Anti-immigrant stance meets rejection

Re “Minuteman Caravan Gets Testy Send-Off,” May 4

What nerve for the Minutemen to expect African Americans to help them do their dirty work against undocumented immigrants. We have been there too many times before -- on the receiving end of racist exclusionism -- to do that to other people of color. The undocumented immigrant worker who cleans our kitchen is an inappropriate target for our anger. It isn’t she who has eroded African Americans’ -- and whites’ -- standard of living by outsourcing our jobs, taking away our pensions and eliminating our health benefits. Our American corporations did that to us, increasing their profits at our expense.

MYRNA HILL

Sylmar

*

Re “Anti-Illegal Immigration Forces Share a Wide Tent,” May 4

Michelle Dallacroce of Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, like most of the Minutemen posing for cameras along our southern border, seems to suffer from a severe case of historical amnesia. She said: “We don’t have what we have because we give it away to everybody.” We have what we have because we stole it. First, we stole the land from its native peoples. Then we stole the labor and lives of millions of slaves ripped from their homeland in Africa. Then we stole at gunpoint most of the West from Mexico. As the son of immigrants from Eastern Europe, I felt an obligation to attend the May 1 demonstration. I was awed and delighted by the grace and peacefulness of the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. I saw one sign that spoke directly to the men with guns on the border. It depicted a real Native American saying, “Minutemen, go home!”

MARVIN A. GLUCK

Topanga