By Elvira Arellano
I would like to reflect on a statement released by Congressman Luis Gutierrez on the memorial march held last week that honored the 1963 march and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech.”
Reflecting on Dr. King’s speech, Congressman Gutierrez said “It was a call to action to take moral responsibility – for all Americans – for the moral gap between ideals and reality. Right now,” the Congressman continued, “we live in a nation that has allowed a huge wave of immigration over the past two decades, but has not changed its law to deal with that reality. We have encouraged this wave when our economy was good and we are trying to suppress and deport our way out of it now that the economy is not so good, but we are all complicit.”
“We all look the other way when Juan washed the dishes or Tran picked our lettuce or Maria cleaned our hotel room. And now we are all responsible for the reality of having 11 million people living here with limited rights and a system of deportation so ferocious and uncaring that families are being split apart, futures are being quashed and the moral fabric of whole communities in our country are being frayed.”
Thank You Congressman Gutierrez for speaking the Truth!
We need to remind this nation that over 5 million agricultural workers were put out of work in Mexico by NAFTA when giant U.S. corporations were allowed to dump corn into Mexico at half the cost of production. Millions more lost their jobs when U.S. banks called in long term loans and forced the devaluation of the peso.
Those policies were not good for U.S. workers and they destroyed the lives of Mexican workers and families. We did not come to the U.S. for the American Dream we came to find work to feed our families because of what the American nightmare did to our countries.
Our labor and our taxes were welcomed here, as the Congressman says, when the economy was good. What changed? According to the experts, the undocumented are still boosting the economy and would do even more so if they were allowed to legalize. The problem was the U.S. citizen children that were born here – brown eyed brown skinned children that are part of the rise of a new majority in the U.S. That is why the drive to deport the undocumented has been so painted with racism.
The Congressman called wisely for the nation to accept shared responsibility for the families that were formed here and the children that were born here. Instead, the nation, both republicans and democrats, want to punish those who are least culpable and most vulnerable in the system of undocumented labor from which the entire nation benefitted.
We are thankful for Congressman Gutierrez’ statement, not only because it is good to hear the truth, but because it is necessary that we make this argument if we are to achieve justice. Before Dr. King spoke about his dream of a nation that judged people on the content of their character not the color of their skin, he indicted the nation for their abuse and exploitation of African Americans. He spoke about the broken promise – the check which came back marked “insufficient funds.”
For there to be redemption, there must be confession. We will not resolve the issue of the eleven million undocumented and their U.S. citizen children and families, and the dreamers they brought with them – until the nation takes responsibility for what it has done. And the nation will not move towards a just future until it responds to “the dream” Congressman Gutierrez put before it last week – “for racial and ethnic common purpose and shared responsibility to reestablish justice when it comes to immigrants and their families.”
If U.S. citizens raise their children to watch and accept the tears of other children when their father or mother, brother or sister, is torn from them by men with both badges and guns, when their lives and dreams are destroyed in lingering moments of terror, then those watching children will be scarred with the mark of indifference forever just as those who are watched will be scarred with the anger born of broken hearts and broken dreams.
Yet today, the hearts and minds of millions seek a generation that will bear neither the scars of loss and discrimination nor the scars of indifference and irresponsibility. It is these unscarred hearts that represent the strength the nation requires to guide it through the challenging times of the future.
