Being a loving and caring parent. The willingness to roll up your sleeves and work hard, sometimes at multiple jobs, just to secure a brighter future for your family. Raising your children to be respectful and well-behaved. Taking responsibility for the care of elderly parents or grandparents, and treating them with the dignity they deserve. Sharing your hard-earned money with relatives who do not have the opportunity to earn such for themselves. The list goes on, but the bottom line is: these are traits which we have been told since we were children that we should aspire to. But for the hundreds of thousands of Hispanic immigrants in our state, many of whom share these traits and more, instead of our admiration, we shower them with contempt and force them to live outside our supposedly enlightened society.
We should ask ourselves one very important question: do we really believe in these traits? What we, in our arrogant pride, would describe as uniquely American values? Regardless of how you would answer that, your behavior reveals the truth of it.
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