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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Something that's even harder is moving from a rural area in Mexico when "no tiene permitido para trabajo" and "no hablo Ingles". Yet somehow Mexicans do just fine.

(The same critique applies to "poor" urban Americans who have liberals making similar excuses for them.)

You are right that people who choose to develop a substance abuse problem may have a harder time. So what?

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My parents came to this country without speaking any English, my mother and I learned English together watching Mr. Rodgers, so I'm fully aware of the difficulties such circumstances present. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mexican American immigrants and the amount of hardship they go through. I live in an area of LA county that's around 92% Hispanic, speaking from my experience here, I would argue that they aren't doing "just fine". The community in which I now live suffers from many of the same problems I witnessed among poor rural whites, namely domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, crime and gang violence, and a lack of educational achievement.

Your last comment seems needlessly cruel to me. I had a friend in Texas who's parents were drug addicts. His dad was killed in a car accident and sometime later his mom got a boyfriend who proceeded to rape him on a weekly basis from the time he was seven to around the time he was twelve and put into foster care. He ended up bouncing around foster homes, getting deeply involved in drugs until he finally enlisted in the Army, and after a few deployments and a stint at community college he eventually graduated college and is now a geologist.

I'm extremely proud and humbled by his accomplishments, but to be honest, if he had simply turned into a meth head and died under an overpass, I can't say I would be begrudge him considering the circumstances of his youth.

edited for grammar

They tend to move to cheap rent minority neighborhoods most people on HN would consider "the bad side of town".

Your average white trump voter is rarely going to move to the hood.

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