Letters From the Issue of Thursday, June 7, 2007

Blaring cowardice: Payback? Interesting! Now a little truth comes out! Thank you for confirming my suspicions, but I did nothing to you or your people ("Jumping to Confusion," Ask a Mexican, Gustavo Arrellano, May 17).

Why don't you let the rest of us in on how you people think, or give us some lessons on how to be rude, inconsiderate and blameless all at once?!

You know, I used to blare my radio at full volume, too, when I was 16 and 17 years old! Time to grow up, don't you think? And by the way, coward, if you know the English translation for the Spanish words you used in your article, why not use them? Afraid? That's too bad!
Bill Hadeley, via the InternetRestless native: I have no problems with immigrants. This was native land before the white people came and took it away.

It's the white people who are the illegal immigrants. They took away our country.

To this day, we natives don't have many rights. We had been trading with the Mexicans before the white people came to our native country.

Freedom of speech? We still have that, at least. We can speak our own language, and white people can't tell us not to speak in our native tongue. They can't take that away from us. Remember this is our native country!

White people are here illegally and should go back to where they came from. Give the land back to the native people. White people stole our mother Earth.
Linda Rose, via the InternetNo civil rights for illegals: The basic bottom line here is that illegal immigrants, and I stress the word illegal, are not entitled to any rights in the United States. Period! They are not citizens, they have no civil rights here and they broke our laws by entering our country without going through the proper channels.

This country was built by immigrants who came here legally to begin a new life. This is America, and the language is English!

It's very disheartening to drive through communities and see strip malls with store signs posted entirely in Spanish and painted to look like something from south of the border. If you come here to live the American life, you don't need to make our communities look like the homeland that you decided to leave.

Why are people deciding to come here illegally? Are they trying to hide something? Many legal immigrants who founded this country had to wait endlessly to get here. But they did it, and so should those who now want to live the American life.
Name withheld by request