Much as it pains Gustavo that we keep blogging about this, we've got one more round of embarrassment for him about his debate yesterday evening in Denver with former Congressman Tom Tancredo. (Follow that link for the video.) We asked some local luminaries to tune into the debate and give us their take on who got the best of whom. A pair of Gustavo's pals–Lalo Alcaraz and Jim Gilchrist–stepped up. After reading their reviews after the jump, you might just start clamoring for a debate between these two guys…
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Lalo Alcaraz, cartoonist, creator of the syndicated strip “La Cucaracha,” pretended to be Gustavo once.
I
was struck by the civility of it all. I'm sure spectators wanted more
fireworks, but it's hard to be “in your face” for 90 minutes at a stretch.
I
found it fascinating to watch one of “us” try to explain how all the
“La Raza” conspiracy crap is just that, and to see Tancredo kind of
genuinely refuse to accept that brown people just want to be left
alone–just like all other Americans.
Fearmongers like Tom
Tancredo are usually hiding in their dark little corners and mental
bomb shelters when they make their outlandish claims about a full-blown
brown invasion conspiracy. Supposedly, Chicanos and armies of
undocumented immigrants from Mexico are hellbent on “taking back”
Mexico/the Southwest/Aztlán by the shadowy “La Raza” cabal.
Aside
from yelling back at a few pickets N protests, we really have never
seen a time when a reasonable fella like Gustavo gets to tell a wacko
like Tancredo that his rants about the dastardly La Raza are merely
an alarmist fantasy meant to scare people about brown-skinned
immigrants.
Tancredo's and others' misgivings about MEChA [Movimiento
Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán] are misplaced–many MEChAs are just
places to meet and make friends, like most
college clubs and activities. They also help high-schoolers envision a
shot at college. Most Chicano politicians I know were in MEChA or in
similar groups in college. There's your threat! Educated Latinos
progressing in America!
They lost me a bit during the jobs part, I find it hard to accept that Tancredo sympathizes with any immigrant workers.
Gus is more than a match for Tancredo, smarter and wittier–maybe he held back. But he was always on-point.
[
Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, knows how to rock the bulletproof-vest-over-a-business-suit look.
I
agree wholeheartedly with former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.
While “'Stavo” may feel that he is an “assimilated” American, I think he
speaks only for himself and a lesser portion of the Mexican population
in the USA. There still appears to be millions of Mexican immigrants
who have the misconception that parts of the USA was stolen from Mexico
and, therefore, it is only fair and just that that part of the country
be “taken back.”
There are seven billion people in the world,
half of them impoverished and who would love to migrate to the USA. It
is my opinion that in order to maintain a civilized society governed
under rules of law, as opposed to an anarchist society governed by mob
rule, a progressive nation such as ours needs to regulate a prescribed
number of legal immigrants into our country in an orderly manner.
Illegal
aliens in the USA, from anywhere in the world, should be repatriated
back to their homelands, where they can either publicly demonstrate to
force social, political and economic change in their countries, or
stand in line at a U.S. embassy and apply for legal entry into the United
States like the millions of legal immigrants who have preceded them. To make exceptions for those who violated our immigration laws would be
to render the rule of law meaningless. That is nothing to be proud of.
For more info, check out our Tancredo vs. Arellano archives:
- Gustavo to Debate Tom Tancredo About Immigration in Denver Next Week!
- Five Reasons to Root Against Tom Tancredo in Tomorrow's Debate in Denver
- Arellano vs. Tancredo: Top 5 Highlights From Meeting Of Immigration Minds, From “Tough Crap!” to Assimilation
- Arellano vs. Tancredo: Now With (Some) Video!
- Gustavo's Debate with Tom Tancredo: Gustavo's Side, Complete with Video!
- Denver Westword's comprehensive Tancredo coverage
