October 01, 2004

A Writer and a Filmmaker Speak Out For America

In his new book, Immigration’s Unarmed Invasion: Deadly Consequences, journalist, environmentalist and activist Frosty Wooldridge (e-mail him: frostyw@juno.com), details how the 1965 Immigration Reform Act transformed America from the cohesive nation-state of yesteryear into the multicultural, unassimilated empire now slipping toward Third World status.

Whether readers live in Colorado, as Wooldridge does, or in California, as I do, or in virtually any other state, illegal immigration has found its way to your community.

And if your town is like my Central California city of Lodi, it has been changed beyond recognition.

In his 300-page book, Wooldridge writes about the multiple ways illegal immigration has adversely affected the U. S.—language, culture, crime, disease, wage depression and education.

Interspersed among the chapters that address the social ills created by illegal immigration, Wooldridge tells the compelling stories of individuals who have lived on the front line with the consequences of illegal immigration.

For example, Wooldridge profiles Lillian Gonzales, a Mexican-American registered nurse who served as a United States Marine. After recounting her family history to Wooldridge, Gonzales shares her conclusions about Mexico’s culture and her perception of America. As someone who has lived in both Mexico and the U.S., Gonzales says:

“Few Mexicans come to this country in hopes of adopting a new and better culture.”

“Mexicans believe their beliefs are superior to American beliefs.”

“Human rights are infringed upon every day in Mexico.”

“Mexicans make fun of Americans’ love of pets and view it as a flawed value system.”

“I believe that by allowing the mass entry of illegals from developing countries including Mexico, we are setting our country up for a setback.”

In his California chapter, Wooldridge chronicles what I see every day. Hundreds of illegal aliens enter California without any state or federal plan to control their arrival or to provide for them in ways that are not underwritten by the taxpayer. To make the problem more complex, most aliens are poor, illiterate and have menial job skills.

Wooldridge’s book will be particularly valuable to the many newcomers to immigration reform who are still on the learning curve. Those readers will be able to follow America’s four-decade slide toward illegal immigration chaos.

The final chapter of Immigration’s Unarmed Invasion has valuable information about grassroots organizations and tips on how to become more involved.

According to Wooldridge, one of his biggest surprises is how well the book is selling in Europe. Wooldridge told me:

“I receive letters from Germany, France, England, Norway and Italy telling me that the invasion is taking over their countries. This is a worldwide problem where Third World countries are invading First World countries with an unending line of illegal immigrants. One guy in France said, ‘We are losing our culture, our language and our country to the Middle East.’”

Wooldridge’s book deals mostly with illegal immigration. But there is another side to the coin.

For an excellent look at how American lives have been ruined by non-immigrant visas and the North American Free Trade Agreement watch “American Jobs,” a documentary produced by 36-year-old first-time filmmaker Greg Spotts.

The idea for a documentary came to Spotts in 2003, when he noticed that many of his friends were unemployed. Eager to learn more about the depressed US job market and the reality of the global economy, Spotts hit the road with his Panasonic DVX-100 digital video camera and a few lights. (See Spotts’ blog for a current schedule of his activities.)

Spotts traveled to the devastated mill town of Kannapolis, North Carolina where NAFTA created huge layoffs in the town of 36,000.

From Kannapolis, Spotts interviewed laid-off Boeing tech and aerospace workers in Seattle. Most former Boeing employees could still not believe that their jobs had been outsourced.

Spotts’ tour included a stop in Juarez, Mexico where he spoke with exploited workers.

Finally, Spotts arrived in Orlando, Florida. When he got to Siemens ICN, Spotts learned a new term—“insourcing.” One afternoon, an entire Siemen’s I.T. department was called into a meeting and told their replacements were flying in from India the following Monday. The American workers would be terminated—after training the new Indian arrivals.

Spotts’ segment on Siemens has an informative breakdown of how companies use and abuse H-1B and L1 visas—and how unscrupulous third-party placement firms like the India-based Tata Consultancy Services manipulate visa loopholes to take away American jobs.

“American Jobs” was released in September. His blog posts Spotts’ most recent reactions to his film:

“American Jobs” could not be timelier. On its September 29th Op-ed page, the Miami Herald published a column by Katie A. Edwards about the looming Central American Free Trade Agreement titled “Can we really afford to lose more jobs in Florida?”

Edwards writes that

“According to a recent study, Florida had a net loss of 35,511 jobs as a direct consequence of NAFTA, a large percentage of which came from the agriculture industry. Florida lost more than 1,000 small and medium-sized farms since NAFTA was implemented.”

And Edwards is fearful that the CAFTA, signed by Bush but not yet approved by Congress, will

“… Take away more jobs from Floridians who desperately need them and decimate industries for which the state has become famous. For the sugar industry in Florida, CAFTA would put some 23,000 direct and indirect jobs at risk and impact our state's economy to the tune of $2 billion.”

The question Edwards poses—“Can we afford to lose more jobs?”—is the most important issue facing Americans.

How can workers survive NAFTA, newly negotiated trade agreements like CAFTA, the Chile, Singapore and Morocco Free Trade Agreements and the pressure for still more visas advanced by the Bush administration, Congress and the US-India Political Action Committee?

Both Spotts and Wooldridge drew the same conclusion. For things to change, Americans must become more aware and more involved.

Immigrations Unarmed Invasion and American Jobs provide plenty of incentive to Americans to get off their duff and get going.

Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM.