One one think that immigration has come a long way since the Mayflower, however in moments when hearing stories like the one my nephew tweeted some days ago I shudder.
To fully understand the point I want to make, here goes the tweet.
Why do people make assumptions about others based solely on the way they look?
What is it with brown, black, white, yellow and all the colors in between?
Hey, if you wanted to make meaningless conversation, please try a safer topic than race.
Really??? Has every Mexican been to Mexico? Has every Puerto Rican been to Puerto Rico? Has every English descendant been to England, or Spain, or Finland????
The funniest part of all this mumbo-jumbo is that the United States of America is yet a nation that is on its path to discovery. A nation born from immigrants, a home away from home, a place that was alien for them. Where they became the first illegal citizens, running from a government that repressed them in every way.
A nation that is young in age and in history. Making awful mistakes along the way.
I would not be surprised if we end up like the chilling ending of the long forgotten movie “Planets of the Apes” with Miss. Liberty buried in the ground and a nation in pieces.
It is so much better to be a bystander! Staying on the side of things and having the leisure of looking at others pass along (looking without truly seeing). Many of us are always trying to keep our feelings and emotions in check, so nothing or nobody can hurt us. Yet is that real life? Is pain so wrong? If we are brave enough to step into the unknown land of empathy we can grow in stature out of pain, and ultimately change our ways.
Yesterday I saw in my Facebook news feed a photo of people from Mexico crossing the border and on the picture or on top, there was a question asking if you knew what the national sport in Mexico was, to which then it went on to answer crossroad. It reminded me of pictures of refugees fleeing from their country in lines of two. It’s very easy to make a stupid joke of the problems are world is facing and brush them off to the side as nothing, but the truth is it’s not that easy. When we do brush important things to the side eventually they come back even more harder to deal with.
photo credit via morgueFile
Empathy is when we are capable of putting ourselves in the place of others. We have lost this ability, has it been wiped off all of us? Is it necessary for us to endure poverty, hunger, violence and the ugly side of living for us to become empathetic? I don’t think so!!!! Empathy will flow when we give all those immigrants in the United States a face, a story, or when we get to know who they are. You may be surprised to find out that you will care after that. No longer will it be something distant to you. You will have all these families close to your heart and your prayers and most importantly, you will want to do something about it even if its only feeling empathy for them.
Probably right at this moment if you stumble across this blog, you’ll say well “tough luck” we can’t do everything for everyone. Reality is that they are not asking you do everything, what they want is an opportunity to be able to work.
Fixing this mess isn’t easy and it will take much more than feeling empathy, but at least people around the country should unite their voices and stand strong to demand immigration laws that will protect the nation’s borders without compromising the basic human rights all of us are entitled to. I’m not saying we live without immigration laws, every country needs to have law and order, what I’m trying to convey here is that these laws provide the due exceptions so there fair and human.
Let us stand together in that crossroad and unite while we share a helping hand, hope and the willingness to do something about it. Life is not about being comfortable, it’s about living and living comes with a price tag. Are you willing to pay the price?
