Enriched by immigration on Indigenous Peoples’ Day

by philg

Native Americans tried and failed to defend their borders back in the 15th and 16th centuries. The result has been a fall from 100% of the population to about 1% (enrolled members of various tribes; the number grows to between 2% and 3% if we count Elizabeth Warren-style self-identification as Native American). The drop in percentage from 100% down to 1% certainly cannot be characterized as a “replacement” and, thus, for those who follow Science it must be an enrichment.

Let’s see how immigrants have enriched Native Americans on Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

In one part of Florida today, a high-skill immigrant launched a spacecraft to Jupiter (not Jupiter, Florida!):

For the Science-minded Native American, perhaps this can be viewed as compensation for the loss of sovereignty.

In our part of Florida, an immigrant attempted to deliver Uber Eats to my mom’s senior fortress, a 150-unit building whose front door is marked by a massive fountain, big American flag on a 40′ poll (Ta-Nehisi Coates won’t want to move in!), and circular driveway. The Uber driver was unable to speak English and I was unable to speak Spanish. The map showed that he got pretty close to the building, but never went into the main driveway or parking lot. He eventually dumped the bag on the curb and drove away after sending the following photo:

Because our Spanish-only speaker didn’t include any building in the background, this could easily be in Miami, for example. We walked all around the building and never did find it. “Jayson” is now available to deliver food to any Native American in Palm Beach County (0.1% of the total population according to Google’s giant AI brain and 0.6% of the population if you look at census.gov with your own feeble mind; the page does have a 0.1% figure, but that’s for “Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone”).

Below, a member of the credentialed elite at the New York Times reminds JD Vance that only migrants such as Jayson can read blueprints, juggle Makita, and build us the houses that we desperately need in order to shelter… the next crop of 30 million undocumented migrants (2016 numbers from Yale). I would love to see the house that someone at Jayson’s skill level builds!

15 thoughts on “Enriched by immigration on Indigenous Peoples’ Day”

    • JT: That’s a great idea! But, actually, why wasn’t the Uber app doing that automatically? If the driver registers as being unable to read English shouldn’t the Uber app have translated the default delivery instructions and then my later chat messages?

    • Anon: I was using the text messaging system inside the Uber app. I don’t think that there is a way to reach an Uber driver with standard SMS.

  2. You use Native Americans as synonymous with Indigenous Peoples, but if that were true, then why isn’t it Native Americans Day?
    Some of us consider ourselves Native Americans if we were native-born in America.

  3. Today my soggy carpet pad was finally properly replaced, and the rest of the job completed, by a Venezuelan former software engineer, police officer (in Peru) and now carpet layer, who lives with his wife in Aurora, CO. I’ve been dealing with this wet-carpet issue, which was originally caused by a leaking pipe on the other side of my living area, for over a week. Last Monday, the native English-speaking, former Marine, American-citizen maintenance worker at my apartment complex, did nothing but leave me a faulty air-blowing machine, with grandiose promises of taking care of all of it the following day. Three days later, after not seeing said maintenance worker again, I had to report the problem a second time. That day, two Salvadoran workers showed up, cut out the soaked rug pad and left a working water extractor machine to expedite the job over the weekend. It did indeed dry the carpet. This morning, my new Venezuelan friend (I encouraged him and his wife to look into living in the town where I live–I hope they do!) arrived with another native English-speaking, American- citizen, maintenance worker from my apartment complex. This English speaker informed me that the previous, rooting-tooting (his own horn) former Marine had quit his job last week (leaving me with my wet-carpet problem unsolved and unreported). Today, thanks mostly to the Salvadorans and the Venezuelan, my problem has finally been fully taken care of. I partly credit the second, English-speaking-of-European-descent maintenance worker, but the harder work was done efficiently and effectively by the three, limited-English-Speaking immigrants of Latin American descent. So, 3 to 0 (the two English-speaking maintenance workers cancel each other out, in my book: one ok, one terrible) in favor of Spanish-speaking immigrants! I consider their flexibility and willingness to do just about anything a type of skill in itself. The Venezuelan, with whom I spoke Spanish, told me that he and his wife don’t live in subsidized housing in Aurora because those places have a lot of drug addicts and seemingly mentally ill people in them. I wonder what language the latter groups speak, and what their document and skill status is? I think I have a fairly accurate idea about that. Everyone should have a roof over their heads, running water, electricity and security. Some definitely work harder for it than others, though.

    • Jennifer: It sounds as though Denver and all of Colorado have been enriched by migrants. That leaves us with one question, though: Why does Denver spend tax dollars on sending valuable migrants out of Denver/Colorado? https://apnews.com/article/denver-migrants-bus-tickets-border-plane-charters-c4584cc4f6eb848aaa939ac962582922 says “Denver alone has spent at least $4.3 million in city funds to send migrants to other U.S. cities, freeing up shelter beds for new arrivals while adding to the numbers in other Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and New York that are struggling to house asylum-seekers, mostly from Venezuela.”

      Shouldn’t Denver be eager to pay to bring migrants in, not pay to send migrants out?

      Colorado spends money trying to get tourists to come to Colorado. https://www.colorado.com/ is an example of their work. Why doesn’t the state have offices in northern Mexico and southern Texas offering migrants assistance for reaching Colorado?

  4. Last month I had the entire sewer line in my 70 y/o FL home “re-lined” with a “cured in place” PVC-type material. Fifty feet of sewer line re-lined for $6000; a two-day job done by two non-English speaking immigrant Hispanics from Ecuador. They did an excellent job at $4000 less than two other estimates! And a reputable company; excellent customer service (customer service people were Puerto Rican females); and a lifetime warranty. Before and after video of the inside of the entire sewer line is amazing.

    • DP: Congrats on having a house that has held up for 70 years to the heat, humidity, and hurricanes!

      I think both your comment and Jennifer’s are examples of selection bias. If you look only at immigrants who are working in construction you find that 100 percent of immigrants are in construction. If you widen the view to immigrants who showed up at age 70 because a child who received citizenship got them an automatic green card we would then see immigrants who aren’t in the labor force at all, much less in construction. (The 70-year-old with a green card is entitled to means-tested taxpayer-funded housing, Medicaid, SNAP/EBT, Obamaphone, etc. because none of these are considered “welfare”.) Same deal if we look at a mother who shows up with a 3-month-old, a 2-year-old, and a 4-year-old. That’s three immigrants, all of whom will have a taxpayer-funded lifestyle and none of whom will be working in construction.

  5. ^ I’m not a supporter of immigration of any kind (except for, perhaps, eastern European female models) and believe we need an extended immigration pause.

  6. Almost sounded like Greenspun said something negative about Fl*rida. Never had the means to pay for food delivery or knew why someone would want soggy old food.

    • lion: I’m not a big fan of delivered restaurant food, but my mother is 90 years old and getting to the restaurant and back can be a challenge for her.

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