The United States of America or The Americas

Image by Bearman2007 via Flickr

The other day I read a comment to a article in my local newspaper about immigration deform, opps I mean immigration reform. Well, at first I just sort of shrugged it off as another post by someone geographically challenged. But, the more I thought about it, the more it sort of irritated me.

What my geographically challenged neighbor had said (in a "nut" shell) was that Mexico was part of the Americas too. You know that great country called "The Americas." This was of course his argument to why people crossing the border should be allowed to cross at will.

As an educator for the past 21 years in the Southern California area I have a few observations that may shed some light on the struggle for some people to understand why illegal is not legal and why open  borders are like none barred windows in South Central LA. 

First, I have always been aware that many students are not taught, by my fellow educators, geography. Frighteningly, by shear ignorance many grow up not knowing how many states there are, what continent we live on and what other countries are around the USA. 

Second, there has been something called "multiculturalism" taught in most schools, especially in Southern California. The whole idea is to respect other cultures and allow students to feel like their culture has value and that stuff. My observation: we have created "culturally aware" illiterates. 

Third, when the young impressionable minds get to high school they are bombarded by revisionist teachers who teach their version of US History. When the young mind is hit with this lethal combo of multiculturalism and  usually socialist revisionist crap they grow up thinking that America is the great evil and since people have "migrating" back and forth across the border for centuries borders and not real.

The truth is Canada borders the United States of America to the north (on the continent) and Mexico to the south. Mexico is a separate sovereign country. Mexico did not want the southwest. When the governor of   California asked Mexico if they wanted to govern California, Mexico said no.

There is a border. Mexico has northern and southern borders. Illegal is not legal no matter if one is ignorant or not.