Dear HCN,
As the saying
goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Such
blindness must be willful indeed, when the impaired need look no
further than nine pages away to sees the light.
In his
essay, “A son of immigrants has a change of heart” (HCN, 2/3/03:
The son of immigrants has a change of heart), Ed Marston sounds his
alarm against the threatening wave of Mexicans teeming toward him
from la frontera. Nine pages into the same issue, Paolo Bacigalupi
reports on the results of this type of racism — open season
on anyone with brown skin (whether actually Mexican or only
appearing to be Mexican).
In his blindness, Ed Marston
ignores decades of U.S. political and economic policies that have
triggered immigration from Mexico, both intentionally and
inadvertently. He also sidesteps the legacies of numerous U.S.
administrations that have sought to prevent women’s
reproductive control over their own bodies in countries around the
world.
Answers to our problems will come not from the
exclusionary mentality of “immigrants vs. the rest of us.” They
will come instead from an inclusive understanding that all
immigrants and all descendants of immigrants must work together,
wherever we find ourselves, to create a common voice and a powerful
hand. With both of these democratic essentials, we can build
sustainable, self-sufficient communities in which our love of the
land informs every decision we make.
I do agree with Ed on
one thing: It would be good for those of us in the U.S. to clean
our own toilets, slaughter our own chickens and cattle, and pick
our own strawberries. Many in the U.S., of course, already do these
things. Perhaps the rest of us can learn from our compañeros.
Kenya Hart
Missoula, Montana
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Empower immigrants — don’t knock them out.
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