nativism at Brave New Films

Exposed: A new (and darker) side of Michelle Bachman

2008-10-24T18:18:52Z

Think Progress (who gets the hat tip) explains:

The Uptake has uncovered new video from Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) 2005 election bid in which she suggests that some cultures are inherently superior to others. During a debate, the moderator asked Bachmann about how America could better integrate immigrant communities into U.S. society in order to prevent riots similar to those that were then occurring in France. Bachmann responded by calling the French riots the "fruits of leftism" and proclaiming, "Not all cultures are equal."

Put another way, Michelle Bachmann's first campaign strategy was to appeal to racism and nativism.

How do we know that Ms. Bachmann isn't really (and secretly) in league with the weird and unwholesome element among racists and white-supremacists?

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The Big Lie in Action

2008-03-31T10:36:29Z

From the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Hatewatch blog:

The Eagle Forum of Alabama is holding a series of "grassroots workshops" around the state entitled "What YOU can do about Illegal Immigration." Clearly aimed at riling up nativist fury, the fliers for the event allege that "the average illegal immigrant household receives approximately $30,000 in government benefits each year but pays only $9,000 in taxes."
The problem, as if often the case with the "facts" nativists dredge up to illustrate the evils of immigration, is that these calculations are wildly misleading at best. The numbers above originate in a quote from Robert Rector that was posted on the website NoFreeMustang.com, a new anti-immigration site put up by the conservative Heritage Foundation where Rector is a senior fellow. The website's title refers to the difference between the two numbers above, $21,000, which Rector alleges is the net cost taxpayers pick up for undocumented workers. "That's like buying each of these illegal immigrant families a brand new Mustang convertible," he claims.

Notes from Underground 1.2 – ‘International’ Student: Nine Years and Counting

2008-02-26T15:50:36Z

The California Non-Resident Tuition Exemption, AB-540, applies to students of non-immigrant status who have attended a California high school for three or more years and obtained a diploma or passed the GED. Unfortunately, even while I have lived in California continuously for nine years with a non-immigrant status, I fall short of the three year requirement by a couple months. What this means in terms of a University of California Graduate program is that instead of paying $9000 per semester, I would pay around $25000 and also be ineligible for financial aid. Furthermore, teaching assistantships that are usually paid positions are also unavailable to me since I cannot legally work in the United States. Faced with no other option, my family exhausted personal savings, loans and credit card limits to get me through as much of my higher education as possible. I did get paid teaching assistant positions but received no monetary or credit compensation for them, choosing to accept them for the experience.

America is my home. And yet, I am considered an outsider, an ‘International’ Student, by higher education institutions. It only gets funnier when the International Student Office at any given university, refuses to acknowledge me as an ‘International’ Student because they view me as an immigrant, as someone who is not just here temporarily. Caught between two warring worlds, I retreat back underground where no one questions my sense of belonging. Let us admit what this is really about. In an increasingly globalized world where borders are getting more indistinct and blurry, our insecure reactions to these changes are to seek the familiar, nativism and homogeneity, and even impose difference with strong rigidity. Maybe it is time that we let go and define ourselves as ‘global students?’