Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Been busy and lazy lately and have not written anything since the Super Bowl. Also this blog site made me sign up a google account in order to get back into it. Probably finding ways to send me more advertising. I am too old to learn many new tricks so whenever they tell me there is a new product for me if I sign here, I worry. This blog doesn't look any different to me so I am sure it is just a way to make me sign up for an account I don't need.

As you know from previous posting I am for immigrant rights, even those of illegal immigrants. From time to time though, I will point out some of the things that understandably make American citizens upset. Couple of examples come to me recently.

I had just read in the LA Times about a program the government sponsors where anyone can wire money back to Mexico from a participating bank for $2.50 per transaction. The is called Direct O Mexico. It requires no social security number or any American IDs to do this. Some critics claim that this can be a way for terrorists to launder money. I doubt that this would be case. Terrorists probably want to bring money into the U.S. not send it to Mexico. But I wonder why the government would actually go out of its way to help someone who is being demonized by the government for being here illegally. For the rest of us I find out it costs $45 to wire money to a foreign country. Recently I went to a different branch of my own bank to wire money to my daughter in Hong Kong. I deposited some money in my business account, an amount that is larger than the amount I want to wire. The clerk, after taking my money for my business account, told me to go to the next window where the wiring of money is done. At that window, he asked me for not one but two pieces of IDs! Now he just saw me deposit a larger sum of money into my account 10 seconds earlier. If I am not me why would I deposit more money into my account, only to take out a lesser amount? An illegal immigrants can use his Mexican consular id only and wire money to Mexico for $42.50 less than me. I can sympathisize with the angry white man here.

Another article in the LA Times was about the city of Beverly Hills printing ballots in Farsi. So now in certain areas of California there are official ballots in the languages of Armenians, Hmong, Chinese, and of course Spanish and now Iranians among others. From previous posting I have complained about cities in California wanting to make rules against business signs in languages other than English. This is absurd to me because it is not the government's role to tell what language a merchant should use to entice customers. I think everyone should learn a second language and appreciate the diversity of languages in our country. However, I am against ballots in foreign languages. Afterall, in order to become a naturalized citizen, as I am, you are supposed to be able to speak and read English. So why should the government has to interpret a ballot for you! Propositions can be confusing, but they are confusing in English also. I never read the propositions in the original anyway. I try to learn about them through the newspapers and other sources. The immigrants who are weak in English can read about the propositions in their native language newspapers which are plentiful in California. Then just find the number of the proposition on the ballot and vote yes or no. It is not difficult.

The Iranians who lived in Beverly Hills generally are the rich people who settled here after the fall of the Shah in the 70's. They are well educated and hardly need help with English. This was just the ploy of immigrant rights activists. Let's appreciate our diversity and not use it to tear us apart.