For the past two months, my daugher's boyfriend's been laying rubber every weekend between Ft. Riley in Kansas and our little Texas town. He's not supposed to be deployed until December. Since this is about the fourth time those two have dated seriously, we know his family pretty well; we've become pretty good friends, whether or not the kids are doing angst this week.
We all got together for a picnic at the lake after Easter services. It was hot, windy, and stunningly gorgeous: spring green grasses against rusty orange rocks ringing fresh azure waters ... the lake whispered cool breezes into deep shade from friendly oaks that dotted dusty bluffs along the rocky shores of the lake. Scents of sizzling burgers and snippets of conversation snaked like lazy tendrils along the lake, and it's a Texas public park, so most those snippets were in Spanish. (more)
Now the kids and the dog spent most of their time in the water -- throwing each other back and forth, splashing, diving, burning lobster red in the sun ... while the adults lazed in the shade, flipping a burger, liberating a Dos Equis now and again, making observations about our respective offspring, grousing good-naturedly about funny spousal weirdnesses, comparing notes about Easter sermons.
The lake's about five minutes from my house -- but we spent about an hour locating a place to park and perch. Problem was, it seemed like every Hispanic immigrant in about a hundred mile radius was already there, and set up for the day. I only saw two other groups non-Hispanics the whole day, I guess we gringo's get started a little later.
My daughter and husband both speak Spanish but you know, there's a certain basic communication between moms of every culture. Here's an example from yesterday:
Our German Shephard looks like he belongs on interrogation duty at Abu Gharib, but in his breast beats the heart of a cuddle bunny. And, he loves kids who generally love him right back.
However, at one point, he loped up to a little Hispanic girl for pets and belly rubs, tail wagging, tongue hanging out in a big doggie "hiya!" -- and she burst out crying and ran. I grabbed his collar, because I don't like him to scare people, although I do understand that to the dog, it must have been become some huge canine joke. Then, I went to her mom to apologize because I don't like to have either my kids or my dog in trouble.
Of course, her mother didn't speak a word of English, and I'm clueless about Spanish (apart from please, thankyou and how much does it cost). But somehow, between us, I managed to transmit "I'm-really-sorry", and she replied "don't-worry-about-it". She petted the dog, while her daughter cringed, cried louder, and ran to her daddy who protectively scooped her up and tenderly wiped her tears away. Her mom and I watched the father-daughter tableaux, then glanced at each other, rolled eyes, shrugged, and grinned. We could not exchange one intelligible word -- but the messages were loud and clear.
I'll never know the immigration status of the little girl's family -- but I do know that the US government, in concert with the Mexican government, has betrayed folks on both sides of the border.
For starters, what's with Mexico, anyway --- there are plenty of natural resources, hardworking people, and an amazing heritage. Theirs is an economy that should be thriving, so why has Fox's big economic plan been to distribute comic books detailing how to sneak into America? Why should a Mexican mom have to agree to uproot her entire family, leave friends and relatives in the town her kids grew up in, which is likely to be a place her family's lived for generations, in order to find work, and services here in the USA?
Then, there's betrayal on our side of the border. Why is it such a convoluted process to become an American citizen? Why do we permit the INS bureaucracy to perpetuate nonsensical, illogical, destructive weirdnesses?
Why is it that immigrants cannot come across our Southern border in an orderly and rational fashion? Why do we allow "coyotes" to destroy private property in the process -- which gives all Latino immigrants a bad name?
Citizens, immigrants and illegals -- we've all been betrayed in terms of basic security. Does anyone imagine for a second that Al Quada will stop to check Mexican immigration status while they're plotting an event on American soil? The mess down at the border allows terrorists to truck any weapon their hearts desire right into the heart of our country, which has probably already happened anyway. While our leaders have been dickering with voting blocs, we've given Al Quada years to come on in like everybody else, toting whatever baggage they want to.
Now, I don't want amnesty; it doesn't work, it's not just, and it sets us up for alot of problems, as it did back in the Reagan era. But, I'm also not against streamlining the citizenship process. We probably need to raise the quota's; maybe we could just deport the entire existing INS bureaucracy for openers.
But --- every single sane intervention starts with sealing the danged border, and permitting state and local law enforcement to do its job.
Unfortunately, it looks like our leaders are going to dither; they're catering to perceived political blocs, and wealthy donors, who just want to slap a new label on the same old status quo.
Yesterday, despite the lure de la coeur, my daughter was late to the picnic. She missed Easter services, too, because her employer scheduled her to work. She has a job at the local burger franchise; most of her co-workers are Mexican immigrants (maybe legal, maybe not, nobody really looks too closely. She was one of two gringo's there yesterday; I guess they were performing one of those jobs "Americans won't do."
She's made friends with her co-workers. A couple of kids she works with have offered to help her with Spanish, in return for her helping them with English. As a result, she's making her A's in AP Spanish, and her Mexican friends are communicating better; at least they're telling her their schoolwork's a little more understandable in the non Spanish classes in high school.
This is how it's supposed to work with immigration -- not with "Reconquista" inspired, LULAC organized marches where partisans of every stripe race around hounding people to collect prospective voters. Not with politicians running in circles scared of the issue, while trying to hang onto big campaign donations from wealthy donors. And not with masses of people being manipulated to hate each other by a clueless press.
Trust me on this one -- if we can get a crumb of sanity out of our lawmakers, we'll work it out with each other. We always have.
(Crossposted at RedState.Com http://fraubudgie.redstate.com/)