes all the difference. And, in some respects, that's the saddest thing about this story.

Wow!

This is really a sad story. It sounds like the young man has worked hard and was preparing to continue doing so. He sounds like an asset that we should be trying to keep.

Like you, I wonder why this isn't being brought up into the public conversation on immigration?