The Blob on the Border
Amselle, Jorge
The Blob on the Border by Jorge Amselle On March 18, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the most radical change in immigration policy this country has seen since 1965. Rep. Lamar...
...schools equal is to institute in Mexico the very reforms that are ruining schools in the United States...
...Recommendations included such ivory-tower ideas as that "progress through school should be based on concept mastery rather than on grade levels...
...We need to be seen as one country...
...They are doing this through the department's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, which has funded something called the Border Colloquy Project...
...representatives of health service agencies...
...In a moment of candor, another person said, "This reality, this beautiful reality that we talked about creating this morning, we're going to have to drag some people along kicking and screaming all the way...
...SEDL makes it very clear who wears the white sombreros in its scenario...
...These U.S...
...According to La Frontera's participants, "It is time for some people and organizations in the U.S...
...and Mexican state departments of education...
...Ethnic strife is born when mainstream societies coerce assimilation of all groups in a nation-a notion that inspires strong nationalistic resistance from minorities interested in preserving their national identities...
...Yet, while many people- from the Jordan commission on immigration reform and President Clinton to presidential candidate Pat Buchanan-are clamoring to stop illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration, bureaucrats at the Department of Education are busy trying to erase the border entirely...
...These laboratories have long outlived any usefulness they ever had, yet they continue to subsist off the taxpayers, all the while promoting worthless or counterproductive ideas...
...One official maintained, "The attitude exists in the U.S., relative to other countries, that we are the greatest...
...What little time they didn't spend attacking the United States they devoted to defending Mexico and giving away our sovereignty...
...Jorge Amselle is communications director for the Center for Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C...
...Participants seemed to think that the way to make Mexican and U.S...
...If people in the U.S...
...The purpose of La Frontera is to "advocate, facilitate, and participate in [the] development of comprehensive, bi-national plans for realization of the vision...
...Their answers-compiled in the report "Imagining La Frontera: SEDL's Border Colloquy"-would shock most Americans...
...Mexico has officially enacted measures to protect its language and culture from its larger, and sometimes overbearing northern neighbor...
...and, most surprisingly, members of the U.S...
...Nationalism gives way to an internationalist mind-set that encourages each nation to offer up part of its sovereignty for the mutual good...
...Needless to say, supporters of making English the official language of the United States will find no comfort here...
...The "vision" in question is one of regional integration ushered in by the North American Free Trade Agreement...
...Border Patrol...
...On October 12, Education Secretary Richard Riley announced that SEDL's $4.4 million annual grant would be renewed for another five years...
...They agreed on the need for "full service schools" providing child care, parent education, and health services, a "system of integrated services from the womb to the tomb" that would be "available to all regardless of place of birth or residency...
...and Mexican officials also agreed that "educational requirements, curricula, and teacher training [should be] compatible...
...The other nine regional education labs received renewed funding, too...
...Schools will stop sorting students into winners and losers," and "schools will be structured differently with non-graded classrooms...
...According to SEDLs newsletter, "NAFTA will ideally create an integrated borderland...
...What will it take for Congress to notice and end such nonsensical waste...
...Some even recommended "moving toward a common financial and currency system" in order to equalize the economies of both countries...
...Most Mexican immigrants would probably disagree...
...If this side of the border is always perceived as better, if this side is always ideal, if this side is always the dreamed place, el norte famoso magico, then I don't think we're ever going to get the change we're looking for," said one participant...
...From April to June of 1995, La Frontera hosted six meetings in the United States and Mexico, attended by officials from U.S...
...Participants at these gatherings were asked to visualize what the border region would look like in the year 2010...
...Not surprisingly, they also called for increased resources from the federal government to improve education and alleviate poverty...
...Use of the bell curve will become a felony...
...The best way to achieve this, according to La Frontera, is to mesh the educational resources and curricula of New Mexico and Texas with those of the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Le?n, and Tamaulipas...
...staffers of Jeff Bingaman, Democratic senator from New Mexico...
...Border Patrol want to erase the border, they should probably start by resigning...
...Lamar Smith's bill would cut legal immigration by 30 percent, add 5,000 Border Patrol agents, and fund the construction of 14 miles of new and improved fencing along the most vulnerable parts of our border with Mexico...
...Also known as La Frontera ("the border" in Spanish), the project is the brainchild of the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) in Austin, Texas, one of 10 publicly funded "private" regional education research labs created by Washington in the mid-1960s and kept busy with assorted grants ever since...
...This begs the question: Why is it acceptable for Mexico to protect its language and culture but not for the United States...
...They wanted to "maintain a focus on equality and the well-being of people and the environment...
...And in a masterstroke of doublespeak, participants felt that education should "conjugate freedom with work, justice with efficiency, dignity with democracy, innovation with tradition, identity with integrity, [and] individuality with collectivity...
...this sum does not include dozens of additional grants for "research" projects like La Frontera...
...to stop being intolerant and accept the use of our language in their communities...
...state elected officials...
...Some called for "the creation of a regional government or oversight agency that spans national boundaries...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 22
