Part Two: Immigration - Originally Posted 04-28-10

Illegal Immigrant (Illegal Alien)–noun
1. A foreigner who has entered or resides in a country unlawfully or without the country's authorization.
2. A foreigner who enters the U.S. without an entry or immigrant visa, esp. a person who crosses the border by avoiding inspection or who overstays the period of time allowed as a visitor, tourist, or businessperson.

I am a citizen of the United States of America. I was born here. My ancestors immigrated here in the late 1600’s. In the eyes of the Crown, they were legal immigrants. Granted, the Indians (Native Americans) did not agree with that. But, they lost. (I am not going to go into the atrocities performed on the Indians in the history of this country. Yes, we stole their land. Yes, we murdered their men, women, and children. Yes, we broke every treaty ever made with them. Unfortunately, that is the nature and history of war and conquest. It goes back way before the first European set foot in the New World. It is as old as human history itself.) I am also not a racist. I covered that in the previous article. That charge is a simple act of desperation by people who cannot think of anything else to say. If someone wants to become a citizen of the United States, go through that process, and uphold its laws, God love them. I support anyone from any country becoming a legal resident, visitor, or citizen of this country. We are a very welcome and diverse country. If you love this country as much as I do, I say, “Welcome my brothers and sisters.”

Therein lies the problem. We have people who have tried for years to legally become citizens of the United States. They have married citizens. They have gone through miles and miles of red tape put before them by the federal government. They had had setbacks and cried tears of frustration to try to attain this goal. Those are not who this article is discussing. I am referring to the other immigrants, the ILLEGAL ones. The name itself means breaking the law.

Recently, there was a bill signed in Arizona about police powers regarding illegal aliens. You can choose to be a follower zombie of the media and be told what the bill is about. Or, you can read the bill and see what is in it. I posted the bill on my profile page yesterday. I leave that choice to you. A good friend of mine started to debate the merits of this bill. She is a great person I have known since high school. We think a lot alike on many subjects. I saw it as long overdue and wish more western states would adopt similar measures. She had visions of Nazis in black trench coats stopping people on the streets asking for their “papers.” I stopped the debate for a simple reason. I have lived in that culture for twelve years. She had not. She had no frame of reference to discuss the issue. It is not because she is dumb, far from it. She just had not seen what happens, first hand, in that type of environment. I have. I lived it.

When I first moved to California in 1997, I was impressed with the variety of cultures and people I was surrounded by. I was from Memphis, TN, and the majority of cultures I had been exposed to were black or white. Occasionally, I would get a taste of different people through the university where my mother worked. They would have visiting residents and professors from around the world. It was one of them who taught me to use chop sticks correctly. He and his family were a lot of fun. But, California was different. I used to joke that there was not majority in California. We were all minorities. If any one group tried to say they were being treated unfairly, another would just shout them down with their own tales of woe. That is one of the things I miss so much about my home state, everyone is victim of something.

I also did not think much about illegal immigration. I had spent a couple of summers in South Texas. But it was not a huge problem back then. People had maids and yard people who came across the border to work. They were not drug dealers or gangs or anything. They were just good, hard working people from Mexico. Sometimes we would take them back across at the end of the day. Other times we would have them spend the night. It was not a big deal. Then, back in Memphis, I never saw any. The only Hispanics I knew were doctors at the university. Most of them were from Argentina. They would stay a few years in the United Stat and go home. No big deal. Then, I lived in Southern California. Then, it became a big deal.