Sign up for 5280's weekly e-newsletters. Want the latest restaurant scoop? The latest happenings around town? Access to exclusive events and deals just for 5280 readers? Will Tom Tancredo do anything for a soundbite? Here’s his latest.
Tancredeo…pointed to Miami as an example of how ”the nature of America can be changed by uncontrolled immigration,” the story says ‘Look at what has happened to Miami,” the WorldNetDaily quotes Tancredo as saying in an interview. “It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you’re in the United States of America. You would certainly say you’re in a Third World country.”
One Florida legislator complained immediately:
The remarks drew an instant rebuke from Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who called Tancredo ”flat out wrong” and extended an invitation for him to come and judge the city for himself.
”I invite my friend, Tom, to visit beautiful Miami, my hometown, and experience firsthand our hospitality,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “Come on down, Tom, the water’s fine!”
Miami is an example of a true melting pot, a vibrant city with wide diversity.
Miami, Ros-Lehtinen said, is a “world class city where diversity is celebrated. Here people have the opportunity to meet folks from across the globe and honor different cultures. Miami-Dade County is home to many outstanding universities, is headquarters to international businesses and has a vibrant economy.”
I wonder how much time Tancredo actually has spent in Miami. His speech was given from the toney compound at the Breakers, in Palm Beach. Once again, in my opinion, he views the world though a cracked lens.
Posted 11/28/2006 at 2:20 pm by Jeralyn Merritt
Politics :: Permalink :: Comments (9)
I have to agree with Tom. And I speak first hand. My family migrated to south florida in 1953 and so loved it for so many years. By the time I was only a teenager I felt extremely displaced. If you were not biligual you had a tough time finding employment and that started when I was only 14!. It is not the south Florida of my early and fond memories. And it has not been for many years. I could not wait to leave when I was 18. I lived in Colorado for 10 years and love it there, but I understand the necessity for the work force but also the displacement of those of us who are only Enlgish speaking!!! Miami might be beautiful but I would not live there if you gave me a home. I am in Central Florida part time and won’t go any further south!
Tancredo apparently views the world through a lens that not only is cracked, but also racist. His spokesman/lackey Carlos Espinosa told the Denver Post that Tancredo’s “Third World” remarks were directed specifically at Miami’s Haitian sections, which are predominantly black. So, I guess the issues about language, etc., don’t apply if you’re in Little Havana or South Beach; only if you’re in Little Haiti.
[...] nning he needs to tone down some of the bizarre rhetoric. Tancredo took heat yesterday for calling Miami a third-world country, and while it certainly fits in with his anti-immigration obsession, it only [...]
Well said Tom !!! You are so right with your comments on Miami. I am one of the few Americans left in this ALL hispanic city. I was also raised here in the early 60s and it is not the beautiful city it once was. An American cannot get a job here unless they speak spanish. That’s discrimination in my book! The latins claim to love the USA (Miami) but refuse to speak english. The politicans (all latins) have made it easy for ALL latins to leave here because they do not have to learn spanish. I was in a local K-Mart in Cutler Bay and the announcements were said in spanish and never in english. I have not been back since. The sad thing is, it’s too late to do anything. They have taken over and they can have this place because we are building a cabin in the hills of Tennessee and we are out of here!!! Yee-haw!
If you need a place to stay where people will understand you, come stay with us!!!
Just a small slice of the pie living in Miami……Victoria
I’m with Tom on this. Having grown up in South Florida and spent the first 20 years of my professional career there, I gradually was growing more and more each day to loathe the onerous cultural change being imposed upon me and my family by bad government policy and decisions.
I’ve seen the headless livestock, remnants of some bizarre religious rituals, floating in the Miami River. I’ve seen the wretched poverty and winced at the culturally-endemic corruption and La Mordida. I’ve experienced first-hand the disdain that many from the various balkanized enclaves that infest the region hold for their neighbors from other cultures, and, particularly for those whose American roots are firmly established across generations.
So, with heavy hearts my family picked up and fled in 2003. And we were among the last of our long-time friends who, feeling unwelcome in their own homes, pulled up stakes just to get away from the trappings of the third world that encroached farther up the peninsula every day.
It’s a truly sad state of affairs when our Federal Government stacks the deck against American citizens by giving shelter from assimilation to cultures that show no appreciation to those who so graciously became their hosts when they needed us. There’s an old joke about digging a trench and setting the southern half of the state adrift to stem the spread of the cultural disease. If they ever get serious about it, I’ll gladly wield a shovel in the effort.
What is your definition of a melting pot? I have lived in NJ and the Italians have kept their language and culture, and it is the same story with the Greeks, Scotish, and Polish comunities located in East Rutherford and other suburbs. Each group will keep the rest from taking jobs from their ethnic groups. Just walk into a Mc Donals and you will notice that the manager will employ those similar to him, may it be short, tall, white, or pink. All working in the restaurant will have similar looks. So what if some Cubans decided to come to MIami and make this a better place to live. A place they can call home, some ignorants dont realize that we also have Jewish comunities, hatians, red necks, colombians we have a GReAT MELTING POT DOWN HERE if you dont like diversity go Into a hole.
Finally, Republicans don’t need the stigma of being racist, they are already on the wrong side of the fence, together with all those Democrats up north that hate anything hispanic looking.
God Bless America and Diversity!!!
This is the greatest TRI County area in America. DADE (Miami), BROWARD (Fort Lauderdale), and PALM BEACH(West Palm Beach) is Vibrant. There is a pulse here, you can feel it when you get off the plane. Dont believe the hype of bad press. Alot of people will not leave because it is so nice here. The real problem is corporate. The corporations are taking advantage of the population here. They pay cheap wages and they get away with it. People here work hard. 2 and 3 jobs to make it.
I have been to South Florida many times. And I have to say that East Tennessee and Western North Carolina are so much better because we have much less crime, a lot more mountains, much less heat and humidity, no hurricanes and much less corruption. Plus it’s much cheaper so there’s not as much of the sorry “2 or 3 jobs just to barely make it” scenario that south FL has. The East TN/West NC area is hands down many times better than South Florida.
All these comments have truth in them-I live here, I know. Yes it is a vibrant city full of excitement and diversity-but yes, the immigrants are fallible human beings and bring a lot of corruption and wrong thinking. The immigration should be halted to allow the Region time to assimilate.