Immigrant

Today I heard an individual claim that “the US should send those immigrants packing back across the southern border.”

Wow.

I’m not going to ramble on about the politics and legality of immigration; rather I’m going to try to bring some humanity to the issue.


If you were the marginalized, that came from a broken country, in the hemisphere with the highest murder rates; from a place where poverty is institutionalized, where the environment is irrevocably degraded; from a corrupt government with polarized politics, and where the economy is an avaricious predator…

Wouldn’t you try to get out?

Wouldn’t you try to make the world your f–ing oyster too?

Yeah. Your oyster. That’s how we U.S. citizens view life, right? “The world is your oyster”, a.k.a., you can do anything, achieve anything, you can be all that you can be, you can believe in change yes you can, you can change yourself—you can change the world! (And here the heavens burst into a celestial sky, and the angels sing, “God bless America”, as we look out on the great frontier of our Western World.)

But are we a great nation? To these people that journey here with different hopes and ideas, their open asking hands held out and waiting, do we meet them with our single clenched fist lifted and ready? Is this the great US of A?

An immigrant is not a “they” or “them”; they are a “you” and “me”, for we all live a life filled with such commonalities as our families, friends, goodness, cruelty, hopes, fears, dreams, and thoughts. If we further marginalize these immigrants, we turn our back on responsibility. We only dig a deeper pit of poverty and deprivation for part of humanity to return to and to be engulfed by.

But I believe that we can do better. “We do big things. The idea of America endures.” We are a great nation; we have done great things; we will do great things.

Unfortunately though, we have done terrible things as well. And for these actions, we are accountable to both hemispheres. Some of the countries south of the US border, many of their sufferings from poverty and corruption, the US has been a lead perpetrator. Our country—the USA—has had a greedy hand, and thus, has been an instigator of the impoverished and grim conditions of the lives that have been marginalized and cast aside.

History and Politics are difficult subjects to study. It’s a challenge to know and to understand all the facts and consequences. But I think there’s enough information out there, and that most of us have the ability to determine some crucial facts, and to find some truth in these matters.

Ask yourself, “Do we know the role that the US has played in the history of these countries—how our country has affected the economies, governments, cultures, and lives of other countries?”

My 24 years hardly make me an expert on these issues; so I won’t attempt to ramble on about the facts and dates. But do your research; try to understand what it might be like to leave the familiarity of your own country; try to comprehend some of the truer causes of immigration. Briefly skim some of the links below, and further investigate the United State’s involvement in this hemisphere.

And let us always think of this:

How will we treat those in the shadows of life? That is our moral test in life. That will determine the content of our character. May we challenge our self to add new life and opportunity to the lives—the years that remain—of those immigrants who cross borders, who risk and lose more than we may know, in order to arrive in our nation.


“There is a destiny that makes us brothers:

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back onto our own.”

~Edwin Markham


School of Americas
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=School_of_the_Americas
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/SOA.html

El Salvador
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Oscar%20_Romero.html
http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=396:lessons-of-el-mozote&catid=97&Itemid=122

Guatemala
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'état
http://www.content4reprint.com/recreation-and-leisure/travel/united-fruit-company-in-guatemala-us-invasion-for-a-bunch-of-bananas.htm

Nicaragua
http://www.soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=325

Argentina
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124125440