So it looks like the May 1st immigrant boycott is on, and has drawn support from a widely diverse sector of the American public. Not just from Latinos of both documented and undocumented status, but from others as well, notably from Islamic, Jewish, and Christian sources, in addition to some pundits and various sections of the legal community, specifically civil rights advocates.
As the old saying goes, two could play that game, unfortunately they probably won’t. The American public,including the conservatives, have been living in an unreal fantasy land for decades now. Very few
Yet, ironically, it wouldn’t really be that hard. What would happen, for example, if Americans were to boycott all employers who made it a practice to hire illegal aliens? I feel pretty confident this issue would soon pale into relative insignificance. How hard could it be to boycott products produced by these people? Okay, so you might have to cut back on some purchases, man of which are unnecessary to start out with, if not outright luxuries.
Even purcases of fruits and vegetables might be reduced, say cut in half. Of course, chances are you would have to maintain that level once prices rose, but on the other hand, maybe this would be a temporary result. If farm subsidies were given to farmrs who actually produce, based on their rate of production, and farmers were given sufficient tax credits, there might be no need for any price increases, but that is another story.
The point is, it is disingenous for immigration advocates to suggest that people like the Minutemen- and others who are oppossed to the swarms of undocumented Mexican workers who now number an estimated twelve million- are xenophobic bigots. While that might be true in individual cases, this is not always the case. In most instances, Anglos simply want immigration to be limited to reasonable levels, immigration laws enforced and respected, and the rights of American workers, including legal immigrants, to be upheld, which would include the payment of a fair wage and benefits.
And so I would suggest that, until this transpires, an effective counter measure to the currently proposed boycott by immigrant workers would be a similar boycott by American citizens against any and all products produced by companies that insist on hiring illegal immigrants. Sure, it would cause some pain, some discomfort, but nothing worthwhile is easy.
