Assemblyman Takes Heat for Anti-Immigrant Poem : Legislature: Lawmaker says he regrets distributing the one-page verse but defends it as interesting, clever and funny.

Republican freshman Assemblyman William J. (Pete) Knight, who as an Air Force pilot flew 253 missions over Vietnam, got his legislative baptism of fire Wednesday, taking flak for passing out a poem titled “I Love America” that critics argue is racist.

But the 63-year-old former Palmdale mayor said he is too old to get an ulcer over the verse that mocks illegal immigrants as freeloaders driving out the “white man race.” He variously described the doggerel as being interesting, clever and funny.

During a breakfast interview Wednesday, the otherwise low-key, Viceroy-smoking lawmaker who talks in short sentences turned a bit more expansive, complaining about illegal immigrants going to public schools and receiving other taxpayer-assisted services.

But Knight said he regrets distributing the one-page verse at a private meeting Tuesday of GOP Assembly members and apologized to members of the Latino legislative caucus who were outraged by the poem.

“I am not a racist by any stretch of the imagination,” Knight said. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

Knight said the poem does not represent his overall philosophy, but he declined to distance himself from its lambasting of illegal immigrants. Nor would he spell out his feelings about stanzas alluding to a “white guy” who moves away because of the influx of illegal immigrants.

Written in broken English, the poem takes the voice of an illegal immigrant who says such things as “we have a hobby, it’s called breeding” and ends with the line that America is “too damn good for white man race.”

Knight, a back-bencher who has yet to make a mark in the Capitol, is unaccustomed to the political limelight; he arrived in Sacramento as one of a large, 27-member rookie class--the first elected under term limits. He was elected from the heavily Republican 36th District, which covers the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys, after winning a bruising Republican primary fight.

Although much of the sentiment in his district Wednesday favored Knight, his comments were assailed by many Latinos. Sandy Corrales, a member of the Palmdale planning commission, said she was embarrassed that someone she helped elect would find the poem amusing. She described it as trash.

But Mary Miller, president of the Antelope Valley Republican Women, said she still supports Knight and argued the poem does not insult Latinos as a group. “It’s telling what happens when the illegal alien comes into this country. The contents of the poem are true,” Miller said.

In Sacramento, state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) said Knight’s apology was unacceptable. Torres said Knight “needs to be reprimanded on the floor of the Assembly for this conduct. That’s the only way people will begin to recognize this is serious.”

Citing the Knight-distributed poem as an example, Torres sent Gov. Pete Wilson a letter urging him to speak out against racism.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) described the incident as tragic but quickly added: “I don’t think (Knight is) an evil person.”

But Knight said that if he were Assembly Speaker, he would abolish the racial and ethnic caucuses that have sprung up in recent years as organized units in the Legislature. Saying that there is too much division in the Legislature, Knight added that he didn’t know why there “isn’t an American caucus.”

Knight said that in his 30-year military career he always got along with members of racial and ethnic groups.

Knight, wearing an American flag lapel pin, also discussed his view on barring openly gay soldiers from the military, using a woman’s name to refer to a homosexual soldier asked to room with a heterosexual.

“That means that the first sergeant in assigning rooms has to say, ‘OK, John, you and Alice are going to room together.’ ” And, he said, the heterosexual soldier would refuse.

As a test pilot, Knight flew the famed X-15 rocket plane, setting the 4,520-m.p.h. speed record for a single-engine airplane--a fact publicized in his campaign literature.

In his campaign, Knight said, he also publicized the cost of illegal immigrants to county services. He echoed the poem’s complaint that illegal immigrants receive welfare. But under California law, illegal immigrants are not eligible for state welfare payments--although their children who are born in the United States can receive aid. These children make up one of the fastest-growing segments of the state’s welfare population.

The source of the poem remained a mystery Wednesday. Knight said he received the poem anonymously in the mail and does not know its origins. But about three weeks ago a listener read a version of the poem on newscaster George Putnam’s talk program on Glendale radio station KIEV.

Putnam said in an interview Wednesday that he has mailed copies to interested listeners who have sent him stamped envelopes. He called the poem “a cute gimmick,” maintaining that it is not racially tinged.

Knight, who was besieged for interviews Wednesday, has been learning the ropes since he landed in the Capitol. Among other things, he has introduced bills to abolish the Native American Heritage Commission, the California Arts Council and the Commission on the Status of Women.

Taking the poem controversy in stride, Knight said that as a test pilot he encountered far more turbulence: “I don’t think the Legislature or the trials and tribulations of being a legislator up here are going to give me an ulcer.”