A bunch of disjoined thoughts loosely related to this subject and with no particular point to make.
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(1)
I was reminded of a song by Paul Simon called (I think) “Have a good day”. I do not have it here and I could not find the lyrics on the net but they go something like this:
god bless our standard of living
god bless the US of A
god bless the goods we were given…
and let’s keep it that way.
Have a good day…
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(2)
I just visited another forum where many illegal immigrants are discussing their woes. I was fascinated with the story of this particular girl. It was told over many posts and she was not trying to make any point, just sharing her story like the others were sharing theirs. I found it moving.
She belonged to an extremely poor family in Mexico. One day another girl said to her “we have no future here, let us go North and work for a few months so we can come back with some money”. She decided to do it but she could not tell her mother as she knew she would not let her go, so she wrote a note and handed it to her as she left. In it she told her she was not being a bad daughter but trying to help out. Her mother could not read and by the time she found out it was too late.
They hired a coyote to help them get across the border. They were terrified being only teenagers and having heard so many stories of rape and abuse. Two times they were caught and sent back but the third time they succeeded in crossing from Tijuana by some underground tunnel (I believe it was a gutter).
She got a job babysitting and housekeeping and would send as much money as she could back to her mother. Initially her intention was to return after a few months and she longed to go back but she realized if she did it would be very difficult to get back into the US. So she stayed on and months turned into years. Ocassionally she would talk to her mother on the phone.
One day her mother tells her she has some serious health problem (I think it was cancer). The daughter is terrified and doesn’t know what to do. For one thing there’s no way she can afford the operation. Then her mother tells her the truth: “All the money you were sending me, I never spent any of it, I was keeping it for you because it is yours”. So she tells her to use the money for the operation.
To make a long story short. First she marries some mexican bum who mistreats her so they do not last long and they divorce. Later she marries a gringo and now she is happily married. It sounds like she must be close to 40 now so the story takes place over 20 years.
I found her story moving especially because of the way it was told. What amazed me about the whole story is there is not a trace of bitterness of self pity or feeling the world was unfair to her. Just a joy of living and managing to get ahead with hard work.
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(3)
Obviously people with training and skills contribute to the economy but even uneducated people will contribute. What counts is an ethic of effort and work. Yes, this woman may be uneducated but it is people like these that come and do the jobs that Americans in her same situation will not do because they would rather complain about how unfair the world is.
I have profound admiration for all those Asian refugees who arrived here with nothing, not speaking a word of English, and through hard work managed to get ahead and give their children an education and a good position in life. These people with a strong work ethic are an asset anywhere.
Here in Washington DC I used to buy food from a Chinese carry out. The family lived in that one room, the elderly grandparents spoke no English, just smiled. The teenage daughter seemed to always be studying if she was not attending some customer. They were in a black neighborhood where most people would not want to open a store because it was not safe, but they tried to make a living there, where nobody else would want to do it.
One day, a teenage kid walked into the store to hold it up and shot the grandfather dead. This was 7 or 8 years ago… the store never opened again and the community lost probably the best family they had.
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(4)
The same people who today find it natural to deny someone the right to live here and make a living on account of his nationality, cannot comprehend that 100 years ago (or even today) someone might feel the same way on account of race.
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(5)
When I said immigration policy is designed to keep people out rather than admit those than admit people I meant that the purpose is to find reasons to keep you out rather than to make sure you meet the criteria that would admit you.
When I was in college we had this teacher who used to like trick questions in tests and a friend of mine put it very well: “this guy is out to find what you don’t know rather that what you do know”. In other words, his test was not designed to see if you knew what you should know to pass but rather to try to catch you and fail you.
This country’s immigration policy works on the same idea and it is enforced by petty bureaucrats who get a kick out of abusing their power.
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(6)
Getting back to immigration policy, I think rather than give H1 visas it would be better to give immigrant visas directly instead. It would save a ton of bureaucracy and would make the life of those admitted a ton easier. I say, if you have an education (and/or money to start your business) that show you will not be a charge to the country, you should be given leave to enter without further hassle.
In fact, I would go even further. I can understand some people might use the argument that you can’t just let everyone in without any limits because they would flood the country. But how about giving unrestricted access to people from any developed country (Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia etc) in exchange for reciprocity? I think that is totally viable and would not result in any major disruption. (anyone who thinks large numbers of people from those countries cannot wait to come to the US is delusional).
This would also make life easier for Americans going to those countries (and there are quite a few, my cousin who is American recently married her Dutch boyfriend in part because she was tired of having problems over there).
I am sure this open door policy would work pretty well. In Europe some years ago the richer countries were hesitant to open borders and free travel because they were afraid of a flood of people from the poorer countries. Well, finally it was done and guess what… no flood of any kind happened. People generally prefer not to move unless they are desperate.
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Well, enough musings for now, it’s coffee time for me… but I am very interested in this topic and what others have to say about it.
