Prometheus 6

After making a living attacking affirmative action programs for Black folks, after being the first nominee for Secretary of Labor to hire illegal aliens, Linda Chavez leaps to defend the honor of her people.

Mexican-born men, for example, are more likely to be in the labor force than any other racial or ethnic group, according to the Census Bureau. Nearly half of Latino immigrants own their own homes. While most immigrants from Latin America, especially Mexico and Central America, lag in educational attainment, their children are far more likely to stay in school: according to research by the Pew Hispanic Center, 80 percent of second-generation Latinos graduate from high school. Almost half of second-generation Latinos ages 25 to 44 have attended college, and those who graduate earn more on average than non-Hispanic white workers.

...then, as did David Brooks yesterday in the NY Times, repeats the very thing the opposition to a guest worker program fears most.

Like every generation of immigrants before them, Latinos start out on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, but they don't stay there. They are learning English as quickly as their predecessors, perhaps more quickly thanks to television (a majority of third-generation Latinos speak only English). They are intermarrying at faster rates than earlier ethnic groups, too, with about one-third of married American-born Latinos having a non-Hispanic spouse.

God, the woman is dense. Read this again:

Almost half of second-generation Latinos ages 25 to 44 have attended college, and those who graduate earn more on average than non-Hispanic white workers.

How you expect a bunch of folks whose real income has stagnated or receded to take that annoucement as a Good Thing?

The Republican Party scared white folks over losing status to an advancing other? Xenophobia isn't a plank in the Republican platform, it's the cross member the planks are nailed into. Their media agents can flip the rhetorical switch on command...but can they turn their constituency on a dime?

The Dubia deal suggest the answer is, "No...but fuck it anyway."

Stay tooned [sic] folks...