The U.S. spends a fortune building extensive Berlin type walls, as the Soviet Union once did, while aggressively patrolling its borders and ports against undocumented workers. Arizona is even trying to suspend the protections of the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to rid itself of them.
Who are these people who so frighten us Americans?
The next time you bite into a piece of fruit or eat a vegetable, think about who harvested your food. The next time you enter a clean office building or hospital or a hotel room, ask yourself who did the cleaning.
The next time you admire a fancy home's lawn and landscaping, the next time you enjoy a restaurant meal or get your car washed or see children well cared for by nannies, go up to the people who devote themselves to this work and introduce yourself. Then you'll know who they are.
They're people like you and me, except a lot poorer and less educated. They too have children to feed and bills to pay. They too have dreams, but because extreme poverty at home and jobs here brought them to the U.S., unlike many of us, they will work long hours doing jobs many people find disgusting or frightening.
As home health care workers, they take care of those unable to care for themselves, including if need be, with diapers and baths and by sitting up all night with them.
They work in our slaughter houses, wading into blood and gutting and processing en masse dead animals which become the food we put on our tables. Of course we don't want to think about the people who do this work nor how animals become our fried chicken, hamburgers, steak, lamb chops, ham and hot dogs.
As undocumented workers, most don't have medical insurance and may not even be paid minimum wage. But it gets worse. In exchange for citizenship, they will even fight our wars, dying or being maimed in distant lands.
What thank you do undocumented workers receive? If they get caught, they're thrown out and if they don't get caught, they're looked down upon as sub-human. What kind of a society treats people like that?
What kind of a society spends stunning sums of money on weapons, wars and bailouts yet attacks largely defenseless undocumented immigrants, depriving them of basic human needs, including dignity and respect? If we are silent in the face of this injustice, what does that say about you and me? We must raise our voices on behalf of those who do so much for us, for we could make a real difference.
On a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty are these words: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Those are the ideals of a great and compassionate nation, and a nation largely built upon the hopes, the hearts and the sweat of immigrants. It is they who led America into becoming the envy of the world and they who are the foundation of our future.
Dick
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