HispanicTrending

February 26, 2007
By Bobbi Bowman

IF IMMIGRANTS don’t pay taxes, why is one of the nation’s premier accounting firms airing ads on Spanish-language radio? How is it that an immigrant U.S. Army veteran wounded in Iraq could be denied in-state college tuition or social services in the land of the free and the home of the brave? And why in God’s name would there be instructions in Spanish on the back of a concrete mixer on a construction site?

These paradoxes exist because immigrants have become central to meeting our labor needs, yet some people still want to keep them on the fringes of society.

The debate over immigration is laced with myths and a failure to separate fact from fiction. It is precisely during such polarizing and emotional debate that journalists truly become the disinterested third party and the provider of accuracy and context.

Take, for instance, the notion that immigrants don’t pay taxes. They do, including Social Security taxes. No wonder that Jackson-Hewitt, the multimillion-dollar tax preparation service, is advertising briskly on El Zol, the hottest of about a dozen Spanish-language radio stations in metropolitan Washington.

Jackson-Hewitt advertises to people who pay taxes. Washington’s burgeoning Latino community is largely an immigrant community from El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru and increasingly Mexico. Jackson-Hewitt knows what most other large companies in this country know: Immigrants earn a great deal of money and they pay taxes on that money. That’s why when you call the Jackson-Hewitt 800 number, you can hear information in English or en español.

Some state legislators like to propose and pass laws aimed at denying everything from instate college tuition to social services to non-U.S. citizens. However, the armed forces of the United States actively recruit people that some call aliens.

That’s right. You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to fight and die for this country. The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines simply require that you are legally in the United States and that you promise to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted last year that 200 awards or medals have gone to non-U.S. citizens in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that 101 non-U.S. citizens have died in military action since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to a July 10, 2006 Associated Press story.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., at the same immigration hearing as Gen. Pace, cited statistics that showed about 24,400 non-U.S. citizens are on active duty in the armed forces.

Since the 2001 attacks, federal immigration officials have naturalized 24,745 military service members. More than 10,000 scored well enough to use their foreign-language skills in military operations, allowing for a "linguistically more competent military," said David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, also quoted in the AP story.

In 2005, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., gave a speech on the Senate floor explaining how a roadside bomb in Iraq killed U.S. Army Spc. Kendell Frederick as he traveled in a convoy to a base to get fingerprinted as part of his citizenship application. Spc. Kendell was a citizen of Trinidad.

Commercials on Spanish-language TV stations extol the virtues of U.S. Army service. The commercial I saw recently showed a young Latino proudly dressed in a crisp new U.S. Army uniform and flanked by his pride-filled mother and father.

The U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines also have Web sites in Spanish. Here’s the one for the U.S. Army www.goarmy.com/SpanishChat.do

I attended the Thunder Over Michigan Air Show outside of Detroit last July. Air shows attract hordes of young men interested in hot planes. The Air Force sent two F-16s to the Detroit show and arranged for a flyover of a B-2, the amazingly quiet, bat-winged stealth bomber.

The Air Force set up an elaborate recruiting station with video games and handed out information in English and Spanish. Yes, Spanish. And this was Michigan, where the Latino population is only about 4 percent, compared with nearly 15 percent nationwide.

Then there is the debate over English-only laws. It’s so curious when state legislators propose and pass English-only laws because practically every appliance and product you pick up has bilingual instructions. Have you noticed your bag of popcorn — the directions are in both English and Spanish?

The Sears store in Bethesda, Md., just outside of Washington, has store signs hanging from the ceiling in English and Spanish. Bethesda is one of the richest suburbs in the country. But store managers know that many of their customers also speak Spanish and they want them to be able to shop with ease. U.S. businesses know that immigrants have money to spend and they want it.

I passed a concrete mixer last week. On the back there were signs in Spanish because so many Latinos work in construction.

And yes, Spanish-language TV does brim with commercials from companies that, for a price, will teach you English. These ads always encourage folks to learn English — in order to get a job and earn more money, and probably pay more in taxes.

Immigrants and immigration will affect every aspect of our lives — from the food we buy in the grocery to who makes up our future workforce and who pays our Social Security. Newspapers owe it to their readers to bring more light than heat to this issue that is literally changing the face of our communities.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle