I say “YES,” even though we all know there are many other race, ethnic and lingusitic groups deeply concerned about immigration laws, enforcement and justice. Every US race and ethnic group imports “illegals” into the USA, but of these, some have greater luck in locating sponsors, religious group support or loopholes in the law, to rapidly become naturalised.

Before I discuss the other groups, let me suggest why I think the conversation seems to be focused on Hispanics. It is a function of numbers. The Hispanic group has become the largest minority in the USA. They have outnumbered the long-established minority, African-Americans. Since “black” and “white” dominate most of our thinking, over a spectrum of topics, both racial and metaphorical, black-white issues and numbers matter in the USA. This is election year, and ethnic groups and their numerical clout are more significant for the parties and candidates who try to come up with a winning strategy for November’s presidential contest. We already heard that Hilary Clinton and John McCain have better support among Hispanics than the African-American candidate, Barack H. Obama.

I have encountered several immigrants working at gas stations over the last few decades. Did you know that the Indians and Pakistanis are being replaced by a subtler South Asian group? This new group that is doing the clerical and related gas-stations jobs in the areas surrounding the Washington Metropolitan area is Nepali, or citizens of Nepal? We do not hear of them much because they are sometimes assumed to be members of other South Asian groups, and many North Americans could not identify a Nepali person. Also, their numbers and separate ethnic clout is low …in contrast with Tibetans, who have important friends and supporters, though their numbers may be only about a million, which is a similar numercial strength of Nepali-Americans.

There are Black and African immigrant groups too, and as with other groups, they are legal as well as on visa, including expired ones. But it is wrong to lump all Africans together, if only because there are lingustic and religious differences. But Africans can “melt” into the long-established African-American population, unless they are Haitians, Hispanics and other non-English speakers. Otherwise, it is my impression that the authorities feel a sense of duty (guilt based on the history of slavery?) and do not go after the “black immigrants” as they would after other groups deemed “illegal.” The South Asians and Africans are noticeable in the taxi-cab business in the metropilitan areas, with a sprinkling of Caribbean blacks. Caribbean immigrants seem to have graduated from the Mc-Jobs and gas station service-related slave-labor. In Washington, DC and in Baltimore, many Caribbean immigrants are in good government jobs, and they seems to congregate in the Social Security Administration and teaching profession as well. Increasingly Ethiopian and Indian restuarants are visible and sought by the mainstream population, which was not the case a decade ago.

So, while there may be millions of “illegal” or undocumented immigrants from Europe, Russia, Israel and African nations here, the attention is usually focused on the biggest and most visible - or different - group. Today it is the Hispanics. Tomorrow, it may be some other group, if history is any guide. Yet, Hispanics have been American citizens longer than many Anglos. They inhabited the areas of the Southwest and Texas, California and Utah since before the Mexican-American war of the 1840s. When we made these territories new US states, we did not expel the “Mexican-Americans” from their homes because we could afford to be generous in that we took over almost half of Mexico! So, the “illegals” - if there are millions as it usually asserted in the media - have sympathy and a historical argument for being here. We do not discuss all these ramifications when we talk “Immigration Politics” because it is not usual for nations to recount their violent and unfair past. For instance, most whites who settled outside the original thirteen colonies were “illegals” in many ways. They had no passports, or even work permits, jobs, homes, or even relatives in the Appalachias and further west… some were identured servants. But in order to make the frontiers safer for the expanding USA, Thomas Jefferson and later presidents (especially Andrew Jackson) made land grants and loans possible for “squatters” on federal and private lands. There were many skirmishes and anti-bank as well as anti-investor (land-speculator)campaigns, notably during Jacksonian democracy in the 1830s, so that “illegals” were made legal. Many whites did not buy their lands, but got it legitimised by squatting or paying for it at the reduced federal grant rate of $1 per acre. Blacks and American-Indians were excluded from these bargain sales! The statute calling for lands which were taken in continuing Indian wars to be sold in 640 acre lots, was gradually ignored or modified, so that persons with humble means could buy as few as 80 acres. Whites were also allowed to lease or rent land if a company, speculator or others polling resources, bought the land from the government.

That background is helpful in this climate (and at all times because it is fact), and that background suggests that immigrants do contribute in many tangible and intangible ways before they become accepted as citizens or as part of the mainstream. It is almost natural for people to be selfish and make excuses for excluding “others.” This has been happening in Nelson Mandela’s magical South Africa, and some 60 Africans (Zimbabwean, Mozambican and Somali) and Asians (India’s citizens) have been killed in May 2008 during anti-immigrant riots, when newcomers were accused of enjoying more success in jobs and business than the indigenous South Africans.

The USA is usually more civil and less violent in its anti-immigrant politics. It is also comforting for this writer to note that since the early 1980s, when South Asians were few, especially as American-born “Indian” children in the populace, there were no visible acknowledgement of this important group in the media, for instance, in having them featured in commercials. That has changed as young Indian-Americans and other South Asians have dominated spelling-bees, jeopardy and academic, journalistic and economic niches in the USA. So, overall, the news is good for everyone, including the Hispanics who seem to be singled out in recent years. Like other groups, they posess both assets and liabilities, and competitors and supporters as well among the larger US populace. The majority of those who enter the USA get to stay, even if in the short run, thousands may be deported or singled out unfairly.
God Bless the USA!