Contact Me
Saturday, November 05, 2005
A Day Without A Mexican
Last night we watched the video, "A Day Without a Mexican" It is a pretty cheesily-done movie, but it made some very good points (you can find a lot of these points on the U.S. Liberals blog). The movie's point is that we all benefit from "Mexicans"(*) in our country, but many Americans would wish them gone. Many don't realize the impact this would make, not only on the lives of the individuals who have immigrated here, but on all of our lives and our economy.
I had a conversation with someone recently who is really concerned about our country, because we have so many "illegal immigrants" and we aren't even taking care of "our own". How can a person be illegal? Who is "our own"? Why do these arbitrary and man-made boundaries appear to hold some kind of holy power? Who was here first, anyway???
Doing a search on "illegal immigrants" (which you can tell is not a term I support) and looking at the content of some of the sites, I see that this is another war to add to the list of wars our country is engaged in. There are strong opinions on both sides of the issue and there is a lot of hate being spewed. Again, we are using violence and punishment to try to control others.
I wonder what it would be like to live in extreme poverty and know that if I could get to the country next door, I could do a menial job that no one in that country wanted to do. I could get paid poorly for the job, but I could make more money than I could in my own country. This menial job with poor wages would make the difference between my children eating or not and getting educated or not. Hmmmmm. What would I do?
*Many people call anyone from anywhere south of Texas "Mexicans"
I had a conversation with someone recently who is really concerned about our country, because we have so many "illegal immigrants" and we aren't even taking care of "our own". How can a person be illegal? Who is "our own"? Why do these arbitrary and man-made boundaries appear to hold some kind of holy power? Who was here first, anyway???
Doing a search on "illegal immigrants" (which you can tell is not a term I support) and looking at the content of some of the sites, I see that this is another war to add to the list of wars our country is engaged in. There are strong opinions on both sides of the issue and there is a lot of hate being spewed. Again, we are using violence and punishment to try to control others.
I wonder what it would be like to live in extreme poverty and know that if I could get to the country next door, I could do a menial job that no one in that country wanted to do. I could get paid poorly for the job, but I could make more money than I could in my own country. This menial job with poor wages would make the difference between my children eating or not and getting educated or not. Hmmmmm. What would I do?
*Many people call anyone from anywhere south of Texas "Mexicans"
posted by Carol at 8:52 AM
1 Comments:
Nationalism is a pox on mankind. The world needs to get to a new paradigm, beyond borders and quotas and concepts that categorize people as "us or them". Until then, strife and a lack of peace will, unfortunately, prevail.
Post a Comment
<< Home