by John A. Kwitkoski

A few days ago, Michele Bachmann (Idiot-Minn.), enlightened us all with her views on immigration. “The social cost will be profound on the U.S. taxpayer — millions of unskilled, illiterate, foreign nationals coming into the United States who can’t speak the English language.”

Thank you, Michele. You just insulted my maternal grandparents. They came here as Polish immigrants, worked hard all of their lives, saved their money, purchased and owned a home, raised seven children, one of whom died defending this nation in World War II, paid taxes and voted, and left this earth speaking little if any English.

Were they “illiterate”? In the English language probably. But they could speak, read and write their native language very well. And they spoke easily with all of their children — in Polish. My grandfather, lean and wiry, woke up every day with a dozen things to do and my grandmother, round and warm, was the queen of their kitchen and sweetness itself.

I cannot express adequately my disappointment to know that someone as profoundly ignorant of American history as you could ever have been a member of Congress.

Did you know the western end of the first intercontinental railway in the U.S. was built by gangs of Chinese immigrants, many of whom could not speak English? Did you know that non-English speaking immigrants from Poland, Italy, France, Germany and other European countries built a host of public and private infrastructure that catapulted this nation to financial primacy in the world?

If you could find the time and summon the nerve, you would discover tens of thousands of names of “foreign nationals” are on the U.S. military death lists from World War II. They gave their lives to protect a country they had come to love. And unless you can claim Native American ancestry, your family were “foreign nationals” at one time and might not have been well-versed in English as well!

Try as you might to retreat from your latest brain-vomit, we both know this was veiled propaganda against Latinos. Well just to update you, I visit a nearby shopping center from time to time. In it there is a shop front that offers English classes to Latinos once or twice a week. On those nights the parking lot in front is full up. A strange thing for those “unskilled, illiterate” people to be doing, don’t you think?

Oh, and by the way, the next time you shop for vegetables at the market, you might remember that those “foreign nationals” were probably the ones who picked them. And cleaned your hotel room. In fact, one of them is Cesar Millan who has become quite successful teaching Americans about their dogs. Ever hear of the “Dog Whisperer”? You really do have to get your head out of your butt more often.

I don’t like you, Michele. In fact, I could safely say it has blossomed to full-blown hate. Pray to whatever God you know that our paths never cross because if they do I will bitch-slap you so hard it will take a month of Sundays for you to find your face. I now know that the only real solution to immigration in this country is to keep them and deport people like you.