The Courier Tribune features a story on its website this morning about a young student at Randolph Technical College entitled: Latino Teen Living Her Dream.
Brenda Lopez is one of four RCC Foundation ambassadors — students selected to represent RCC on campus, in the community and on visits to area schools. She plans to transfer to a university to earn a bachelor’s degree and then to apply for dental school.
I touched upon the subject of illegal immigration in Asheboro in a recent post entitled, The Courier Tribune and Sore Winners. A reader commented (via e-mail) how I really had nailed a subject that was Asheboro's "800 pound gorilla in the corner".
With this "human interest" story, the Courier has given me an opportunity to expand a little bit on the subject - and go into greater depth about why anger and resentment in Asheboro run just a little bit more than skin deep for many long-time residents.
For equal opportunity is not what it's cracked up to be - when people can break all the rules and thrive - while those of us who were born here and followed all the rules can be vilified and ostracized (and I mean really ostracized and vilified as opposed to Terry Locke's sissified, whiny beer-soaked version).
Brenda Lopez came to the US as a child - with her Mother and siblings to join her Father who was already working here. The entire family's (including her Father's) entry into the county was illegal.
The Courier's article (written by Chip Womick) plays the sympathy card heavily as it talks about the horrible conditions in Mexico - the abject poverty - as well as Brenda's difficulties learning English in the public school system (key words: public school system)
Ultimately, however, Lopez did very well in school - overcoming her difficulties learning the language (with which I empathize - Spanish has never been easy for me - of course, I did not move to Mexico). But eventually Brenda's undocumented status became a barrier to college/higher education. Her Mother produced some papers which she thought might help.
Eventually, she (Lopez) wound up taking the papers to the Asheboro office of Congressman Howard Coble, where she learned that her father (one of millions of illegal immigrants who had been granted amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986) had later applied for permanent residency status for his wife and children. After the initial petition, however, no one had ever followed through.
So Lopez followed through. For $2000 and a completed application, she got her green card (a card that identifies her as an alien (someone who is not a U.S. national) with legal permanent residency status).
It was just in time to apply for scholarships.
She can apply for citizenship five years from the date of getting her green card.
Lopez applied for several scholarships and wound up getting six, including one from teachers at SWRHS who chipped in to give her $800 in scholarship monies. Now, she works full-time at an Asheboro bank in addition to going to school. She has worked since she was 15, holding down a warehouse job packing clothes for shipment while in high school.)
For a time, Lopez pondered a career as a psychologist, but now her sights are set on becoming a children’s dentist.
“I wanted to do something where I could help people somewhere, somehow,” she said. “I really just wanted to help people, to help kids like me, mostly focus on the Latinos.”
And this is where the positive, forward-looking puff of Mr. Womick's human-interest piece suddenly disintegrated into self-agrandizing hot air for me.
To get at what I'm talking about, I'd like to compare and contrast Brenda's experience, as an illegal alien - with that of my own - as a US citizen born and bred and completely educated within an hour of Asheboro.
Brenda Lopez, illegal alien granted amnesty and a green card, did well in high school school, worked while attending school, applied for and got some scholarships, will transfer from technical college to university, and plans to go to dental school.
Mary Johnson, born-in-the-USA, did well in high school, worked while attending school, applied for and got some scholarships, went directly to a state-supported university, went to medical school (again, with the help of a few scholarships), completed a Pediatric residency at Brenner Children's Hospital (just an hour away), and came home to serve her community. In return for service to state and federal programs, Dr. Johnson's medical school loans were repaid - and she was assured the opportunity to remain in the community where she began practice - regardless of whether or not she continued to work for the local hospital's "controlled affiliate".
When she encountered hurdles pursuing a higher education, Brenda Lopez, illegal alien granted amnesty and a green card, went to Howard Coble's office and got everything she wanted. After all, she's just a young person who loves her adopted community and has dreams that need to come true.
But when Mary Johnson, born in the USA, saw three years of hard work destroyed and every dream she ever had shattered by lies and deceit on the part of "non-profit" Randolph Hospital executives, Howard Coble's office did just enough to get by (and even that took nine months, a lawyer and multiple rounds of correspondence). Sure, Dr. Johnson's malpractice "tail insurance" got paid . . . but no other part of her contact with the Federal government was honored . . . nor were her considerable losses adequately compensated.
The Feds did not give a crap about why Dr. Johnson was fired - or that, given the way she was fired, many doors (including fellowship/specialty opportunities) were slammed in her face. She was a warm body who had filled a slot and her usefulness was at its end.
The irony, of course, is that all the doors were were slammed in Dr. Johnson's face because she adhered to the cannons of her Oath and her sworn duties as a physician . . . because she put a baby girl's life before a doctor's ego or the threats of two bullies disguised as hospital executives.
You see in Asheboro, Randolph Hospital CEO Bob Morrison, who has never seen a single patient or billed a service he provided, can siphon off a small fortune in salary and benefits as a "non-profit" executive . . . even as he runs good, home-grown physicians out of town. No one in a position of oversight - local, state, or federal - so much as blinks.
He can add an elevator to his home. Dr. Johnson rarely gets to sleep in her own bed.
Meanwhile, in terms of a free press being our last/best defense against corruption, Dr. Johnson's accomplishments and sacrifice do not merit a mention in the Courier Tribune . . . or a pat on the back for a job well done. You see, we've got to protect the reputation and bottom line of the local hospital at all costs.
Congressman Howard Coble , powerful friend to "the who's whos" of Asheboro, does not think that perjury, contempt and fraud on the part of local "non-profit" executives with whom he often hob-nobs merit any kind of decisive intervention by his office with USDHHS or the US Attorney General's office. What the law says and what it does are two different things.
You see, Dr. Mary Johnson, born in the USA, native to Asheboro is not one of "the right people".
On the other hand, Brenda Lopez, illegal alien granted amnesty and green card, is "the future" of Asheboro . . . the past having been pretty much wiped out by the greedy mill bosses that brought her Father here for the cheap labor.
No hard feelings.
Sometimes, Lopez said, she encounters discrimination.“I’ve learned to be strong and deal with it. I have a life ahead of me and people who spend time discriminating and worrying about us, they’re the ones who are making their lives miserable.
Now, given that in the life behind me, I've been hit by a few trains on Asheboro's status-quo railroad . . . AND, as a result, I'm just a little bit paranoid . . . AND I know that the Courier is following this blog, I had the strong feeling that Lopez's quote was very likely a slam Mr. Womick purposely directed my "miserable" way . . . for having the courage to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the corner of the room that nearly everyone else in Asheboro has been so determined to ignore.
I've got news for the young Ms. Lopez (and Mr. Womick for that matter). I encountered discrimination long before Brenda was even a twinkle in her Daddy's eye. I once told a surgeon at NC Baptist Hospital (one of the last great bastions of white male supremacy), that the "H" in my middle name stood for "Helen" not "Honey", and terms of endearment did not apply. He could get his own damned coffee - I was there for a medical education.
Indeed, if you want to talk about discrimination, all of the male doctors who came to Asheboro at about the same time I did - and who got federal loan repayment - were allowed to transition into their own practices. The ladies, however, were shown the door. Having opinions and standing up for ourselves made us "arrogant and cliquish" (good-ole-boy speak for "bitches").
Let's take it a step further. The male OB who had an extramarital affair with an LDRP nurse (right under everyone's noses - even as the lady docs then on staff were screaming that it should STOP) . . . and who ultimately aborted his own child in his home . . . worked at Randolph Hospital right up until the Medical Board cleaned his clock. He was bought out - and went somewhere else and got on with his life. In stark contrast, the female Pedatrician in public service who faced down the threats of hospital administrators and saved a baby's life was fired within two weeks of reporting the incident. Her life and practice were destroyed - her future turned to toast.
So any day young Ms. Lopez wants to talk to me about about discrimination in Asheboro, I'm there.
What is NOT discrimination is to have legitimate conversations about how North Carolina's systems of education and medicine and justice have been manipulated by people who came here illegally, but now enjoy every benefit of citizenship (including free education and medical care) . . . or how a small Sourthern town has, in a matter of a decade, morphed into something unrecognizable from its origins . . . all to serve the greed of its cheap-labor-loving, outsourcing mill-town kings.
As a doctor and the daughter of a teacher, I have seen every kind of abuse of the system - and every manor of entitlement - and I know who has paid - and who is still paying - for it.
I'll tell you who is not. It's not the smooth-talking, fat-cat North Carolina politicians who have wasted billions of dollars in failed programs (from disproportionate share to mental health) . . . all the while pandering to the get-rich-quick schemes of corporations and Chambers of Comerce . . . and using people like Ms. Lopez's Father (and me) like pawns on a chessboard.
Moreover, after sucking all of it up and dealing with what and whoever came through the door, I still got slapped in the face by so-called "colleagues" using a language-not-my-own as a weapon and playing the race card to get ahead. It gets real old.
As a citizen and hometown girl, I have endured every kind of personal/professional insult & slight - even though I've played by all the rules . . . living my life responsibly and within my means . . . not expecting the government to support my every whim. My reality (and "reward") is that the town I grew up in and came back to is all but dead - taken over by people who have sucked its resources dry. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants - and the people who profit off them - keep skipping merrily along, pursuing their happiness. Nothing ever gets done to even the scales - or to hold anyone accountable - or have anyone put back into the systems they've taken so much from.
I am very worried about that. We cannot feed this monster indefinitely. And it has NOTHING to do with discrimination. Once again, it's about personal responsibility. And accountability.
The one thing people of all races/creeds/colors in Asheboro are entitled to is fair play. I didn't get it. Equal opportunity means equal opportunity. And justice means justice - for everybody. That's not happening in Asheboro. Some people are more equal than others - and it's something that has not changed since I was a teenager.
Lopez is living the American dream, the possibilities of her future seemingly limited by nothing but a willingness to work for what she wants.
Regardless of her origins, I'm glad Brenda Lopez is living her dream. The system that failed me miserably . . . and continues to fail me (because Asheboro's "right people" can do no wrong) . . . has apparently worked very well for her. Brenda is young and has stars in her eyes and I sincerely wish her well.
But I herein offer our heroine of the moment fair warning - a warning she's old enough to hear and appreciate. My best advice to her, as a badly-burned homie to a young person growing up in this town, is to get out of Asheboro as soon as she has the chance. Get out and do not come back. Do not believe anything anyone tells you about your talents and ablilities and services being "valued" or appreciated. The people who have taken over this town will lie to your face - then shaft you as soon as it suits their selfish purposes. They have no honor.
Working hard and doing the right thing are not going to be any kind of defense if you don't tow the line for the powers-that-be . . .
. . . for you see, Asheboro, North Carolina EATS its young. And some people will never be the "right" people no matter how hard they try.
The anger and resentments bubbling just under the surface in Asheboro are not about race. They are about class. The people who run the place don't have any.
Getting back to the quote that birthed this post. Americans are Americans FIRST. If you come here or if you're born here, that's the FIRST thing you should get into your head. Honoring your own culture is fine as long as you respect and embrace/adopt/appreciate the one you coming into. Like Bill Cosby, I am sick, Sick, SICK of hearing terms like "African-Americans" or "Asian-Americans" or "Latino-Americans".
That brings us to the thought that derailed Mr. Womick's ode to political correctness: I wonder what people would have thought, if, when I graduated from medical school, I said, “I really just wanted to help people, to help kids like me, mostly focus on the WHITE PEOPLE.”
Would Mr. Womick's headline have been, "White Teen Living Her Dream"?
Hear the thud? The 800 pound gorilla in the corner just laid a 400 pound turd.
Political correctness smells, doesn't it?
3 comments:
As an Anglo-American, I am saddened to discover that the French Foreign Legion will not accomodate my native tongue, and will require that I learn to speak passable Francais. For that matter French society is usually hospitable provided that you learn to use their language. Where did I put that Belitz CD? Merde.
It sounds to me like Ms. Lopez did everything right. Good for her, and good for Asheboro.
The point kind of is, Arabella, SO DID I. Double and triple standards thrive in this mill town.
We see how Asheboro rewarded me for doing "everything right". Young Brenda Lopez would do well to heed the warning - offered from someone who's been there and done that.
And if she wants to get into dental school (which is harder to get into than medical school), she needs to at least rethink the way she states her goals.
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