Carlos Fuentes Quotes
The Hispanic world did not come to the United States. The United States came to the Hispanic world. It is perhaps an act of poetic justice that now the Hispanic world should return.
He was referring to the fact that the Spaniards had not only explored but settled much of America before the English settlers ever came. When Americans came to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California, the Hispanics were already there and had been for some time. Spanish was the language of all these states before they were states and of many of the residents after they had become states. When the United States bought New Mexico and Arizona from Mexico, Spanish was the principle language in those territories. Those that would argue that immigrants should not bring new languages to America have little knowledge of history. Spanish was spoken in much of America long before anyone ever said a word in English.
Carlos Fuentes, 1928-2012, Mexican Author and Mexican Ambassador to France, Quoted in New York Times, July 9, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Christian Evangelicals in America have been split on their views of immigration. See {632917} for an example of a contrary position.
This quotation became a very polarizing stimulus in the country with anti-immigration people using it in support of their program to restrict immigration and with liberals and Hispanic groups who saw the quotation as a discriminatory unfounded charge.
Andrew Macdonald
She was referring to the Muslim immigrants who were then coming into Europe in large numbers. Europe in general, and Italy in particular, have never had the American experience of assimilation of large numbers of immigrants, and many Muslims came to Europe just for the economic opportunities but did not like or respect the culture or the values. Some even preached hatred of the Christian West and fomented terrorism. This was different from America where Muslim immigrants arrived and despite the difficulties of new immigrants most thrived and were able to assimilate yet maintain their religion and cultural customs. At the same time many American Islamic immigrants represented the more modern Islamic which valued freedom and pluralism and unlike most Muslim nations of today, appreciated the advanced, modernistic, tolerant Islam of 1000 years ago when tolerance and freedom of thought within an Islamic framework made some Muslim countries the most advanced in the world.
In early America large numbers of whites who had been captured by Indians would refuse to leave their new families even when they had the opportunity to do so. J. Hector St. John
Magazine of the Council of Conservative Citizens
Carlos Fuentes Macías was a Mexican novelist and essayist. Among his works are The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962), Aura (1962), Terra Nostra (1975), The Old Gringo (1985) and Christopher Unborn (1987). In his obituary, The New York Times described Fuentes as "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world" and an important influence on the Latin American Boom, the "explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and '70s", while The Guardian called him "Mexico's most celebrated novelist". His many literary honors include the Miguel de Cervantes Prize as well as Mexico's highest award, the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor (1999). He was often named as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he never won.
