Click HERE ( scroll down to bottom of piece) to see the comments. I think this may have set a record for the number of comments posted on any MDJ column I can remember.

Marietta Daily Journal

Sylvia Montoya: Trip home highlights changes brought by illegal immigration
Published: 06/11/2008

Two weekends ago I was excited about attending my nephew’s high school graduation in my hometown of El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Juarez, Mexico.

Things have changed a lot.

On my way to my sister’s house from the airport, my nephew and I talked about his years at Cathedral High School. Isaac had an impressive athletic record, winning several cross-country awards in local, regional and state competitions. However, during his senior year he had lost interest in track and in his academic career. He cited the school’s increased leniency in accepting students from across the border. Standards had eroded, the entire student body was penalized due to discipline issues and it was no longer the educational haven he had entered as a freshman. The decision to allow students from Juarez had changed the standards and academic pride of the school, explained my nephew sadly.

But he would graduate and would no longer have to face the daily issues of arrogance and entitlement exhibited by students from Mexico.

Preparing for the graduation ceremony and dinner, my sister and I had to do some shopping. Our first stop was the new outlet mall recently built on the west side of El Paso. In our shopping, it was clear that the customer sales reps preferred to provide assistance in Spanish. From Sam’s Club to Dillards to IHOP, Spanish signage was prominent and Spanish was spoken by workers and customers. I was in another country.

English is no longer the primary spoken or preferred language in El Paso, Texas.

At the graduation ceremony for the class of 2008, one of the opening announcements was that specific parts of the ceremony would be in Spanish only.

The Boy Scouts paraded in with the flag. Guests were asked to stand. My family and I placed our hands over our heart to recite the Pledge to the Flag, as we had done so many times during our school years. However, many people in front and all around us refused to stand and continued to talk and conducted themselves with complete disrespect for the flag and the Pledge that only American citizens understand and appreciate. It was then that I understood my nephew’s sadness regarding the erosion of his rights as a citizen when the overwhelming majority of his classmates were not U.S. citizens.

Heavy media coverage of vicious slayings in Juarez filled news reports in the two days leading up to my nephew’s graduation. At least 25 people had been found dead during the previous weekend. Residents on both sides of the border were asked to stay at home. More than 33 people had been killed the previous week by organized criminal elements linked to warring drug cartels in Juarez. There are now approximately 2,500 soldiers attempting to control violence in Juarez.

We were asked not to cross the border. We were not able to attend my nephew’s graduation dinner, traditionally held at a well-known restaurant in Juarez, due to the violence.

My nephew had been cheated out of one of life’s most memorable rights of passage. He was relieved as the evening came to a close. He would no longer have to experience the lack of respect for long-standing American educational practices and the total disrespect for our patriotic traditions.

As I flew back to Georgia I could not help thinking that El Paso was very different 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to compare then and now. I could see up close what happens to an American city with an open border and what the new posture of disregard and disrespect will spawn throughout our communities and schools.

I had seen what happens when little is being done to preserve basic American traditions, when we turn the other way and allow our rights to be trampled for the sake of “cheap” labor and the “rights” of immigrants over traditional American values. It is clear to me now these “immigrants” are here to take, but give nothing back to the American way of life.

Silvia Montoya operates a retail mail/shipping store with her husband in Marietta.