The diminutive Jorge Ramos, Univision anchor and noted Spanish-language whangdoodle, while posturing to maximize his pandering at last Thursday’s Democratic presidential primary debate, addressed the audience partly in Spanish. “Este también es nuestro país,” he said. Translation: “This is our country, too.”
At that moment, in a quiet cemetery outside of Oyster Bay, New York, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and a man whose bust is on Mount Rushmore, began spinning in his grave.
It turns out Ramos is the kind of nightmare immigrant that Roosevelt had in mind in his famous speech to and about immigrants (that would be legal immigrants)—a pseudo-American, destructive to the United States as a nation, and corrosive to the spirit of the American national motto, E Pluribus Unum (“Out of many, one”).
In that 1907 address, Roosevelt wisely stated:
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American . . . There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag . . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language . . . and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Thus, in the light of T.R.’s wisdom, Ramos rightly could be characterized as a disunifying malcontent.
Ramos seems to see himself as Miami’s answer to Simon Bolivar but, in fact, he is much closer to Don Quixote.
Ramos is encouraging the Balkanization of the United States. By encouraging Latino immigrants to continue to speak Spanish and not English, and to resist full assimilation into the American culture, he advances that effort. He continues this theme in his Spanish-language show “Noticiero Univision,” which, given his long-standing bias against President Trump, more accurately might be called “Noticiero Hombre Naranja Malo.”
Apparently, the bantam Ramos has had a long-standing grudge against Trump that dates back even before the infamous tantrum that got him ejected from a campaign event.
This may have been particularly maddening to Ramos, because a blow up of the video at around 1:10 seems to show him wearing Toto Brand Model H0630 elevator shoes. Beautiful matching shade of gray suede too!
Before cries of “racist” (or “heightist”) start flying, let me say that I, too, am a gentleman of color (some would say, off-color). Dark-eyed and olive-skinned to be exact, more bronze than the slight, pasty, blue-eyed, and very Anglo-looking Jorge Ramos.
And for those readers who don’t think that in the past Italian-Americans were subjected to racial discrimination—both violent and lethal—we were.
Let’s start with the great Anti-Italianism of 1891, which included one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history when 11 Italian immigrants were hanged all at once in New Orleans.
Eight years later, in 1899, three Italian-American storekeepers in Tullah, Louisiana were lynched because they gave equal treatment to black and white clients. A lynch mob hanged the three Italian storekeepers and two Italian bystanders.
And then there was the appalling case of Sacco and Vanzetti . . . not exactly a shining moment in American jurisprudence.
So Ramos and his friends can keep their kneejerk cries of “racism” to themselves.
Please note that in the decades since those vile episodes, even at the peak of the legal immigration of thousands upon thousands of Italians and despite the horrendous bigotry and discrimination they endured, Italian families pressed forward with heads down, learning English, pushing to integrate into society, and reminding their children they were Americans.
Unlike Ramos, (who fiercely advocates a bilingual and thus highly divisive agenda) and who, after decades the benefits of life in the United States, and a master’s degree from the University of Miami, chooses to speak grammatically perfect English but with his catchy professional accent. Italians, myself included, took assimilation far more seriously.
Very seriously. We spoke English at home, period. We held our hands over our hearts and pledged allegiance to the flag every single day at school. And we meant it.
Moreover, when I came of military age, I signed up. I jumped out of airplanes for my Uncle Sam, at night, in the rain, anywhere I was told to go. I am a better man for the experience of having served our country.
One might interrupt Ramos’s preening and president-bashing to ask: What did you do for America, your new country, Jorge?
In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ramos explained how he had been personally conflicted about becoming a U.S. citizen. For years, he considered himself just a “Mexican with a green card.”
On his 50th birthday, however, he reflected on how he had lived in Mexico 25 years and 25 years in the United States, and made a decision. “You have to go through a mental and emotional process to recognize who you really are,” he said.
The impish and crafty Ramos, of course, did not mention the enormous financial gain, getting away from ex-wives, the ire of the Catholic Church (in which he claims he was abused), or being taxed to death in Mexico, which might—just might—have had some minor effect on his decision to become an American. American, at least, according to the letter of the law.
“I finally recognized that I cannot be defined by one country,” Ramos told the Times. “I am from both countries. It took me many years to make peace with that thought, and that I was never going back to Mexico.”
Really? Shucks. I guess Ramos forgot about his oath. You know, the naturalization oath. The one where he raised his right hand and said:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
“So help me God.” I have a question for the guy who calls himself an agnostic (which, of course, he’s free to do). Due to a few centuries of rule by the Spanish Bourbon kings of Italy, did I mention that, like Ramos, I have a Hispanic last name, spelled with a “de” rather than a “di”? I also learned to speak Italian and Spanish in school. So I would ask Ramos in the language he seems most comfortable with: “¿Si eres adnóstico y juras a Dios, qué tan buena es tu alianza con los Estados Unidos?”