Qué?

Last week I saw an interesting news piece on CNN about how undocumented students, here in Texas, not only qualify for financial aid, but also get to pay in-state tuition. What's that about? I'm sorry if I come off sounding like some new-age version of Archie Bunker, but I think that is total bullshit. Yeah, America is a melting pot and yada yada yada, but why is it that everyone comes here, and runs straight for the handouts yet aren't willing to learn the goddamn language? I mean, for God's sake, I had to take a foreign language in high school and college. WTF?

I dunno how it is where you live, but here in Texas there are soooo many people living here who don't even speak English, much less make an effort to learn it. Most recent encounter: Yesterday I was at the grocery store and could not find the soup (I was in a store whose layout I am not that familiar with). I looked around for an employee to point me in the right direction. Sounds simple, right? I ask one of the guys stocking which aisle the soup is on. He acts like I just asked him to recite the Pythagoras Theorem.

Him: "Uhhh...what does it like?"
Me: "What? The soup. Can you tell me what aisle it's on?
Him: "What is it like?"
Me: "You know, soup. Um, like Chicken Noodle or Tomato... (at this point I'm miming eating soup with a fuckin' spoon, like some kind of retard)
Him: *still as confused as when I asked him the first time*
Me: "Nevermind. Thanks anyway." *SIGH*

I don't mean to sound like a turd, but I've just grown weary of the whole vicious cycle. From when I worked retail to seeing on the news how taxpayers here are paying for not one but TWO teachers for grade schools: One to teach the kids who speak English and one to teach the kids who don't speak English. WTF? I just don't understand it that's all. I can't fathom going to live somewhere and expect to be taken seriously and NOT learn the language. That'd be like me moving to France and then acting all frustrated when people don't understand what-the-fuck I'm saying and vice versa. And if all else failed the least I could do would be to have a French/English translation book with me. Aaarrggh! Am I asking too much to expect the people who live here (not to mention partake of the governmental benefits), speak English? When does it become "enough?" This is what I pay taxes for? Better yet, why am I paying taxes for school-age children I don't even have? Let the parents do that shit. (But then that's a whole 'nother rant...oy vey)

Anyway, here's the related article:

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Houston Has Most Undocumented College Students

KHOU-TV — Wendy Morfin is not a U.S. citizen, but she graduated from a Houston high school and now attends the University of Houston with financial aid. “I was in the top 10 percent,” Morfin said. “I had like a 3.7 GPA.”

She was the perfect candidate to go on to college, but there was a problem. “They were like, yeah, you have to go. But I’m like how? I don’t have money, I don’t have papers,” Morfin said.

Morfin is not a U.S. citizen but nonetheless graduated from a high school in Texas, at the top of her class. Does she deserve to go to college like any other Texan?

“I’ve had cases of students coming up to me and saying, ‘my counselor told me since I’m undocumented, I don’t even have a right to ask for college,’” said University of Houston recruiter Rebeca Trevino.

“We do have some kids who believe they don’t have the right to go to college … but by law they do,” Trevino said.

And they get financial aid.

Since 2001, Texas became the first state by law to allow undocumented students into public colleges at the subsidized in-state tuition rate and make them eligible for financial aid, as long as they have lived in the state for three years and graduated from high school. Houston now leads the state with upwards of 600 such undocumented students going to public colleges.

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to find critics of the law. They say it does nothing more than encourage illegal immigration and that it gives unfair advantage to immigrant students over those who are here legally. “Its costing the people who live here,” said Cathie Adams. Adams is with the conservative group Texas Eagle Forum. “There is something very broken about the system, and I think we should start looking in our backyard, taking care of our own before we start giving away the farm to those who are not even here legally,” Adams said.

They said it’s unfair for undocumented students to pay the lower in-state tuition while a legal resident from say, Louisiana, would pay the higher out-of-state rate to go to college in Texas. They want the law repealed and funding cut to students like Morfin who, it turns out, enrolled at UH with a full scholarship. She now volunteers for college fairs.

“We’re still residents, we live here, we pay taxes,” Morfin said. “I mean, we deserve the opportunity to study.” Morfin is a mathematics major, and when she graduates, wants to return to school to teach.

Some said the effect of undocumented students is being overstated. In all Texas public colleges, there are about 4,000 such students out of a total enrollment of more than 1 million.

File under: Annoyed