Dear Cándido and América:
It is with great sadness that I write you today to tell you that most likely efforts for National Immigration Reform have been stymied and amnesty will not be achieved for those like you who put your lives in danger to seek the American Dream. Midterm election politics make it too tough to get such a polarizing, controversial law passed, so you are just out of luck until the politicians can work it into their schedules.
Perhaps if more people knew your story about coming to this country willing to work for pennies on the dollar that American citizens make, they would understand the cost and the value of pursuing the American Dream. América, in the early months of your pregnancy, you bravely stood among men day after day at the labor exchange waiting for work until you finally got the opportunity to clean a white rich man’s house; you kept working even as your skinned peeled from chemical exposure. You earned just $20 for a full day’s worth of sweat. Cándido, you too, waited at the labor exchange for hours often facing rejection but accepted every manual labor job available from pouring concrete to putting up fence post. You both were stolen from and cheated; you got your food from dumpsters and lived like animals in the woods while hiding your money under a rock in hope of achieving your goal of steady pay, a clean apartment, green cards and a secure life your family. You are hard working people willing to earn your food and keep; with the opportunity for amnesty, you would become tax-paying citizens and contribute to society if given a chance.
Unfortunately as you risk it for all the American Dream, most U.S. citizens are living the American Assumption, taking this country’s rights, liberties, freedoms and comforts all for granted. Although the United States is a land of immigrants, many citizens hail from families who have been here since the early waves of immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s. For many of these citizens, their ancestries have been so watered down by many generations of interethnic marriages that frequently they forget or never learn their families’ origins; therefore, many U.S. citizens have presumed themselves to be some type of authentic, pure American with more legitimate cause to be here than other generations of immigrants. With each passing wave of immigration, there has been an urgency to close the gate. So, in a land of immigrants and a society of others, xenophobia and racism proliferates as each ethic group rejects another’s otherness.
However, Cándido and América, other people’s intolerance towards diversity is no excuse for breaking the law. Each case of illegal immigration makes a mockery out of legitimate immigration efforts made by people who willingly stand in a thorny, bureaucratic line to legally live and work in the United States. But in a system that is so broken and when the stakes for familial betterment are so high, your desperate actions are logical in such a chaotic, illogical climate that strongly outcries against illegal immigrants while clandestinely creating a wealth of jobs for illegals who are willing to work in occupations that most Americans find too demeaning or menial. Illegal immigrants find themselves living and working among the Great American Hypocrisy that denounces illegal immigration but needs migrant workers to keep its economy going. This tremendous hypocrisy will continue to intensify as the United States continues to fail both current citizens and illegal immigrants desirous of citizenship.
Regrettably, the federal government’s inability to act responsibility and competently has caused states like Arizona to take immigration law upon themselves, leading to the alienation and subjectification of Latinos, legal or illegal. It is tragic for the United States that intimidation and racial profiling are considered appropriate behavior for the government. But despite our country’s current intolerance and incompetence, the American Dream is the beautiful fabric that holds this country together. So, Cándido and América, I still encourage you to use legal channels to come to this amazing land of individuality, opportunity and freedom, and someday you can have that backyard with a tree and the chickens that you desire.
Best of luck,
Garbageman’s Daughter
