Border Lights

As a physician who cares for many Hispanic patients, I was shocked by the trash and nonsense quoted from the Light Up the Border supporters in your story of Saturday, May 26 (“Tactic of Lighting Border Raises Tensions”). Some of the supporters of this movement blame illegal immigration for everything wrong with Southern California, from freeway traffic to drugs to the water shortage.

Illegal aliens very rarely have cars--how can they contribute to traffic jams? On the contrary, many come from such primitive areas of Mexico or Latin America that they are unfamiliar with high speed roadways and are killed walking across Highway 5 after they cross the border.

I am certain that both legal and illegal aliens contribute to the drug trade, but this problem reaches every corner of American society. The same issue of the Times reported legal problems of Richard Silberman and Lawrence Briggs related to money laundering and drug smuggling.

Under our law, these two prominent San Diego businessmen are innocent until proven guilty, but their indictments remind us that drug issues reach to all levels of society. Blaming Hispanics for California’s ills reflects the same thinking used by Nazi Germany to blame the Jews for their economic woes.

To solve our problems we must work together. When we try to simplify all our problems into one super-issue, we solve nothing except our own insecurity. We can act to manage traffic congestion, water, drugs and our other problems by listening to the other guy, whatever his color, and working together with tolerance.

JAMES SANTIAGO GRISOLIA

San Diego