Why Have Children You Can’t Support

* If the intent of your article on the Carranza family (Families, May 28) was to elicit sympathy for them, it had an entirely different effect with me. Here’s an individual who entered the country illegally, fathered nine more children than he could afford, burned down his rented house by overloading the electrical system and is proud of the fact that before the fire “food stamps were the only form of government assistance” he had taken.

Unless farm workers suddenly got health insurance, I’ll bet every one of his American-born children was delivered courtesy of Ventura County. Clearly, the “victim” in this article is the U.S. taxpayer.

GREGORY DANIELS

Fillmore

* This letter is in response to your article on the Carranza family with nine children that lost everything a couple of years ago in a fire. This is the one where 43 members of one family were living in one house.

Was I supposed to be impressed by how this couple is holding their family together? What I really want to do is shake ‘em. Why, why do poor people keep having babies when they already have more children than they can afford?

If this man wants to help his kids now, I recommend he take away the Nintendo and start taking them to the Oxnard Public Library.

ALISON SMITH

Oxnard

* Referring to the article “Dreams Taking Shape” on May 28 in the Ventura County Families series. I find it curious that the article characterizes as an “achievement” the birth of more babies into families who were already so poor that 43 members shared one home.

Also, although I sympathize with the loss of home and possessions suffered by the extended Carranza family, I question why neither the tenants nor the landlord gave a thought to the possibility that the electrical system of the three-bedroom house might not be able to handle “the burden of three refrigerators and five television sets.”

SUSAN UNDERWOOD

Oxnard