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So the past week has been a fairly interesting one, aside from being under the weather I have managed to enjoy myself. Last week I was at home after school in bed, when Cesár decided that there was something on the street that I simply COULD NOT miss so he decided to bang on my window until I agreed to climb through it onto the balcony. Now at first I was more than mildly pissed that he had woke me up but in the end I am glad he did because what was happening on the street was indeed pretty damn interesting. I looked across to the Peugeot dealership and in front were 2 police motorcycles and about 5 plain-clothed police officers all surrounding what appeared to be a nomral minivan. I didn't think much of it and was noticably upset that I was awake and not in bed until Cesár realized I had no idea what was going on and pointed out to me that on top of the minivan sat about 5 9mm semi-automatic handguns. Needless to say I was dumbfounded...5 guns in a minivan?? I frantically searched the street hoping to see some soccer mom hysterically crying and explaining why these guns were in her car, but to no avail. The two men who owned the car appeared to be in their mid to late 30s and definetly of South American heritage.

And THATS when I began to realize that all of the other people that had been pulled over were also of non-Spanish heritage as well. There were two Africans, a Moroccan guy and some more South Americans. Needless to say I was a little taken aback, I thought to myself 'How is it possible that the police here can be so blatantly racist and cherry pick immigrants off the street to be searched?' But when I proposed this question to Cesár he looked at me like I was crazy, a sort of 'you aren't serious, right?' look, as if it was impossible for him to fathom that the immigrants wouldn't be stopped and interrogated for no reason whatsoever. He bluntly told me, 'THESE are the people that we need to be worried about.' So then I got to thinking, if these are truly the type of people that Spaniards are worried about that I am more worried about them! Are they so blind to their own fellow Spaniards that abuse & murder their wives, traffic drugs, and light homeless women on fire for fun? They should not go without blame either, but no one seems to criticize them as vociferously as they do the immigrants.

Now given, I understand the image that immigrant people have, I am from Florida for chrissakes, we practically have a larger immigrant population than we do native. I understand the stereotypes that accompany these people, but what I dont understand is how everyone can so blindly assume them to be true? The fact that immigrants are notorious for committing crimes etc is an undisputed fact here. No one talks about the fact that yes while sometimes the stereotypes are true, immigration is not entirely a bad thing. It brings development to society and ultimately in one way or another boosts economic production in both legal and illegal senses. Sure alot of work and business is done on the black market but this is still money that enters into the GDP and consumer expenditures. It is something that takes getting used to but there is no way to stop it and personally I find it ridiculous that no one seems to take pride in the fact that there are so many immigrants that choose to come to Spain to seek a better life.

Ok I think thats enough for now since this post may start a whirlwind of comments, but for the record its my blog, my opinions and no one ever said that paradise was without *some* flaws. :)