Post by djay on Aug 28, 2012 16:46:42 GMT -5
CNN posted the transcript of Linda's interview yesterday...Does anyone know where I could watch the video?
TRANSCRIPT:
Many immigrant rights groups are blasting Brewer's decision, and one of them is Linda Ronstadt. You may know her from the hits, a lot them, including "You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved." But she is an immigration rights activist.
And she is joining us live from San Francisco.
Good to see you as always.
First of all, tell us why this is important to you.
LINDA RONSTADT, SINGER: Well, it was a hot summer in Arizona and Jan Brewer was probably standing out in the sun and it addled her brain. What she is doing is she is spreading the politics of hatred and racial divisiveness. She is doing a great deal of harm to the good will that Arizona has managed to gain for itself over the years. She's making it hard on everybody. It is mean-spirited, what she's doing.
People don't migrate from where they live because it is a nice place. They migrate because they are desperate and need to feed their families. People come across the line -- imagine if you were brought across the border when you were 3 years old by your family who ere trying to desperately escape poverty and trying to give you a better life with enough food to eat and education, and then you found out maybe you found out you were not legal. And then you find out that you are an undocumented migrant when you are 17 or 18 or when you're 21 or 30 and already have a child and a family.
I went across the border not too long ago, and to the place where they deport people. You know, they sort of throw them back across the border, and they don't have any money or identification. They have no family in Mexico. In many cases, they don't even speak Spanish, because these kids grew up here. They are Americans. They were raised in the United States.
And I met a woman --
(CROSSTALK)
MALVEAUX: Linda -- oh, go ahead.
RONSTADT: -- who had just been deported. And she left a 2-year- old woman behind. This woman was desperate to get back to her child, as any good mother would be. She was crying in my arms. She was there looking for a coyote to smuggler her back across the border where faced the chance of being raped. She had no money. She had to give every bit of money she had when she got there to this person to smuggle her back. But she was going to do whatever she could do to get back to her child --
MALVEAUX: It might surprise people --
(CROSSTALK)
RONSTADT: -- like anybody would do.
MALVEAUX: Sure. It might surprise people that you are involved in this cause. Does this impact you in a personal way?
RONSTADT: Well, I grew up in the desert. My grandfather was born in Mexico. My -- we were raised Mexican-American. I grew up very proud of the fact that I was Mexican-American. We grew up with two languages spoken in our household. I sang in English and Spanish. We went back and forth across the border before they built that ridiculous fence. People were friends. We did business back and forth across the line. People were able to travel back and forth and sell things and buy things and get jobs and work and send money back to their families if they wanted to. But what Jan Brewer is doing is just mean. She is making it so people cannot support themselves.
MALVEAUX: In all fairness, let's listen, first, to her explanation to why she feels it is necessary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAN BREWER, (R), GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA: We will issue an employment authorization card for those people who applied, but they will not be entitled to a driver's license, nor any public benefits in response to the public overwhelming voting that no public benefits would be extended to the illegal aliens in the state of Arizona.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Linda, the bottom line she says, Linda, the state cannot afford the pay for the benefits, and that is part of the problem.
(CROSSTALK)
RONSTADT: It's nonsense because these people have been paying sales taxes and, in many cases, they have been paying into Social Security all of their lives, if they have had any jobs at all, and they've paying into a system that they can't take money out of it. So they are expanding the amount of money into Arizona. Arizona can afford it. If they wouldn't -- let's look at the money for a minute. What Arizona is spending an awful lot of money on is private prisons. And Chuck Coughlin and Paul Simpson --
MALVEAUX: All right.
RONSTADT: -- are two of her top advisers. They are both lobbyists for the Correction Corporation of America, which is the biggest -- one of the prison giants, private prison giants in the country.
MALVEAUX: Linda Ronstadt, we are going to have to leave it there.
RONSTADT: Almost 60 percent of --
MALVEAUX: We're going to have to wrap it there. We are obviously going to have a lot more discussion about this. We will bring you back and some of the other players. We've just run out of time.
But thank you for the perspective. We appreciate it.
TRANSCRIPT:
Many immigrant rights groups are blasting Brewer's decision, and one of them is Linda Ronstadt. You may know her from the hits, a lot them, including "You're No Good" and "When Will I Be Loved." But she is an immigration rights activist.
And she is joining us live from San Francisco.
Good to see you as always.
First of all, tell us why this is important to you.
LINDA RONSTADT, SINGER: Well, it was a hot summer in Arizona and Jan Brewer was probably standing out in the sun and it addled her brain. What she is doing is she is spreading the politics of hatred and racial divisiveness. She is doing a great deal of harm to the good will that Arizona has managed to gain for itself over the years. She's making it hard on everybody. It is mean-spirited, what she's doing.
People don't migrate from where they live because it is a nice place. They migrate because they are desperate and need to feed their families. People come across the line -- imagine if you were brought across the border when you were 3 years old by your family who ere trying to desperately escape poverty and trying to give you a better life with enough food to eat and education, and then you found out maybe you found out you were not legal. And then you find out that you are an undocumented migrant when you are 17 or 18 or when you're 21 or 30 and already have a child and a family.
I went across the border not too long ago, and to the place where they deport people. You know, they sort of throw them back across the border, and they don't have any money or identification. They have no family in Mexico. In many cases, they don't even speak Spanish, because these kids grew up here. They are Americans. They were raised in the United States.
And I met a woman --
(CROSSTALK)
MALVEAUX: Linda -- oh, go ahead.
RONSTADT: -- who had just been deported. And she left a 2-year- old woman behind. This woman was desperate to get back to her child, as any good mother would be. She was crying in my arms. She was there looking for a coyote to smuggler her back across the border where faced the chance of being raped. She had no money. She had to give every bit of money she had when she got there to this person to smuggle her back. But she was going to do whatever she could do to get back to her child --
MALVEAUX: It might surprise people --
(CROSSTALK)
RONSTADT: -- like anybody would do.
MALVEAUX: Sure. It might surprise people that you are involved in this cause. Does this impact you in a personal way?
RONSTADT: Well, I grew up in the desert. My grandfather was born in Mexico. My -- we were raised Mexican-American. I grew up very proud of the fact that I was Mexican-American. We grew up with two languages spoken in our household. I sang in English and Spanish. We went back and forth across the border before they built that ridiculous fence. People were friends. We did business back and forth across the line. People were able to travel back and forth and sell things and buy things and get jobs and work and send money back to their families if they wanted to. But what Jan Brewer is doing is just mean. She is making it so people cannot support themselves.
MALVEAUX: In all fairness, let's listen, first, to her explanation to why she feels it is necessary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAN BREWER, (R), GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA: We will issue an employment authorization card for those people who applied, but they will not be entitled to a driver's license, nor any public benefits in response to the public overwhelming voting that no public benefits would be extended to the illegal aliens in the state of Arizona.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Linda, the bottom line she says, Linda, the state cannot afford the pay for the benefits, and that is part of the problem.
(CROSSTALK)
RONSTADT: It's nonsense because these people have been paying sales taxes and, in many cases, they have been paying into Social Security all of their lives, if they have had any jobs at all, and they've paying into a system that they can't take money out of it. So they are expanding the amount of money into Arizona. Arizona can afford it. If they wouldn't -- let's look at the money for a minute. What Arizona is spending an awful lot of money on is private prisons. And Chuck Coughlin and Paul Simpson --
MALVEAUX: All right.
RONSTADT: -- are two of her top advisers. They are both lobbyists for the Correction Corporation of America, which is the biggest -- one of the prison giants, private prison giants in the country.
MALVEAUX: Linda Ronstadt, we are going to have to leave it there.
RONSTADT: Almost 60 percent of --
MALVEAUX: We're going to have to wrap it there. We are obviously going to have a lot more discussion about this. We will bring you back and some of the other players. We've just run out of time.
But thank you for the perspective. We appreciate it.