[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 21, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H1430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1010
                         BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Last Thursday, a different kind of March madness took 
place in the NCAA basketball tournament. In a game between Kansas State 
and Mississippi State, Angel Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican point guard for 
Kansas State, was met with taunts from Mississippi State students while 
he was getting ready to shoot a free throw. The taunt: ``Where's your 
green card?''
  That wasn't the only March madness. Earlier this month in San 
Antonio, Texas, a white high school in San Antonio chanted during the 
regional basketball championship trophy presentation. Their chant: 
``USA, USA, USA.'' Why did they chant USA? Because their team had 
defeated San Antonio's Thomas Edison High School, a team of mostly 
Latino players.
  One U.S. citizen asked to produce his green card, one entire team of 
Americans taunted as if they were foreigners.
  These young people, subjected to hatred and bigotry, handled it well.
  Angel Rodriguez ignored the taunts and played a great game. If he 
hadn't been busy helping Kansas State win the game, he might have 
mentioned to everybody that he was from Miami or that all Puerto Ricans 
are citizens of the United States.
  I'm impressed that the kids from Thomas Edison High School kept their 
cool. They deserve our praise not only for being good basketball 
players, but just for being great kids.
  Mississippi State and Alamo Heights have apologized for the taunts. 
That's an important step in the right direction. That's not the issue. 
The issue is why people think it's okay to treat Latinos as if they are 
second-rate Americans, why so many people think being Latino means 
being a suspect in our own country, why they look at a young man named 
Rodriguez and think he doesn't belong in this country. It's because 
misguided kids taunting Latinos is not really the disease. It's the 
symptom.
  The heart of the sickness is more troubling. The truth is, when it 
comes to Latinos and immigrants, far too many so-called leaders in our 
Nation are starting the taunts.
  On the campaign trail and on talk radio and on TV, and even here in 
this Chamber, there are leaders that act like the biggest bullies in 
the schoolyard. If elected officials have no boundaries when it comes 
to scapegoating and demonizing immigrants and Latinos, then why should 
young people at a basketball game know any better? Why does an 
American, a Puerto Rican citizen basketball player, get taunted about a 
green card?
  It's easier to understand when you hear the frontrunner for the 
Republican nomination of President promoting a national immigration 
policy that makes all Latinos look like suspects and all immigrants 
look like criminals.
  Mitt Romney has said that Arizona's anti-immigrant law--a law that 
essentially demands racial profiling of anyone who looks like they 
might be undocumented--is a model for our Nation. But that's not all 
Mitt Romney has said to American Latinos. He has said all 11 million 
immigrants, most of them Latinos, should self-deport, even if they've 
lived here since they were children and have American citizen families.
  Mitt Romney has even gone as far to attack the first Latino Supreme 
Court justice. He believes that Justice Sotomayor is unqualified to 
serve on the Supreme Court. He's proud of the support of anti-immigrant 
extremists, including the author of Arizona's anti-immigrant law. He 
has attacked the DREAM Act, a perfectly reasonable bill. And Mitt 
Romney is hardly a lone voice. It is sad.
  One Member of this House said he would be for any measure to stop 
illegal immigrants ``short of shooting them.'' Even hanging them? 
gassing them? One other colleague of ours here called undocumented 
immigration a slow-rolling, slow-motion terrorist attack on the United 
States.
  Pat Buchanan wrote a book entitled ``State of Emergency: The Third 
World Invasion and Conquest of America.'' Folks like Buchanan and 
Limbaugh regularly use words like ``hordes'' and ``swarms'' to describe 
immigrants.
  Maybe Mitt Romney thinks he's just saying what he needs to say to get 
the Republican nomination, and maybe some elected officials think their 
extreme rhetoric doesn't really carry outside the Halls of Congress. 
But America knows better. So does a group of Kansas State basketball 
players and a group of good kids from San Antonio, Texas. They know 
that words matter very much.
  Here's my advice to the Romneys and the Buchanans of the world and a 
few of my colleagues here in the House: Instead of bullies, why don't 
you be leaders? And why don't you try some words that bring people 
together instead of insults that tear our Nation apart.

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