ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610140102
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
A ROANOKE County grand jury this month indicted a retired machinist in a 21-year-old murder case involving a pipe-bomb explosion. A toddler had been killed by the bomb which was planted, say authorities, in the car of a white woman then dating a black man.
The fires of hatred continue to burn.
Last month, according to Tam Gia Phan, a Vietnamese refugee living in Roanoke, a firebomb exploded in his wife's truck. Earlier, he had received an anonymous, threatening phone call.
Tam speculates the motive may have been envy. "I think I work hard and work good and get money and buy these cars. That's why they don't want me living here."
The motive cannot be known for sure, of course. But it is clear enough that resentment against more recent immigrants has been, like racism, a powerful sentiment in America. It is also clear that irrational resentments too often are exploited, even stoked, for political gain.
Some Republican politicians in particular have been riding a wave of anti-immigrant feeling - prompting GOP stars Bill Bennett and Jack Kemp publicly, even courageously, to express disappointment with the strategy.
President Clinton has succeeded in deleting the meanest provisions in immigration legislation, which would have hurt legal immigrants. But he did so quietly, in a back-room deal with lawmakers.
What we're hearing shouted from the rooftops these days is that immigrants are taking our jobs, overwhelming our schools and, in the words of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., "getting into our welfare system and into our food-stamp system."
No question about it: Illegal immigration is putting tremendous burdens on some states. Reforms are needed, as are continuing limits on immigration, and crackdowns on illegals. But the welfare reform signed by Clinton denies legal immigrants access to food stamps and other benefits. And the rhetoric, meanwhile, continues to grow more punitive and hateful.
Thank goodness for New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a public servant of great integrity and a voice of sanity in the immigrant-bashing wilderness.
In a speech at Harvard this week, the Republican mayor observed that "America became the most successful nation in history because of our constant process of re-evaluation, reform and revitalization, a process that is driven by immigrants who come here to create better lives for themselves and their children. We are constantly being reinvented, not just by the free flow of ideas but by the free flow of people."
Exactly right.
Clinton himself has spoken about the harm that group enmities have wreaked in places such as Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. In a recent talk to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, he said: "What makes this country work is that you don't have to be in any ethnic or racial or religious group. All you have to do is say, `I believe in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.' Show up tomorrow, do the right thing, raise your kids and you're part of our country. That's what's special about America."
Exactly right, too.
But the president gave this speech to an audience of Hispanic power-brokers in Washington. He's saying little about it on the campaign trail. He isn't, like Giuliani, going out of his way to repudiate the immigration hate-mongers in a nation of immigrants.
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