I am America (and so can you!) (114 page)

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How many racial slurs can you find in the grid above?

?

acist

ou see some, r

? Do y

y

. Wh

o

er

er: Z

w

Ans

CHAPTER POSTSCRIPT

When I say I don’t see race, I mean I don’t see Black people.

But I can spot a Mexican a hundred paces.

Read on!

179

fig 15.
S T E P H E N C O L B E R T

C H A P T E R 1 3

“You don’t have to live like a refugee.”

–Tom Petty, who doesn’t because he’s an American

WE ARE BEING COLONIZED BY AN

INVADING FORCE! DID YOU KNOW

A L E R T !
THAT THERE ARE MORE ILLEGAL

MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA

TODAY THAN THERE WERE AMERICAN TROOPS IN

OCCUPIED GERMANY AFTER WORLD WAR II? UNLIKE MOST

OF MY FACTS, I CAN BACK THAT ONE UP WITH REALITY.

Experts say there are 12 to 14 million illegal immigrants in the United States. To put that into perspective, if you took all the foreigners who have no business living in America and put them into Dodge Caravans (remember, those seat six) and drove them out of the country taking up all three lanes of a highway, the line of minivans would stretch for I don’t
care
how long, because the more important question is: How can we get them into those vans?

GOOD NEWS: You won’t need any documentation to get into my opinions on immigration, because through the very act of buying this book your identity has been electronically entered into a secret government registry.
We still need a urine

sample, however.

DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH ILLEGALS?

I’ll say!

We have a problem

with illegals.

181

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

Now a lot of people, including my spellcheck, have a problem with the term

“illegals.” They say it’s not a word, and even if it were it would be insensitive to the feelings of the people who are breaking our nation’s laws. Fine. Let’s call them “immorals” because what could be more immoral than a Guatemalan crossing into this country to pick our American fruit just because her kids are poor?

I can hear the cries now: “How can you suggest that we slam the door?!

America is a nation of immigrants!! We all have ancestors who left their crowded, impoverished homelands behind for America!!!! Even Andrew

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carnegie was an immigrant!!!!!!!!”

!!!!!!!!

First of all, cool it with the exclamation marks.1 The cost of this ink comes out of my advance. Second, it’s interesting you should bring up Andrew Carnegie—one of our nation’s most esteemed robber barons. Yes, he was born in Scotland. So what makes him different from the type of “immorals”

we’re experiencing today?

Uncover your ears and listen.

Once upon a Time, there was the
right
kind of foreigner. Yes, Virginia, there is a right kind of foreigner. The kind who comes to America, loses his brogue and creates U.S. Steel. When he dies, he leaves the legacy of breaking the Homestead Strike of 1892, paving the road for non-union workers everywhere! If he admits to any foreign ties, it’s to having a hunting estate at Skilbo Castle in Scotland. And that’s it. No parades. No crazy hat dances. His only clubs are ones like “The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club” whose manmade, trout-stuffed lake burst through its dam leaving 2,200

dead in one of the greatest floods in American history, the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Sad event, great social club. Over 60 millionaires, and that was back
I wonder what they

when trolley rides cost a penny.

cost today.

GUT SPEAKING: Of course, we can’t all be Andrew Carnegies, but we can honor the struggles and ambitions of our immigrant ancestors by doing as they did: leaving the past behind for the sake of a brighter future.
182
1
And don’t you
dare
put any of them upside-down and in front of sentences.

MY STRUGGLE
: I am a member of a mixed-race marriage. While I am the proud product of hardy Irish Catholic stock, my wife is Scots Presbyterian. In the Old Country, our love could never have been. In fact, a glance at my wife’s family records shows that her ancestors moved onto the very land my family was forced to abandon when that Roundhead son-of-a-bitch Oliver Cromwell
More like Crom-bad
forced the Irish west of the river Shannon to farm rocks. But when the Colbert clan set sail for America, they harbored two shining hopes: that they could survive a three-month steerage passage on coal-and-onion-peel soup; and that one day their children could forget the enmity of the past and live a life of freedom. I’ve done them one better. Seven generations on, I’ve “planted my Irish flag” on the very family that stole our land.

See, the great thing about my marriage is that it symbolizes the hope America once offered its immigrants. Here, immigrants received a gift never given before in world history: They could leave the past behind. (Another less exciting gift was cholera.) How lucky they were to get to erase all remnants of their previous lives, languages and cultures and go about the business of
Arrivederci,

“Arrivederci”

becoming an American Christian.

So let’s take that beautiful idea to its logical conclusion and not only leave the past behind but deny the past ever happened.2 Like this:

America is not a land of immigrants.

There. Was that so hard to say? It makes sense if you think about it. It
feels
like we’ve been here forever, doesn’t it? Let’s just assume we have been. How does it taste to smash the shackles of our past? It tastes like
freedom
.
And freedom doesn’t

need chipotle sauce

Now that we’ve liberated ourselves from the old factual myth of our immigrant history, we can focus on the future. And let me tell you, there are dark times ahead, because for the first time in our new history we are being swarmed by legions of
immigrants
.

2
What Alamo?

183

I A M A M E R I C A ( A N D S O C A N Y O U ! )

And folks, it’s time to fight back.

Also know

We all know the government has refused to take action to end the problem. It’s
government faked

“Moon landing”

up to us.

Here are three things we can do to secure the borders
today
. 1

Heavily arm our volunteer militias. The failure of leadership in Washington has given rise to a new border patrol of selfless patriots
The ponchos are

called the Minutemen. I have hung out with these guys. Let me

coming! The ponchos

are coming!

assure you they take their duties deadly seriously. Let me also assure you that night-vision goggles are cool. Get a pair.3

2

Take a lesson from the Chinese. We need to build a 2000-mile

long wall along our southern border. This will have two benefits. First of all, when I’m worried I like to stay busy. Building a giant wall is a great way to keep the nation’s mind off how many immigrants enter the country through airports. Second, this wall might actually keep people out. If it’s built
right
, not like that picket fence the Russians threw up across Berlin. We don’t want these Mexican

Jumping Beans hopping over whenever they feel like it. Make it
tall
. I mean tall enough that if you bake at the top of it, you’d need to use the high-altitude instructions.4 I’m talking about something that can
A lesson for us all

be seen from space, with double-wall construction, machine-gun

nests and a flaming moat loaded with fireproof crocodiles.

3

You want to end the swarm, take away the honey pot.

Everybody says immigrants just do the jobs Americans don’t want to do, but let’s test that theory. They pick our fruits and vegetables. Who wouldn’t want to have a job that got them out in the fresh

air more often? Hell, I pay twenty bucks a pop for the privilege of picking apples and pumpkins every October. And the hay ride is

extra!

184
3
SkyMall® has some great deals.

4
And you’d better be baking an apple pie.