Unfettered Letters

Freedom of speech includes Spanish

Pam Hettinger (12/28, Letters) criticizes Hilda Solis, Barack Obama’s pick for labor secretary, for speaking Spanish, calling it un-American.

We are a free nation with freedom of speech, not just the freedom to speak English. Also, Ms. Hettinger somehow thinks English is a native language of the U.S.

Spanish and French were spoken here before English, and still neither of those are native languages.

Maybe Ms. Hettinger should research the word “Olathe” or “Kansas,” not to mention “Montana,” “Arizona,” “Colorado,” “Florida,” “rodeo,” “patio” and “tornado,” to name a few.

Malcolm Edwards
Kansas City

Solis ‘good choice’ for labor secretary

Pam Hettinger (12/28, Letters) is disappointed that President-elect Barack Obama appointed Hilda Solis as labor secretary, because she is Hispanic and said a few words in Spanish.

I think Ms. Solis is a very good choice for the job. I see nothing wrong with anyone saying something in Spanish. Someday we might have a Hispanic president.

Think about it, Ms. Hettinger. The Hispanics are here to stay. If that bothers you that much, maybe you need to find another place to live.

Sam Moten
Marshall, Mo.

Rising Hispanic population

Matt Campbell’s article (8/11, Local, “Area Hispanic population rises; Demographic estimates by the Census Bureau show 5 percent increase”) provided the reader with recent demographic estimates from the Census Bureau. The estimates reflected a trend that has been apparent for several years, and the trend is a disproportionate Hispanic population growth in the six-county metropolitan area compared with the other major population groups.

The root cause for this rapid Hispanic growth was not specified in the article. Could it be because of overwhelming illegal immigration? I think it is conceivable that, probably sooner than later, Hispanics will continue to advance their power base and be in a strategic position to unfairly alter our political landscape.

Since children born of illegal immigrants here in the U.S. are automatically granted citizenship at birth, that bizarre privilege alone is enough to contribute to a formidable Hispanic voting bloc. Circa the mid ’80s, approximately three million illegal Hispanics were granted residence status. Granting them amnesty did absolutely nothing to stem the tide of illegal immigrants entering the country.

When is it going to stop? Unless our Congress gets its arms around the immigration debacle, our country’s sovereignty will continue to be dismantled before our eyes.

Jack Kochanski
Independence

‘Mexicutioner’ tag offensive

For most people, the sweetest sound is their proper name. Nicknames tend to be intimate and descriptive. With athletic teams and in classrooms, nicknames have positives and negatives depending on the situation.

The Royals’ Joakim Soria is hot. In pro baseball, with Latinos making it in the major leagues, many come with different and difficult-to-pronounce Spanish names. Some media folks, instead of making efforts to correctly use a player’s name, screw it up or use a cute nickname.

While the “ Mexicutioner” T-Shirt has the blessings of Mr. Soria, I have always seen him wearing a Royals baseball cap, never a sombrero. The Mexicutioner poster pictured in The Star (7/22, Sports) reeks of racism and conjures up stereotypical images of the Mexican movie bandit.

Vin Scully didn’t pin a nickname on Sandy Koufax. Maybe the Royals can get a psychological lift and win if proper names are used.

Ascension Hernandez
Shawnee

Remember Hispanics’ history

Plaudits to Monica Bustamante for her gutsy report in Lewis Diuguid’s column “Area Hispanics often live in a divided world” (6/25, Opinion) regarding the remnants of racial prejudice.

Mexican-Americans banished society’s past infractions to secluded recesses of the mind. Unwittingly, the memories surface.

Ms. Bustamante’s recounting of hurtful events reminds me of a 1960s confrontation. At a Catholic school in Argentine, a priest came thundering in to unseat my three young girls from the all-white catechism class and steered us to the door. At that time clergy required respect. I withheld an outburst of expletives. Our community was a reflection of society’s thoughtless supremacy.

Native-born, second-generation Mexican-Americans earned our first-class citizenship with blood, sweat and tears, in war and in peace. Our present generation, empowered with equal employment and educational opportunities, hastily scale to the mountaintop and unlimited success as envisioned by Martin Luther King, heroic leader in the struggle for civil rights and human dignity. Race riots awoke the conscience of a nation. Precious freedoms were unleashed for African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and all minority citizens.

Sadly enough, Hispanic history is rarely documented. Our contributions and storied legacy of strife and survival will fade away like a dust storm in the wind.

Esperanza Amayo
Kansas City, Kan.

Shooting story

Angela Wilburn, the wife of an Ozarks Minutemen founder (this bit of trivia will come in handy later), apparently shot herself in the knee while investigating noises outside her home. Embarrassing enough, right? Not for Angela; she decided to take the humiliation to a whole new level (12/22, Across Missouri, “Shooting story called a lie”).

I wanted to see how difficult it would be for a non-xenophobe to create the tall tale that Angela told the police. My daughter has won a few awards for her bizarre fiction. I laid out the story to this point and begged her to come up with the most heinous, ludicrous story she could imagine that the wife of a Minutemen founder might create. All she came up with was a lame tale involving attempted rape by a Hispanic man.

Mrs. Wilburn, bless her heart, told police that three Hispanic men had raped and shot her. No attempted rape, and three bad guys. Mrs. Wilburn wins the creative story telling competition, racist division.

If she had just watched a couple of episodes of “CSI,” she would have known that one need not be a forensic genius to shoot a hole through her (knee) story.

Daryl Pitts
Olathe

Overlooked in Semler affair

As a former resident of Kansas City, I have followed the Frances Semler versus La Raza dustup with some interest. And while I agree with the people who have written in voicing their approval of the mayor’s stand of not caving in to the extortion tactics of La Raza, I believe several far more important facts have been missed.

One: The real loser in this affair has been the local Hispanic community. One can only imagine the increase in business that local Mexican restaurants and other Hispanic businesses would have enjoyed. Were I a member of this community, I believe I might be tempted to ride Ms. Murguia out of town on a rail.

Two: Ms. Murguia’s stance that this was over the fact that Ms. Semler was a member of the parks board is ridiculous. The convention is now moving to San Diego. The last time I checked, Duncan Hunter, a congressman from San Diego, is probably the leading voice against illegal immigration in the United States. Further, he is a presidential candidate and the sponsor of the bill to build a fence across the entire border. A bill that passed, I might add.

Kip Harris
Laurie, Mo.

La Raza speaks again

I was saddened to read Janet Murguia’s commentary in Sunday’s Opinion section (11/4, “La Raza left because it objects to extremism”).

Her lack of tolerance of others — and the legal organizations they belong to — does a disservice to those who support minority groups in the city.

The issue that Mayor Mark Funkhouser addressed, as a leader should, was to not give in to blackmail by a small group of intolerant people trying to hold the city hostage to their demands.

La Raza turned its back on an opportunity to host its convention in a great city. They did their cause no favors by throwing dirt on a member of the Kansas City parks board who has done nothing to deserve such treatment.

Rich Delaney
Overland Park

How is it that the National Council of La Raza continues to get such high-level exposure in The Star? Haven’t we all had enough of La Raza?

As I wrote previously in a letter to the editor after La Raza canceled its convention: “I hope it’s a long time before I hear the phrase La Raza again.”

Please, Ms. Murguia, take your own advice and “move on.”

Peter Connors
Lee’s Summit

Illegal immigration

One of the last things La Raza’s Janet Murguia (11/4, Opinion, “La Raza left because it objects to extremism”) wants Americans to remember regarding our porous borders is the war on terror. I am sure she also hopes that the House Committee on Homeland Security report titled “A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border” stays buried by the media.

The 2006 report reveals that “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations have revealed that aliens were smuggled from the Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America, before being smuggled illegally into the United States.” And that “members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the Southwest border.”

In her fanaticism to promote “The Race” and a repeat of the failed amnesty of 1986, Murguia has joined the national campaign to smear anyone who speaks out in favor of secure borders and an equal application of American laws — if it includes the illegal aliens who are her Golden Goose.

Murguia also hopes that we will forget real immigrants join the American family lawfully and do not require amnesty — and that putting them in the same category as illegal aliens is the ultimate immigrant bashing.

Who is the “extremist”?

D.A. King
President, Dustin Inman Society
Marietta, Ga.

Editor’s note: Murguia referred to King and his Georgia-based organization, which opposes illegal immigration, in her Sunday column.

Speaking of divisive

La Raza claims that the Minutemen programs are divisive and contribute to racism. What does La Raza think the invasion of America by millions of illegals causes?

Ray F. Wilson
Lenexa