Lagrimas negras
"In the noisy argument about what to do with illegal immigrants, the common assumption is that America has done a great deal for them already. The question is what more should we do for them? Should we give them green cards? Grant them amnesty? Or stop all this generosity and send them packing?
"Nobody speaks of what illegal immigrants have done for us. It occurs to me that I have not heard two relevant words spoken. If you will allow me, I will speak them.
"Thank you.
"Thank you for turning on the sprinklers. Thank you for cleaning the swimming pool and scambling the eggs and doing the dishes. Thank you for making the bed. Thank you for getting the children up and ready for school. Thank you for picking them up after school. Thank you for caring for our dying parents.
"Thank you for plucking dead chickens. Thank you for bending your bodies over our fields. Thank you for breathing chemicals and absorbing chemicals into your bodies.
"Thank you for the lettuce and the spinach and the artichokes and the asparagus and the cauliflower. Thank you for the broccoli, the beans, the tomatoes and the garlic. Thank you for the apricots and the peaches and the apples and the melons and the plums and the almonds. And the grapes. Thank you for the willow trees and the roses, and the winter lawn.
"Thank you for scraping and painting and roofing, and cleaning out the asbestos and the mold. Thank you for your stoicism and eager hands. Thank you for all the young men on rooftops in the sun. Thank you for cleaning the toilets and the showers and the restaurant kitchens, and the schools and the office buildings and the airports and the malls. Thank you for washing the car. Thank you for washing all the cars.
"Thank you for your parents, who died young and had nothing to bequeath to their children except the memory of work.
"Thank you for giving us your youth. Thank you for the commemorative altars. Thank you for the food, the beer, the tragic polka. Gracias. "
From NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5325714
Richard Rodriquez
Editor, New California Media and author, Brown: The Last Discovery of America
posted by I n g e r @ Wednesday, April 05, 2006
13 Comments:
BRAVO!!
peace...
i so get this.
here in the golden state, the white man tries to pretend it all "belongs" to him. even though brown people were here first.
the other thing is that california would shut down--without the hispanic people, who do all of the stuff nobody will.
i liked this piece, thank you.
the humanity that makes "humanity" possible.
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There are lots of hard-working migrants whose cheap labor our economy is addicted to.
But, can we just open the border and let who ever wants to come across?
Should we let all the world's needy and virtuous people into the country, just because we we have sympathy and admiration for their worth ethic, and guilt about our own lassitude?
It's a difficult issue that makes strange bedfellows.
I'd build the fence and improve enforcement first; then perhaps we can safely be generous with those already here.
Don't mind me. I'm a piece of right-wing flotsam beached on your website.
Grumpy makes me chuckle.
I don't know the answer. Only know that undocumented workers have been part of my life forever; they're Irish--funny boys who come over and work with my uncles--and serious Norwegians who'd come over and work for my Dad. They'd learn the construction trade, and work cheap, and live with us like family. They'd stay for 10 years and go back home, and on occasion when they'd come back to visit they'd be turned around at the airport, a packed hammer spotted by a screener and a name on a certain list, and we'd all exchange our gifts there in arrivals and cry and wave goodbye to them.
Don't know the answer, and am in favor of finding an answer. But I don't like the scent of racism that pervades the issue these days: those Mexicans and their flags and their language.
P.S.
My father just called me up to boast about how he'd given a hard time to the guy he'd hired to do some work on the house. "I asked him where he got his help. Asked him if he'd picked the guy up on some corner." The worker's from Honduras. "I don't want any illegal workers here," he tells me, getting all steamed up on this principle he's assumed.
"But Dad," I say, "what about your own illegal workers? What are you talking about?"
He stumbles, because he can't admit that this time it's the filthy Hispanic thing that kills him--that he can't understand them, that he doesn't trust them, that he considers them unskilled in every sense.
THAT's what bothers me.
Thank you for posting this.....
My goodness, where would I be if they had such issues back in the early 1900s. My ancestors where the ones who took the dangerous jobs in the early years of iron ore mining.
Mary
When did a fence ever work?
Start with the Great Wall.
Start with any "gated community."
It is a specious argument.
Great post Inger...
STB
That there will never be a literate discussion of any of this is the frightening part, because whether you call them Fascists or Nationalists or Racists; too many people are too busy "positioning" themselves for whatever purposes they have behind the scenes to actually have an open discussion!
alan
inger
it is almost unbearable in my workplace lately
because so many of my coworkers feel like your father.
and they dance around it,
and try to make it sound harmless
but it's racist. period.
why not admit to it, if it's what you think?
i say to them: "read your family history. where are your folk from, originally?" fuck!
I'm torn on this issue. I'm not against immigration, but I'm against illegal immigrants.
I think alot of immigrants have done great things for this country (maybe I'm biased because my mom is one). So thank you for this post to remind us all of that.
i heard this on NPR and it raised chill bumps on my arms. it happened again, reading it here.
arizona is a hotbed of radicalism over border crossers. our hospitals do a lot for dehydrated and heatstroked mexican nationals, and many are concerned about resources going to folks who will never be able to pay for them. 2 young activists are about to go to trial for transporting 2 crossers to a hospital for critically needed medical aid. and on streets everywhere in tucson i'm seeing signs in people's yards that say: Humanitarian Aid Is Never A Crime. (i'd put one up myself except i don't have a yard!)
i recommend that everyone rent the movie "A Day Without A Mexican."
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