 |
|
|
 Editorials | Opinions | June 2007 
Song of the Immigrants
 Don Miller - Santa Cruz Sentinel
| | The bracero program, World War II to 1964: Bracero guest worker program admits 3.5 million temporary seasonal farmworkers from Mexico, mostly to California. Congress later ends the program because of complaints it limits workers' rights and leads to abuses. ID card for the bracero program. (Sacramento Bee) |
The family was living in the slums of Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
The father crossed into America to pick cotton and other crops. He was part of the Bracero Program, bringing agricultural workers to the United States. The program ended in 1964 amid reports of human-rights abuses.
The mother was forced to fend for herself, eventually getting a green card, making her a permanent resident, allowed to work in the United States.
My wife was born in El Paso, and her family eventually followed the crops to the Pajaro Valley.
One of my wife's earliest memories is of picking apples. To this day she can't travel past Corralitos' orchards without recalling how she'd join her father picking fruit there.
It was the song of the immigrants, and my wife's father eventually succumbed to a bitter heart and drink. Her mother, who ruined her back in the canneries, today is a U.S. citizen.
Every time the debate over illegal immigration comes up and people give their opinions about who should be here and who shouldn't, my wife's eyes narrow and the memories of hardscrabble two-room apartments and bus rides back to Mexico, of dust and indifferent schools, come flooding back.
Whenever my wife talks about her childhood as a migrant, I think of an old song by Bob Dylan.
"I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home,
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone.
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with ev'ry breath,
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death"
My most memorable experience with crossing the border goes back to when I was a kid, shy a year or two of being able to drive legally. I would join my buddies in late-night surf trips from Southern California — via the lonely border outpost of Tecate. There, unlike Tijuana, the border station would close and we knew the guards were sleeping after midnight and we could steal across the border.
We'd get picked up hours later along a lonely stretch of moonless road by one of our group who was old enough to drive across the border at Tijuana, then we'd head to Ensenada and days of surfing and nights of revelry.
Reverse illegal immigration.
Today, of course, headlines trumpet the debate over immigration.
Everyone has an opinion.
The new bipartisan proposal that would, among other provisions, allow 12 million undocumented workers to stay legally, and make it more difficult for future workers, is already creating an uproar.
Critics say the new proposal is nothing more than "amnesty" for people who have entered this country illegally and will create a permanent underclass of impoverished Mexicans who will be exploited and take jobs from poor American citizens.
Others cite the many social problems associated with an open border: crowded and confused schools, health care, drugs, language.
I believe most people come here for the reason they have always come: to find a better life, mostly for their children.
From a spiritual standpoint, certainly there are plenty of biblical passages about obeying the laws of the land. These passages also speak to how the "alien" and the "stranger" should live in a new land.
In the first New Testament book bearing his name, Peter, Jesus' disciple, writes, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us"
But Peter would then add, "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men .."
Many Jewish and Christian leaders who support the new immigration reform proposal cite Leviticus 19:33-34 from the Torah [the first five books of the Old Testament]:
"When strangers [another translation reads "aliens"] sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt"
The writer of this passage was describing events 3,500 years ago, not modern-day immigration, legal or illegal.
The Bible describes how Jacob, who was given the name "Israel" by God signifying his struggle with the Lord, would join his son, Joseph, in Egypt, and how Jacob's small band of straggling shepherds would become in 400 years nearly 2 million people. The Israelites would become slaves, and eventually be led by Moses back to the land promised to the patriarch Abraham.
Leviticus 19:33-34 makes acceptance — love — of non-Jews a commandment, and asserts that God is sovereign over Gentiles as well as Jews.
The New Testament begins with a migration story, of Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem from Nazareth for the birth of Jesus in an agricultural outpost.
Later, facing religious persecution, his family would flee to Egypt.
Jesus was not only the child of migrants, but, Christians believe, he came from another realm to rescue humanity — an "alien"
Jesus moved like an itinerant spiritual worker throughout Israel, traveling from town to town to preach the kingdom of heaven.
Our kingdom is not of this world.
The Jewish apostle Paul would write in Ephesians: "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household"
This is my story. To remember where I came from — and to treat others with the mercy and kindness shown to me.
Check out Don Miller's blog at http://www.santacruzlive.com/blogs/donmiller/ Email for Don Miller should be sent to dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us