Yes, according to our laws, all Americans are equal under the law. But we're now living with 12 million Latino neighbors who are de facto second-class citizens, just as black people were before they won civil rights.
I am not saying that the hatred directed at Latino immigrants is as bad as the anti-black racism that permeated American life for nearly two centuries. Not even close.
I'm also not saying that we should accept an open border.
But finding a solution to the problem isn't helped by incendiary rhetoric.
The lesson of black history is that institutionalizing the inequality of 12 million of our neighbors and tolerating daily slurs against them is a bad thing for American democracy. Like it or not, immigrants have become a part of our social fabric and it's our responsibility to treat all of them with basic respect.
Each year we postpone the kind of reform that gives the undocumented a path to legal status, we fall deeper into the well of hatred and racism. The misunderstandings and suspicions between us will only grow.
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hector.tobar@latimes.com
