Don,
Your daughter was kind enough to alert me that you have been knocked off-line since last Thursday, and might not get power back until later this week. This explains your (enforced) silence. Truthfully, I was getting worried about you, and besides, how would I explain to our vast Website audience that I was carrying on a dialogue with a silent classmate? It is true, I talk to myself, but not in public.
Today marks the first U.S. Immigrant Boycott Day in our history. Millions of immigrants and their supporters are expected to take to the streets to protest the efforts of House Republicans to classify them as criminals and have them deported. Think about it: advocating legislation to create a criminal class of 11 million people. Even the W isn’t willing to pander to that extent.
Last evening I talked with a longtime friend and colleague, albeit much younger than me, about Mexican immigrants. He is Latino himself. He made these two points:
1. Most Americans do not yet realize that the U.S. – Mexico border has already been moved northward – at least fifteen miles or more, by his estimation. This new area – between the old and the new borders – in effect belongs to Mexican nationals. In the abstract, it still remains U.S. territory but in reality, it is Mexican. If the W administration is truly serious about building a thousand mile Israeli-wall on our border with Mexico, I wonder which border it will choose? The wrong one, I’m sure.
2. When my Latino friend is challenged: Why are you supporting this gated 2 billion dollar subdivision when you know that only rich white people can afford to live there? I look at it this way, he responds. Those are our (immigrant) jobs! We are going to get the unskilled construction work to build those homes, we will clean their houses, nanny their children, landscape their gardens, and wash their cars – and when our grandchildren marry their grandchildren, they will move into those houses. Cesar Chavez had a saying: your currency is either time or money. Immigrants don’t have the money, but they have the time.
Have a nice Friday.
LeRoy