March 31, 2007
Memo From Mexico,
By
Allan Wall
Celebrity Citizens—And Traitors
The
Wall Street Journal approach to immigration and
the National Question is to suppose that man is
completely motivated by economics. Therefore, if
immigrants to America can prosper materially, they will
assimilate into our society and
become loyal citizens.
But human beings are
not simply
economic automatons. They are cultural beings as
well. It is entirely possible for immigrants to be
successful economically and
yet never identify with our country.
In fact, they can be
wealthier than most Americans—and still
feel alienated from American society.
Consider a few
examples from the
entertainment industry.
Show-biz folks make tons of money. Does that
necessarily mean
they identify with our national culture?
Salma Hayek emigrated from Mexico to
Hollywood in 1991—the same year I moved from the
U.S. to Mexico. She is currently the biggest
Latin movie star in Hollywood.
Yet Hayek whines
about
how Mexicans are treated in the U.S.A. Incredibly,
she even claims she was treated badly, even though she
emigrated to Hollywood as an already-rich
Mexican!
Hayek has been quite
happy to rake in the bucks from movies and
Revlon endorsements. But as late as
March of 2003, she didn’t see any need to become an
American citizen. "Mojoscripts.com
reports that:
"When asked if she would consider becoming a U.S.
citizen, Hayek said: ‘How would that improve my
situation? As a Mexican citizen, my situation is
improving,’ ""
But what changed
Hayek’s mind was the election, on October 7th,
2003, of Arnold Schwarzenegger (a dual
American-Austrian citizen, by the way), as governor
of California. [Vdare.com
note: In place of our usual email links, since movie
stars don’t give out their email address, we'll have
"Send A Letter"
links, since the only way you can
contact most celebrities is through US Mail c/o their
agent:
Send Salma Hayek a Letter]
Now we know that, on
the immigration question, Arnold is an
unreliable ally who
constantly flip-flops. But in the
Mexican and Latino media, Schwarzenegger is
portrayed as a
rabid anti-immigration Mexican hater.
Hayek was not pleased
by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election as Governor of
California. She said she wanted to "have a voice that
supports the Latino community in the United States.".
To that end, she said she intended to "maintain both
citizenships to help the Latinos." …. she said she
"feels sad because .... the Latinos could not win at
the polls during the recent election...." (i.e.
Schwarzenegger defeated Cruz Bustamante, an
ordinary Mexican-American political hack who
foolishly chose to run as a
Reconquista candidate.)
In 2004, Salma Hayek
became an American citizen, just as she planned. In
order to be naturalized, she took this solemn oath:
"I hereby
declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely
renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any
foreign
prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or
which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that
I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of
the United States of America against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same; that
I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when
required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant
service in the Armed Forces of the United States when
required by the law; that I will perform work of
national importance under civilian direction when
required by the law; and that I take this obligation
freely without any mental reservation or purpose of
evasion; so help me God."
8 C.F.R. § 337.1 Oath of allegiance.
But for Salma Hayek,
this citizenship oath was a lie. She swore that she was
renouncing her Mexican citizenship. But she didn’t.
Indeed, she’d already boasted beforehand that she
wouldn’t!
Hayek also lied when
she swore that she took her U.S. citizenship "without
any
mental reservation or
purpose of evasion." Hayek didn’t become
a U.S. citizen because she wanted to become an American.
Salma openly saw U.S. citizenship as a means to an
end—as a tool to further her
Latino political activism.
In a country that
really took citizenship seriously, Salma would’ve been
investigated and her application for citizenship
rejected. In a country that took citizenship
seriously, that is—not in today’s U.S. (G.W.
Bush, President).
Unsurprisingly, Salma
Hayek, the Hollywood Dual Citizen Latino Agitator, was
there in mid-2006, when thousands of illegal aliens
participated in various and sundry demonstrations
demanding amnesty. Hayek signed on for the big
May Day 2006 protest. She announced: "Next 1st
of May I will not go to work in solidarity with this
cause that seems just to me…"[Salma
Hayek se unirá al ‘dia soin latinos’ en EU, Siglo de
Torreon, April 13th, 2006]
Do you suppose Mexico
would allow this? Would Mexico allow an American to
publicly become a dual citizen in order to promote the
interests of Americans in Mexico?
To ask the question
is to answer it.
Another Mexican star
who openly makes a mockery of U.S. citizenship is the
pop singer Thalia [Send
her a
letter—the official Thalia site also has a
message board.] (currently Mrs. Tommy Mottola). I
wrote about Thalia last year. Like her fellow dual
citizen Salma Hayek, Thalia made no attempt to hide
where her true loyalties lie:
"This morning I acquired United States citizenship.
Nevertheless, under
the laws of my country, Mexico, I can also have
Mexican citizenship. I have been a resident of the
United States for 8 years and I have been married to my
husband Tommy Mottola for the last 5 of them. Just like
some of my Latino friends such as
Salma Hayek, who is just as Mexican as I, and
Gloria and Emilio Estefan, among others, I feel that
this step will give me the opportunity to contribute to
and support even more the Latin community in the United
States. I am of Mexican nationality, and I will always
be a proud Mexican in heart and soul."
Like Salma Hayek,
Thalia doesn’t really want to become an American, and
doesn’t identify with our country. She sees citizenship
as a means to an end—"the opportunity to contribute
to and support even more the Latino community in the
United States." Thalia recently announced
that she will be hosting a weekly radio show in Spanish
in the U.S.A—one of the ways she is "supporting the
community". [Tendrá
Thalía programa radiofónico en EU, El
Universal, March 1, 2007]
This is not some
secret conspiracy. Both Salma and Thalia openly
announced their real loyalties and thus their disdain
for U.S. citizenship. And in both cases, nothing
happened.
As an
American resident in Mexico, I can personally
testify that Salma and Thalia are far from alone. Many
less-famous Mexicans desire U.S. citizenship, not
because they want to be Americans, but as a means to an
end—more money in their pockets.
And nowadays, who
dares stop them? Not our federal government (G.W. Bush,
President), that’s for sure.
It may be fashionable
now for Latino celebrity immigrants to function as
Latino activists. But in the old days, they tried to
assimilate.
Guitar great Carlos
Santana, [Send
him a letter.] who emigrated from Mexico
decades ago, and became a U.S. citizen, now uses his
fame as a platform to call the U.S. racist and bash
border control. But he used to play apolitical songs
like
"Oye como va", whereas he
now bashes
"La Migra"
Even gentlemanly
Ricardo Montalban, by no means a radical, became a
U.S. citizen and renounced his Mexican citizenship back
in the old days. But after Mexico started
promoting dual citizenship , he
regained his Mexican citizenship.
This is not just
about radical or leftist movie stars. This is about
American identity, about identifying with our country.
Nowadays, Latino celebrities just don’t. And no-one
protests.
It’s not just about
Mexicans either. Consider actor John Leguizamo, who
emigrated from Colombia when he was four years old.
This guy, despite the fact he’s a successful actor with
an Anglicized first name, has an enormous chip on his
shoulder. Leguizamo bellyaches that
"You grow up Latin in this country and you’re a third
class citizen from the word go…there were no Latin
people on ‘Star
Trek,’ …this was proof that they weren’t planning to
have us around for the future."["John
Leguizamo: ‘Freak,’ and Proud of it", CNN.com,
November 02, 1998]
Interviewed by the
Associated Press, Leguizamo had this to say:
AP:
Is there a major difference between U.S. Hispanic and
Latin American audiences?
Leguizamo:
We come from there and we have a lot from there. But
what is different is that we face racism in this
country, and many live in poor neighborhoods where the
education is really bad. People there (in Latin
America) are super-educated and super-intellectual. They
face obstacles, but not so many. It’s a different
experience. But that is the only difference."[Leguizamo
leaps the language barrier
S & S ME July 22nd, 2005 Luis Alonso Lugo (AP)]
If things are so
horrible for Latinos in the U.S., why doesn’t John
Leguizamo—who
looks pretty white to me, by the way—go back to
Colombia? [Write
him a letter.]
Recent years have
seen an influx of Mexican movie directors coming to
Hollywood, and doing quite well there. In the recent
Academy Awards, three Mexican directors (Alfonso Cuaron,
Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) were
nominated for Oscars.
But where among the
Mexican directors in Hollywood, is there a new Frank
Capra?
Capra was an
immigrant from Sicily who became a citizen, loved
America and directed
"It’s a Wonderful Life",
"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and other classics.
During World War II, despite the fact that his
home country of Italy was one of the Axis powers,
Capra directed the
"Why We Fight" movies to promote the American
war effort.
Looking at the
Mexican directors in Hollywood, I don’t think any will
be mistaken for Frank Capra.
In a striking
instance of life imitating art, the big May 1st
boycott of 2006 was inspired by the 2004 propaganda
flick
A Day Without A Mexican,
directed by another Mexican director, Sergio Arau.
Certainly, Arau supported the 2006 boycott, as did Oscar
nominees Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez
Inarritu. Gonzalez Inarritu, who isn’t even a U.S.
citizen,
said "I believe that it is very important to
understand the power that we Latinos in the U.S. have if
we unite" ("Creo
que es muy importante darnos cuenta de la fuerza que
tenemos si nos unimos los latinos en Estados Unidos.).
[Hollywood
se une al boicot Siglo de Torreon April 30th,
2006]
And just a couple of
months ago, Gonzalez Iñarritu had to inject the
immigration issue into the Golden Globe awards, where
he sarcastically remarked to Arnold Schwarzenegger
that "I have my [immigration] papers in order
" and then
boasted about it to the Mexican media as if he’d
made some valiant statement .
Well, how about
Mexican-American Hollywood stars? Surely they identify
with our nation, don’t they?
How about
Eva Longoria of
Desperate Housewives fame? She was
born in Texas, and doesn’t even speak Spanish.
Surely she’s not into all this Latino activism, is she?
Well, actually, she
is. Eva works with the National Council of La Raza, she
doesn’t want illegals deported, and she is agitating
for
more Spanish translators in hospitals.
And
consider the case of
U.S.-born Edward
James Olmos,
longtime Hollywood actor and
Miami Vice star.
[Send him a
letter, or
email!] Olmos made his triumphalist ethnic
chauvinism quite clear in a
2001 interview with Univision (you can listen to it
here.
"We [Latinos] are
going to dominate this country also, and it’s going
to take, the way things are going, another 25 years and
we are going to be the majority of people, period!"
Of course, that can
only happen if we in the U.S. (G.W.
Bush, Presidente) allow it to happen.
Will we?
American
citizen Allan Wall (email
him) resides in Mexico, with a
legal permit issued him by the Mexican government. Allan
recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the
Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are
archived
here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
articles are archived
here his "Dispatches from
Iraq" are archived
here his website is
here.
