One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to work a minimum wage job?

Houston News 11 just reported that students at Lee High School (where a number of my favorite people teach/taught) demonstrated today as part of a city-wide protest against the proposed immigration law.

You know the one I'm talking about.

I'm not going to go off on Bush because you've all heard it before--it's a stupid idea by a stupid man elected by a stupid "majority," but whatever. I'm not even going to go off on immigration policy in general because that, dear readers, is a far more complicated issue leading to a wide range of valid opinions.

(I'm not even sure where I fall on the "send them all back to Mexico" vs. "mi casa es su casa" continuum, although I have to say I'm not all that impressed with most English-only speakers.)

I do, however, have strong feelings about the signs being displayed by the students of Lee High School. "We're not Terrorists; We're Workers!" one sign says. This alongside the arguments I've been hearing of, "Well, immigrants take jobs that no one else wants to do. You didn't get a college degree to clean toilets, after all."

True enough. I got a college degree because my teachers and parents and I and everyone expected me to go to college.

Are we honestly taking the mindset that Mexican immigrants can and should be granted citizenship in order to work our minimum wage paying labor jobs? Is that the best pro-immigration argument we can come up with? Lee High School students! You've been taught better than that! You are going to go to college and be writers and journalists and CEOs and small business owners. AMERICA SHOULD EXPECT IT OF YOU, or I should quit my job immediately.

We need scientists, technicians, and engineers, and we're turning out highly skilled jobs faster than my or your generation can fill them up (that includes the suburban kids, and you're already behind). You kids!--you Nike-wearing, pledge-saying, R.L.Stein-reading, Napoleon-Dynamite-watching, American immigrants and children of immigrants!--go back to class tomorrow and show these nimrods you mean business.

I mean GOSH.
#@$#@$!($*@(#*!@(#*!@(#$*!@.


Ok, done.