Mother of Exiles

This is going to be a long one.

So, Donald Trump said this - "“[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They  [Mexicans] are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they are rapists.”        


  As someone who lived all my life in the southwest, the majority of it in a Hispanic Majority state, I would, of course, like to point out a few of my own observations.

 First, Mexico isn't "Sending" anyone. You don't send your citizens to work and be productive in other countries. Mexicans are coming here due to poverty and lack of opportunity in their own country, for the chance to work and help their families.

 Second, I remember many things from my life in New Mexico. I remember the Blakes Lottaburger where me and my friends went to get green chile cheese burgers. White Sands, and Three Rivers. I remember hanging out at the School for the Visually Handicapped because they had a trippy playground. I remember hanging out in the desert, parking at the Space Hall of Fame, and dozens of other fun and not so fun things.

I also remember many farmers and ranchers and others in need of cheap labor gladly getting that labor from undocumented workers. Using them to dig ditches, exercise horses, throw hay bales, build outbuildings, work in junkyards. Housing them, waiting for them to come back when they went home. One even bragging how his loyal worker was sent back to Mexico and walked the 100 miles to come back to work for him.

 I remember a young man who jumped from a train near our house. He was beat up from the fall and desperate. He came to our door and asked to be taken to the "safe way." We thought he wanted to go to the grocery store. My mom cooked for him and let him watch TV in our den. We gave him a ride to the grocery store and realized that was not what he was talking about. He wanted a safe way to go on to where he was headed. We went back to the house.  My dad came home and called immigration. I remember my mom was sad because she wanted to help him. I remember the look on his face.

Now it seems that all these people who benefited from undocumented workers, who talked about what honest hard workers they were, who said "no white person would do these jobs," the ones wanted to help, now are the ones so eager to cast these people from Mexico, people from literally just down the road, as druggies, murderers and rapists, leaping on the Trump bandwagon.

This is the Conservative clarion call, however, I will credit Jeb Bush who took exception to Trump's statement, saying he takes the words personally. He called them "extraordinarily ugly comments." I never thought I would agree with a Bush, but there you have it.

I now live in Denver, and as a career HR professional I have worked with many immigrants from several nations, not just Mexico. It has been my privilege. They are hard working, diligent people who are appreciative of the opportunities they have earned, who bring diversity and new perspective to their work, who solve problems and increase value.

I have also met undocumented workers desperate for jobs and willing to do whatever they could, just to work, and had to turn them away. It is a terrible thing. All they want is the same thing we all want, to take care of our families and to have a chance.

The smug response is "well, then they can do it legally, like everyone else. Follow the system."

Really? Like you? Like your ancestors? Right. The first quantitative immigration law was adopted in 1921. If your people came before, well then, they got a free pass (unless they were Chinese). So basically we all got the benefit and want to slam the door in the face of everyone else. In order to do this we dehumanize the "other" with false propaganda.

What about the facts?
Does anyone care about facts? Well just in case, here are some:


—"Foreign-born individuals exhibit remarkably low levels of involvement in crime across their life course." (Bianca Bersani, University of Massachusetts, 2014. Published in Justice Quarterly.)

 — "There’s essentially no correlation between immigrants and violent crime." (Jörg Spenkuch, Northwestern University, 2014. Published by the university.) — "[I]mmigrants are underrepresented in California prisons compared to their representation in the overall population. In fact, U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate over two-and-a-half times greater than that of foreign-born men." (Public Policy Institute of California, 2008.)

— "[D]ata from the census and a wide range of other empirical studies show that for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, who make up the bulk of the undocumented population." (Ruben Rumbaut, University of California, 2008. Published by the Police Foundation.)

— "Analyses of data collected from four Southwest states and the U.S. Census show that the perceived size of the undocumented immigrant population, more so than the actual size of the immigrant population and economic conditions, is positively associated with perceptions of undocumented immigrants as a criminal threat." (Xia Wang, Arizona State University, 2014. Published in Criminology.)

This last one speaks about perception. See, it doesn't matter what the actuality is. If people think, whether they are wrong or not, that there is a large undocumented immigrant population in their area, they will THINK, that there is a criminal threat. It has nothing to do with whether there is actually a criminal threat. Basically, it is all in your head. It is called bias and bigotry, and it is a bad thing.

What's worse?

There are people right now, Americans who want to contribute to this country, people who were brought here as infants with no control over their situation, who were raised in this country and feel loyal to it - who have performed well in school, who want to go on to college and make careers and live the American dream - and they are being deported. What kind of selfishness is this? What kind of evil narcissism? Imagine you are out there one day, at your self congratulatory fourth of July celebration, waving your flag and shouting" 'Merica!" And suddenly federal officials surround you and tell you that you are being returned to Poland, or Hungary, or Italy, or wherever your people hail from. "But... But... I am an American, I love this country, I have lived here all my life. I don't know anything about Poland, I don't speak Polish. All my friends are here, I am going to college in the spring...." Yeah you get the point. Oh, and by the way, when was the last time any of you were accepted to an Ivy League university? Fernando Rojas got accepted to all 4. Of the roughly 200,000 undocumented youth that attend university in the USA, many are in the top schools in the nation. Murderers and Rapists indeed.

This, in case you forgot, is a nation of immigrants. The diversity of our population makes us able to do great things. White fear, because that is really what it is... white fear of dark skin, of difference, of the other having the same level of power and equality and privilege, is what will destroy this country. Not the hard working people who come here with stars in their eyes, and the reflection of Liberty in their hearts, lured by the call of Lady Liberty, the Mother of Exiles:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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!"

We should be ashamed that all who are here, whose grandparents and those who came before, heard this call and found shelter and solace here, now pretend to somehow have a nativeness and right to close the door in the face of those who would come after. Shame. 

Our system makes it extremely difficult, and we don't care.  My favorite response to Trump comes from this man who has worked harder in one day than Trump ever has or will in his life.