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Todd Hartley: I’m With Stupid

Todd Hartley
The Aspen Times
Aspen, CO, Colorado

Wow. I had an inkling things were bad here in the U.S. the past few years, but I guess I never really understood just how far we’d fallen. I mean, sure, I realized the economy was in tatters, our image in the eyes of the rest of the world was fairly negative and our popular music had gotten so unlistenable that even Kim Kardashian put out an album, but those seemed like minor problems. The latest news, however, makes it abundantly clear that we’ve reached a lower ebb than I would have thought possible.

In case you haven’t heard, a recent report from the Pew Hispanic Center claims that Mexican migration into the U.S. “has stopped – and may have reversed.” To put that in layman’s terms, what the report is saying is that things here in El Norte are so bad that Mexicans have given up on us and started going back home. There was a “South Park” episode in October that joked about just such a scenario, but I assumed that, being a cartoon, it was fictional. Little did I know it was actually a documentary.

I know a lot of you who live in places where white people still pick fruit, clean hotel rooms and cook meals might think this is a good thing, but I can assure you it’s not. As Alabama found out last year after it passed its tough new immigration law, if you have no immigrants to harvest tomatoes, they’ll rot on the vine because white people simply won’t do certain jobs.



This is not to say there are no positives to this news. I, for one, will be pleased if I no longer have to hear a voice saying, “For English, press 1,” every time I make a phone call. Beyond that, though, this isn’t the cause for celebration that rabid anti-immigration types would have you believe.

Let me illustrate this point with an anecdote from my own past: In my hometown, which is exceedingly white, there was one Mexican restaurant back in the ’80s, but since there were no Mexicans, everyone who worked there was Chinese. Thus, the food was unappetizing and overpriced, and the soft tacos looked suspiciously like moo shu pork.




It wasn’t until I got to Colorado that I learned Mexican food could be both delicious and cheap. Why? Because it was being prepared by actual Mexicans. Were they here illegally? Probably, but I didn’t care as long as my quesadillas were authentic and cost $2.50.

Now, with Mexicans fleeing the U.S. in droves and gringos trying to roll burritos, Taco Bell will become the new gold standard for Mexican cuisine – well, it will if Taco Bell’s management can find enough whiteys to staff its restaurants. Trust me – that’s far from a given, because in addition to not picking fruit, white folks also seem to have an aversion to working in fast-food joints.

You also can expect America to become a dirtier place as a result of reverse immigration – not that white people can’t clean houses, mind you. They can, although they generally don’t. White people just can’t clean houses belonging to someone other than themselves. Expect rich people, who are the least likely to clean up after themselves, to be buried in their own filth soon. They’ll also have trouble taking in their stunning views when their hedges all go untrimmed due to a lack of landscapers.

Ultimately, the result of Mexicans returning to Mexico will be a precipitous drop in the quality of Mexican food, a huge increase in the cost of fruit, houses and hotels going uncleaned, yards going unmowed and George Lopez losing his entire audience. That last part I can live with, but the rest of it is a little troubling.

Even more disturbing, though, is what this says about these United States of America: This used to be a place that people wanted to come to so badly that they were willing to shoehorn 40 or 50 of themselves into a Ford Festiva with racing stripes and a giant spoiler on the back just to get here. Now, America has become a veritable wasteland, a place so bleak that Mexicans would rather live in Juarez, where there’s a 100 percent chance they’ll be murdered by drug gangs in the next month.

So let’s right the ship, America. Let’s turn things around and make this an appealing place for Mexicans to sneak into again. I shudder to think of how much worse things will get if we don’t.