When readers tell me they enjoy my column, I remind them to thank the Lodi News-Sentinel (letters@lodinews.com) for publishing it.
The News-Sentinel has the guts, in today's politically correct world, to print the column virtually word for word every week of the year.
If there is another newspaper in California that regularly runs critical columns about immigration, I've never read it.
Among the major dailies, the Denver Post's Al Knight writes truthful and accurate columns about immigration, as does Charlie Reese, formerly of the Orlando Sentinel, James Goldsborough of the San Diego Union Tribune and Marcus Stern of the Copley News Service.
Also the late Richard Estrada of the Dallas Morning News, and the syndicated columnist Sam Francis, now a syndicated columnist but formerly with the Washington Times, wrote insightfully about the downside of immigration.
Battle-scarred veterans of the immigration debate like Dan Stein, Governor Richard Lamm and Ward Connerley have their Opinion pieces published occasionally.
The webzines lewrockwell.com, WorldNetDaily, Town Hall.com and Front Page Magazine do cover immigration. And VDARE.COM does an outstanding job! [Thanks, Joe! – Editors]
But, overwhelmingly, dissent from the "correct" thinking on immigration isn't permitted within the mainstream media.
I still have trouble imagining my column as "incorrect" since it is an open and honest analysis of immigration—the most compelling and complex federal program of our era.
I have a unique perspective on immigration. I live in California's San Joaquin Valley, an area heavily populated with immigrants. And from dawn to dusk, I work with immigrants. No one can blow any smoke past me about what goes on in the real world.
My immigration philosophy evolved from my daily experiences over the last 13 years. I am 100% in favor of dramatically and immediately reducing legal immigration and ending illegal immigration.
Yet somehow my view, shared by about 65% of Americans, is not allowed in print journalism. If newspaper readers didn't know any differently, they would think that the entire country supported amnesty, open borders, guest worker programs and ending English as our official language.
Once, my column appeared in The Record, then known as the Stockton Record. For nearly ten years, I wrote about the two topics that I dealt with in my classroom: welfare and immigration.
The column was controversial but well read. Those who agreed lauded me. Those who disagreed read anyway and cursed me.
In my naiveté, I thought that was the idea—write a column that people read.
One day, my long time editor and supporter, Dick Marsh, announced his early retirement. I knew that when Marsh's time was up, so was mine.
And I was right. No sooner had Marsh retired than, on the instructions of the Executive Editor, James Gold [email him], without warning and without a farewell column, I was gone. Roberto Radrigan, a Hispanic libertarian whose views were akin to the new editor's, replaced me.
Such is the atmosphere in journalism today.
Newspaper readers looking for fair and balanced coverage of immigration are flat out of luck.
If you are in favor of mass immigration though, you're in Fat City.
USA Today, with a circulation of 2.3 million daily, consistently cranks out the most biased, pro-immigration stories in print. Like the other 95 Gannett papers (aggregate circulation 7.7 million), USA Today has never written a harsh word about the impact of immigration.
Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal (circulation 1.8 million) regularly preaches the virtues of open borders in his column. Then Gigot hammers his point home with his frequent television appearances.
The world's most influential paper, the New York Times (circulation 1.1 million), will never write a professional story about immigration. Times front-page stories often have as many as six pro-immigration sources and without any opposing views expressed.
The New York Daily News has a particularly interesting feature. It not only bludgeons its readers with its take on immigration's merits, the paper runs a weekly column written by immigration lawyer Alan Wernick. Illegal aliens are invited to drop Wernick a line c/o the Daily News (you can drop him a line at allanwernick@earthlink.net) so that he can tell you how to beat the system.
Newsday, the Long Island daily, has never printed a fair immigration story. To boot, it offers the weekly "Questions and Answers about Immigration" by staff reporter, Mae Cheng.
Cheng, who is not a lawyer, regurgitates whatever her American Immigration Lawyer's Association source tells her.
Sam Francis wrote earlier in this space about the Reader's Digest (circulation: 12.2 million) and its article by Tamar Jacoby, "Don't Slam the Door." The article was intellectually barren and an insult to anyone with more than a 4th grade education.
Recently, Rolling Stone (circulation 1.2), published Part III of its series "Coming to America" titled "The Women They Leave Behind." [Click here for my critiques of Part I and II.] Author Dan Baum traveled to Mexico to hang out at beer halls with the wives of the aliens working in the U.S. The men call home constantly to keep close tabs on what their women are up to. The women all agree with Cuca, wife of Hectorin. Cuca confided in Baum that she misses Hectorin "but when he's gone, it is like a vacation."
Vacation or not, Cuca and her friends Argelia and Andrea are lining up to cross illegally so they can join their macho mates. This is, of course, fine with Baum [email him] who not only admires the willingness of the Mexicans to work in America for chump change but the spunk of their women, too.
My list is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg. Wherever you're reading this, I'm sure your local rag has published dozens of stories about immigration hardships and injustices without so much as a passing reference to the downside effects.
Note, too, how thoroughly the rabidly pro-immigration journalists have covered all of the demographic bases: the rich and the powerful; the young and the old; the elite and the working classes.
On our side, we have the internet and a small but dedicated core of wonderful, courageous writers.
And we have the Lodi News-Sentinel, circulation 18,000.
Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly newspaper column since 1988. This column is exclusive to VDARE.COM.
