Pacione-Zayas and Others Dehumanize Migrants
By Steven Larsen, one of our reporters from Evanston
In a recent interview, Cristina Pacione-Zayas was quoted as saying that the migrants must be pretty resilient—since they had crossed six countries to get here.
Pacione-Zayas actually said this.
On a different note, Chicagoans have been asked to respect her.
So it falls upon the migrants to find their inner strength, super-human power, and incredible resolve as they learn to survive in a cut-throat and corrupt city like Chicago. First they were welcomed, then they were criminalized, now they are being counseled and pointed in the direction of resources to fight for a way to get indoors before another winter approaches.
In a city that has an absolutely terrible track record of housing its homeless, the migrants must use their inner resilience.
As Pacione-Zayas uses her position to show that Chicago is in the right and the governor of Texas is in the wrong, she shows her disgust of him placing migrants onto busses. Chicago is concerned about the migrants, darn it, and she reminds everyone that “we” (presumably meaning the mayor) is firmly on track to do just “what we said we would do…” and that is to assist the migrants when other do not. In fact, Chicago will continue to “ help people get onto a path of self-sufficiency, self-determination, and self-resilience” (Back From Southern Border in Texas, Chicago Delegation Members Reflect on What They Saw | Latino Voices | Chicago News | WTTW).
We could come up with a name for this important necessary attribute for migrants to magically become successful for getting jobs, money, leases, and an apartment.
We could call it the Pacione-Zayas Resiliency Factor or the PZFP for short. Good old Chicago.
What about in New York City? Are there answers to the migrant “crisis” there? This brings us to the second public figure whose random and insulting comments are in fact noticed by taxpayers and by the journalists who serve them.
Mayor Adams of NYC has stated that the city can fill its shortage of lifeguards by using the migrants—them being “excellent swimmers” (NYC Mayor Thinks Migrants Can Fill City's Lifeguard Shortage | HuffPost Latest News). The random comment has gotten him in hot water (excuse the random pun) and everybody is talking about how asinine he was to say this. It is dehumanizing. It is also racist.
Why is this so racist? Why is this so disgusting? Well, the May 14 article in the New York Times mentions, “Some people on social media interpreted Adams’ comments as him implying that migrants to the U.S. are strong swimmers because they’ve swum across the Rio Grande to reach the country’s shores” (Eric Adams Called Migrants ‘Excellent Swimmers.’ He Explains Why. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)).
Mayor Adams is already trying to back peddle this comment—and scores of journalists and advocates and social workers and even other public officials are bringing on their own comments. This lifeguard way of solving the needs of the migrants—at the same time the needs of the swimmers—could be called the “Mayor Adams Excellent Swimmers” approach to job placement.
Nothing like being famous.
A third public official—who is allowed to have his own opinion and I am not convinced that is a good idea at all—is former President Donald J. Trump. At the very beginning of the fiasco, he was quoted often as saying that Mexicans and other persons coming over the border were rapists, thieves, and murderers (See 2015 especially in this list of his racist comments: What exactly Trump has said about race | PBS NewsHour).
As a rapist, Trump would know personally how very dangerous it is to let those guys run around unmonitored.
He said that “they” were sending us bad people. He also talked about people coming from sh*thole countries. In all cases, just like still in 2024, he wants the average (?) American to fear all these foreigners coming in.
If I were an American criminal, I would feel left out… not getting acknowledged by public officials and the press for MY crimes while the random migrants coming over the border get all the attention.
One thing migrants—like all homeless people—face 24 hours a day is a system of being dehumanized. Disenfranchised. Unfairly attacked. It does not matter where they are from. Or what their intentions are or if they have some random plan to become famous.
They are all outdoor people…but not by choice. Like in a bad joke, they are treated by the Pacione-Zayas kinds of “advocates” like animals. They are forced to work as lifeguards. They are categorized as rapists, thieves, and murderers.
Like in a bad cartoon, idiots stand up in front of others and say stupid random things.
And awesome writers remind people what those idiots said.