East is East…
"I grow squash and tomatoes....I am a farmer."
There was an excellent article in the NYTimes, Oct. 2, 2011 about the complexity of immigration—the laws, the families pulled apart, the good hard-working people, and the dark side of immigration with its thugs, drug smugglers and thieves. And then I read the “comments” online, mostly East Coast folks. Chilling. Most comments were not supportive of the plight of the migrants. Most comments were lost in the verbiage of the law, as if we are a country that pays strict attention to laws. Don’t get me started on the Bush years, the wars, Wall Street, banks….
So I am a caretaker, a nurse. People have blisters, I apply band-aids. People are hungry, I smile when the good sisters at the comedor feed them nourishing food. Friends clean out their closets and I take piles of jackets and jeans for the migrants that need warmth and comfort. I’m not spouting off statistics and numbers—my brain is too old for that.
But I do have a bit of the body politic to share:
1) Rethink NAFTA. Many migrants are farmers that have been driven off their farms. The subsidized crops of NAFTA and huge agri-business farms undersell their crops of squash, beans, and tomatoes. We have created a class of poor farmers, many of whom survived quite nicely for hundreds of years. They are desperate for work. I have met them.
2) Legalize drugs. It is a public health issue, not a criminal one. As a nurse, I know this is blasphemous. But you know what?? The Drug War is a joke. It is easier and cheaper to get drugs on the street now than 10 years ago. Prohibition didn’t work, and neither is criminalizing the sale and use of narcotics and other “illegal” drugs. Start with marijuana.
3) Expand the guest worker permit system. I have never met a migrant from Mexico or Central America that didn’t want to work—at anything.
4) Allow a fast-track for immigrants who have been here in the US since they were children. Get a grip. There are 11 million undocumented people in this country. We’re not going to deport them. They have been here for most of there life. Except for a paper proving citizenship, they are “American.”
Doesn’t seem like rocket science to me.
Trust me—-it’s more fun having Latinos as neighbors than….well, almost anybody.
Peg writes, “Trust me—-it’s more fun having Latinos as neighbors than, well, almost anybody.”
So true, Peg! Especially so, when I shop the Nogales, Arizona Walmart. Which is so chock full of warmth, smiles, and laughter.
As contrasted with shopping the Walmart up near Green Valley, Arizona.
Where smiles and laughter seem to be forbidden. Such a grim and cold place that cavernous place seems to be to me.
I also have discovered a delightful bonus when I shop the Nogales store: I hardly ever leave without learning a new Spanish word.
Which comes in handy here in my Rio Rico, where 85% of my neighbors – almost all of them bi-lingual – claim Spanish as their native tongue.
During a recent trip to the Nogales Walmart, I almost bought a new screwdriver that I’d loaned to my neighbor and good friend, Jesús, whose native language is Spanish.
And whose competency with English more or less equals my own with Spanish. (Which ain’t so swell, sometimes, for either of us…)
But before checking out that screwdriver, I asked the Nogales clerk to translate “screwdriver” into Spanish. Whereupon, she merrily gave me this tongue-twisting Spanish word, “destornillador.”
Whereupon, I at once put that screwdriver aside, because I’d heard that word just a few days before, when I‘d gently asked my neighbor, Jesús, if he’d returned the screwdriver he’d borrowed.
Jesús replied, “Tu destornillador ha estado en su caja de herramientas por lo menos seis meses, amigo.”
Which means, in English, “Your screwdriver has been in your tool box for the last six months, friend.”
(The only word Jesús missed, was “idiote.” No one now reading this, needs a translation for that one.)
And, indeed, when I checked, ”mi caja de herramientas,” “mi destornillado” was indeedy tucked in there and had likely been there for at least those six months.
Just as my trusty neighbor Jesús had said.
But I still have yet to wrap my tongue around that hard-to -say Spanish word, “destornillador.” (Not to ignore, “herramientos,”which is still another wicked tongue twister.)
What all this means? Well, I’m not sure.
Other than that to say that, just like you, Peg, I’ve been finding that having Latinos as my neighbors is lots more fun, than, “well , as almost anybody (else).”
PS: The phonetic English pronunciation of “destornillado” is “Dess-torn-mee-yaddo.”
PPS: As for “herramientos?” Well, I’m still working on that one!
Great story about the screwdriver. One of these days I’ll be fluent in Spanish—but meanwhile, I struggle along. Thanks for your help with the border politics and issues. I admire your moxie and experience. –Peg