Accusations won't intimidate efforts

I'm writing in response to a recent letter from immigration attorney Shirley Sadjadi.

She continues to chastise those of us who are resisting the influx of illegal immigrants into our communities.

Her insistence that racism is at the root of our anger is a tired old argument.

This tactic is used as a last resort when her side cannot convince our side to ignore the law and allow uneducated and unskilled workers to pour into this country with impunity.

The great American culture is shared by people of all backgrounds and we have historically sought to protect it from foreign invasion.

When immigrants were flooding into the United States around the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. government protected our culture and economy by placing limits on the number of people who could come here from Europe.

You see, European immigrants were segregating themselves by clustering in big city neighborhoods while refusing to learn our language and customs.

Sound familiar?

It was the lack of a willingness on the part of these newcomers to assimilate, not racism, that caused America to stem the tide that occurred in the early part of the last century.

Since the 1960s, immigration numbers have been swelling again to unmanageable proportions.

A nation cannot sustain the amount of immigration we are seeing today without losing something in the process.

In our case, it is economic prosperity and culture.

Our government is unwilling this time to protect us from out-of-control immigration.

As a result, concerned Americans are becoming increasingly more vocal.

This unified American voice irritates immigration attorneys who have been raking in the big bucks that come along with assigning U.S. passports to aliens who are not yet emotionally invested enough in our culture to become true "Americans."

Other groups, who identify themselves along racial and ethnic lines, also stand to make a killing financially and politically by the division that uncontrolled immigration is creating in our country.

Sorry, Shirley, but there are still a great number of us out here who do not intend to allow immigrants to flood into this country before they are willing to stand at attention before our flag and pledge allegiance to the United States of America -- in English.

Sherman Reinhardt

Elgin