Trying to decide which is the saddest example of current American dumbness and docility. Is it those Latino voters who cast ballots for the short-fingered vulgarian in Election 2024 or rural Nevadans whose public schools are beyond decrepit yet content leaving them to further decay?
Could’ve thrown in Americans agitating for repeal of daylight savings time but proponents of that belong in the feeble category. Hey. If the loss and gain of the same hour a year discombobulates you then it’s a symptom of a far deeper problem.
An absurd percentage of Southwestern Latinos, primarily those of Mexican heritage or naturalized, voted for Felon No. 1. While economic concerns were main drivers, close behind was the GOP’s determination to rid the United States of dubious brown people. Particularly those of the Spanish-speaking sort.
Como se dice “scapegoating” en espanol?
That’s right. Way too many Latinos bought into the gringo harangue the United States has too many illegal Mexican and Central Americans among us. When hasn’t the shouted appeal of “getting rid of those people” influenced tenuously rational minds? Only problem? Too few paid attention. Even fewer bothered with the proposal’s details. The small print. The nitty-gritty. Latinos heard those people. What needed clarification was who were those people exactly.
Now during the start of the find out phase we learn almost any Latino not a landed American could be caught in the incoming administration’s deportation dragnet. Naturalized? Wonderful. But if a review of your application kicks out something unusual, immigration Gestapo may sweat you. Green card? Same thing. And as we know from third degrees, the suspect, uh, questioned just might confess to something untrue just to end their inquisitors’ tortures.
Even more stressing is the likelihood of “merged” families or residences being torn asunder.
Yes. You are a landed citizen. Wonder, though, if an undeclared Mexican relative has taken up domicile at your address? Or several have? Everybody is working, kicking in towards the mortgage, household bills, leading spotless lives when the surveillance state apparatus discovers one or however many inside the premises aren’t Americans?
Before, staying under the radar, gainfully contributing, perhaps even working towards legal status sufficed to keep “migrant malefactors” safe. After January 20th, being hardworking and keeping one’s nose clean may not be enough to sustain any cloaks of invisibility. Especially in Texas and Arizona.
This is what an indecent percentage of Southwestern Latinos voted for. Getting rid of those people. Which will be really bad if authorities determine they’re also members of that element.
Americans of Caribe Hispanic heritage or naturalized – yeah, throw in Cubans because they will swear after Castro chased off Batista they now belong on the mainland as well as Puerto Ricans for they are natural-born citizens – were sharp enough not to put relatives, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances in the same possible bullseyes. They mostly voted for their own interests as well as those of who might come under threat. They knew. Then again, sizable portions of Caribe Hispanics reside in the Northeast. A region where extremely few native-born Americans will roll on anyone honestly hustling and scuffing, his or her status immaterial.
The rural Nevada focus of this dispatch may be as bad as eating seed corn. It may impact the future.
Outside of Clark and Washoe Counties, the Silver State’s most populous, the rest of Nevada is quite desolate. In them as in the rest of the state, public education is funded through local property taxes.
While Las Vegas and Reno pretty much give their host counties money to burn towards readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmatic, the residents in voids outside them starve.
Fewer residents, fewer homeowners, fewer commercial establishments contributing revenues mean rural K-12 students are generally on the short ends of school funding. High percentages of school budgets are dedicated to salaries. The scant remainder goes to facility maintenance and capital expenditures. Or tries.
For decades there hasn’t been enough money to put toward either expense. Meaning students in Nevada’s remote towns learn in dilapidated structures only ingenuity on the level of African technology keep from collapsing atop those inside them.
Naturally this being Nevada the mill rates in these outposts have been reached. They cannot be exceeded.
While reading The Las Vegas Sun articles behind what’s been described, I thought of my parents. Having been denied all but the most rudimentary education, and that given grudgingly, they knew what power learning could bestow. They’d witnessed it in students who’d received it. Or those from which it had been withheld. Like themselves.
The newspaper’s descriptions of the facilities current rural Nevada students must endure might’ve reminded mother and father of the schoolhouses of their own youths. Which is why our parents spared their children little expense towards facilities, texts, and equipment. They could and did lavish on us.
Reading The Sun’s horrors a bad percentage of rural Nevada students bear, I naturally thought of what my parents, parents of my Quarropas, New York, schoolmates would’ve done to alleviate such conditions. Apparently, theirs and ours will be the last “can-do” generation of Americans for the foreseeable future. Though they never would’ve let circumstances eroded so thoroughly, just for sake of argument let’s say we back East were somehow so disadvantaged.
Those succeeding us expend far more energy and effort seeking out who to tar than exerting themselves towards fixes. Complaining only recognizes problems. Without action behind it, the arrow does not move towards solutions.
Practical people as they were, and to certain extents ourselves their issue, our elders first would’ve dug deep into their own pockets. Second, they would’ve repaired, renovated what they could’ve through their own elbow grease. Third, for those tasks beyond their ken, they would’ve ventured throughout the community, the region, and buttonholed businesses specializing in the more difficult or intricate jobs.
Knowing my elders, none would’ve been shy about promoting “communal obligations.” That wouldn’t have been a hard sell. At least not then. It’s always a majority of students who attend public schools anywhere. And then more so than now those parents were conscientious.
Therefore, the likelihood of contractors’ or architects’ sons and daughters being enrolled in municipal schools ought’ve further encouraged action.
Fourth, of course, getting the jobs done at cost in exchange for munificent gratitude. The kind which insists benefactors be allowed to indulge in no-guilt bragging and chest-puffery. Because America will never run out of enough grease to slide the biggest head through any door.
None of this is happening in rural Nevada.
Instead, school buildings further deteriorate into tougher obstacle courses. If interiors freeze during winters, broil in summers, whose leaking roofs rot out ceilings, walls flake paint, plumbing fails, and concrete crumbles, these conditions stymie effective learning. Such problems will not repair themselves.
Yet rustic parents must’ve convinced themselves they’re helpless. Perhaps they’re already resigned to their children advancing only so far. If that.
There’s too much of that going on in present-day America. This tacit willingness of accepting future generations won’t rise higher than those preceding them.
A hallmark of the United States has been the exact opposite – that successive generations will outperform those before them. Does the first quarter of the 21st century signal an end of this American exceptionalism?