Reading: from a piece published in The Sun Magazine (Nov. 2008), the name of the author was withheld
The morning the U.S. marshals rang our doorbell at 5 a.m., I answered in my green frog pajamas. When I saw the police cars and flashing lights, I figured our downstairs neighbors had had another domestic dispute, but then a female officer asked for my husband. The marshals followed me upstairs and arrested my groggy spouse. I begged them please not to wake our children; the last thing I wanted them to see was their daddy in handcuffs.
The marshals asked for my husband’s passport, and — not knowing we could refuse — we gave it to them. (This would speed the deportation proceedings.) I watched from the living-room window in shock as my hardworking husband of thirteen years was taken away. This shy, sweet man who’d painted my mother’s front steps and filled her empty refrigerator with food, who’d played Uno with our kids and washed our daughter’s hair every Saturday night, was gone. With him went our security, both financial and emotional.
It is now four years later, and I’m struggling to make mortgage payments and maintain a long-distance marriage. My husband and I made the tough decision that the children should live… with him. I still live in the U.S., in a one-room studio, and support both households on a single income.
Some mornings I wake up in my queen-size bed and reach for my husband. Then I remember that I am alone, and I wonder how I got here.
Reading: by investigative reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele, from an article that appeared in Time magazine (Sept. 20, 2004), entitled “Who Left the Door Open?”
In a single day, more than 4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful gateway into the U.S., the 375-mile border between Arizona and Mexico. No searches for weapons. No shoe removal. No photo-ID checks. Before long, many will obtain phony identification papers, including bogus Social Security numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their unlawful presence.
The influx is so great, the invaders seemingly trip over one another…
Who’s to blame for all the intruders? While the growing millions of illegal aliens cross the border on their own two feet, the problem is one of the U.S.’s own making. The government doesn’t want to fix it, and politicians, as usual, are dodging the issue, even though public-opinion polls show that Americans overwhelmingly favor a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Reading: by the Mexican poet Alberto Blanco, a poem entitled “My Tribe” (translated by James Nolan)
Earth is the same
sky another.
Sky is the same
earth another.
From lake to lake,
forest to forest:
which tribe is mine?
—I ask myself—
where’s my place?
Perhaps I belong to the tribe
of those who have none;
or to the black sheep tribe;
or to a tribe whose ancestors
come from the future:
A tribe on the horizon.
But if I have to belong to some tribe
—I tell myself—
make it a large tribe,
make it a strong tribe,
one in which nobody
is left out,
in which everybody,
for once and for all
has a God-given place.
I’m not talking about a human tribe.
I’m not talking about a planetary tribe.
I’m not even talking about a universal one.
I’m talking about a tribe you can’t talk about.
A tribe that’s always been
but whose existence must yet be proven.
A tribe that’s always been
but whose existence
we can prove right now.
This Land is Your Land?
A Sermon Delivered on November 20, 2011
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
This coming week many of us will have a day or two off from work, to celebrate a national holiday, and maybe even enjoy a special meal with friends and family. As far as holidays go, Thanksgiving is a good one. It combines themes of gratitude, the blessings of nature and harvest, as well as a celebration of human fellowship.
The story of the First Thanksgiving paints a pretty picture of friendship that extends beyond boundaries nation and race. The Pilgrims, so the story goes, would not have survived their first winter at Plymouth Colony without the help of the Native Americans. The following year, in fall of 1621, a harvest festival lasting three days was held, at which the Pilgrims welcomed their Wampanoag neighbors into their midst, celebrating their friendship, and thanking God for their bountiful harvest.
* * *
The Pilgrims were immigrants to these shores, hoping for a better life here, than they knew in Europe. And, according to the Thanksgiving story, they were welcomed here with open and arms by a generous and compassionate tribe.
Reflecting on the Thanksgiving story today, 390 years later, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if the Pilgrims walked onto a New England beach in 2011, hoping to build a life here.
Lacking proper paperwork, I imagine, the Pilgrims arriving on our shores today, would invariably be considered illegal aliens. And this raises all sorts of complicated questions.
But, first off let me tell you, I am not an impartial observer when it comes to immigration issues. You see, I myself am an alien. I am not an American citizen. I’m German. And I am with you today, because of this little card right here (show card). It’s called a Green Card, but it isn’t really green. It took some doing to get it. This card expires on October 1, 2013. And over the years that I’ve had a Green Card, a lot of rules have changed: what I need to do to renew it, and how long it is valid. Especially after September 11, 2001, things got a lot trickier. But I have little doubt my Green Card will be renewed again.
* * *
The majority of U.S. citizens have little tolerance for illegal immigrants. The latest anti-immigration legislation in Alabama is a good example. Alabamans now need to prove their immigration status for “any transaction between a person and the state,” for instance renewing a driver’s license or registering an automobile. In some Alabama cities utility companies are now barred from providing services to illegal immigrants. The immigrants need to get by without running water and sewer access.
Any agency or official that doesn’t carry out the law to the fullest can face civil or criminal penalties. Simply observing a violation and failing to report it is a crime that can lead to felony charges. According to some state lawmakers, proof of citizenship now needs to be provided when arranging for garbage pickup, applying for a dog license, or getting flu shots at county health departments. (NYT, Nov. 16, 2011, “In Alabama, Calls for Revamping Immigration Law.”)
Between 1996 and 2006, 1.8 million illegal immigrants have been deported from the U.S.. Most are from Mexico.
* * *
U.S. citizens, we are told, have little tolerance for illegal immigrants. We call them illegal aliens, a species unto itself; aliens, like the little green men from Mars. Not quite human. Or simply “illegals.” People, who by their very presence are breaking the law. Fugitives, criminals, invaders, intruders. That’s the way we are supposed to think of them.
In fact, however, while entering the U.S. without permission is a criminal offense, it is only a minor misdemeanor. And living or working here without permission, is only a civil infraction, not a crime. According to the law, it is not like trespassing, it’s more like the ticket you would get for jaywalking. (Jane Guskin, David Wilson The Politics of Immigration, p. 40)
And yet, illegal immigrants can be jailed in a detention center for years, because of bureaucratic delays or backlogged federal courts. Their presence in this country without permission is only a civil violation. But they are imprisoned as if they were being punished for a serious crime.
I wonder how our Thanksgiving story would be told today, if the Pilgrims had been imprisoned by the Wampanoag immigration authorities, spending months or years in a rustic prison, before being sent back to Europe.
* * *
There are many factors that contribute to the migration of Mexicans to the U.S. and back.
In the course of the twentieth century, Mexico grew from a mainly agricultural country to the world’s thirteenth largest economy, right ahead of Russia. In the 1980s, Mexico suffered a financial crisis. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which we negotiated in the early 1990s, was supposed to help. But instead, NAFTA’s elimination of protective tariffs forced 1.5 million Mexican farmers out of business, and forced them to abandon their farms. Farmers earned 70 percent less for the corn they sold, but Mexicans paid 50 percent more for the tortillas they ate. Meanwhile, the purchasing power for the Mexican minimum wage fell by two-thirds between 1980 and 1996.
This kind of economic crisis leads men and women to seek employment in the U.S. despite the dangers involved.
The Catholic bishop John Wester sees migrants from Mexico to the U.S. as pawns in a game of chess played by their respective governments. He writes:
“Migrants from Mexico, unable to support their families at home, take a dangerous journey to the United States and fill menial but crucial jobs in the U.S. economy — dishwashers, farmworkers and day laborers, for example.
As a result, the United States receives the benefit of their toil and taxes without having to worry about protecting their rights — in either the courtroom or the workplace. When convenient, they are made political scapegoats and attacked — through both rhetoric and work-site raids — as if they were not human.
But Mexico also wins financially under this system. The country receives up to $20 billion in remittances per year… [the money sent from workers in the U.S. to their family members in Mexico]
What is left is a “go north” policy that exposes Mexican citizens to the ravages of human smugglers, corrupt law enforcement officials and potential death in the desert.
The big losers in this globalization game are the migrants, of course. They have no political power and are unable to defend themselves from inevitable abuse and exploitation.” (Politico, May 19, 2010, “Migrants pawns in Mexico-U.S. game”)
I wonder how history would have unfolded if the Pilgrims had encountered barbed wire fences running hundreds of miles along the coast. Imagine if they managed to moor their boats, scale the fences, and reach solid land, only to be confronted by a Native American volunteer police force that either imprisoned them, or, in short order hurled them back into the sea - indifferent whether they would live or die.
* * *
The complicated relationship between Mexico and the U.S. has a long history.
Two hundred years after the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving, and called this land their home, Mexicans had reason to celebrate a new home, too. That year Mexicans brought their revolutionary war against Spain to a victorious end. In 1821 Mexico was no longer a Spanish colony, but a country of its own. At the time Mexico was about twice the size it is today. It included today’s Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, and part of Colorado.
But when James Polk was elected President of the United States in 1845, it soon became clear that he had serious expansionist ambitions. In 1803 Thomas Jefferson had doubled the territory of the United States, buying vast stretches of the Midwest from France in the Louisiana Purchase. Forty-two years later, Polk was determined to see the United States extend to the Pacific shore.
It was that same year, 1845, that newspaper editor John Sullivan, captured the spirit of many Americans when he wrote, it was “Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” It was God’s will, he said, that the land extending from East coast to West should be ours.
What President Polk did, was send U.S. army troops 150 miles into Texas Mexican territory, chasing away the inhabitants, and building a fort on the bank of the Rio Grande. Mexicans did not take kindly to this provocation, and in April of 1846, a patrol of U.S. soldiers was attacked, leaving sixteen dead.
President Polk was promptly informed that “hostilities had commenced.” This was just the news he was waiting for: the Mexicans had fired the first shot. Thus the U.S. could declare war on Mexico in retaliation for this Mexican “act of aggression.”
A large portion of the U.S. population welcomed the war, and the opportunity for expansion of their lands. But not everyone did. Earlier that year, Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, commander of the 3rd infantry regiment wrote in his diary: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors… We have not one particle of right to be here… It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of a war between the United States and Mexico… My heart is not in this business… but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders.”
Congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio called it “an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war.”… “In the murder of Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can take no part either now or hereafter….”
These were minority opinions. Henry David Thoreau was also an outspoken opponent of the war, and chose to spend a night in jail rather than pay taxes in support for the war-effort. His reflections on this experience deepened his affirmation of civil disobedience. And his writings on civil disobedience, in turn, inspired - among others - Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin Buber, and Leo Tolstoy.
Walt Whitman captured the sentiment of most Americans, when he wrote, “Yes: Mexico must be thoroughly chastised!... Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not forward for a quarrel, America knows how to crush, as well as how to expand!” (Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, p.147-152)
In 1848 Mexico surrendered. And what was once their land became our land, now stretching from California to the New York Island.
Suddenly 300,000 Mexicans found themselves living in the United States. Initially there were no restrictions to migration between the U.S. and Mexico. But over the years immigration laws became more restrictive. The laws changed depending on U.S. economic interests. Early in the twentieth century it was easy for Mexicans to emigrate into the U.S.. Their inexpensive labor was welcome. During the Great Depression, when jobs were scarce, many Mexicans were forced back out of the U.S.. Between 1929 and 1931, legal Mexican immigration fell by 95 percent.
Our definitions of legal or illegal immigration have always been in a state of flux.
Today, as the U.S. economy struggles along, Mexicans are once again cast as villains. Hard working men and women, tax-paying residents, loving families are torn apart and treated as if they were the intruders, as if they were the invaders in our land.
* * *
Thanksgiving is a fine holiday. It tells a compelling story of friendship that extends beyond boundaries of nation and race. But it is not a historically accurate story. It doesn’t capture the tension and warfare that existed between Settlers and Natives in 17th century New England. It doesn’t describe the how Europeans systematically drove the Natives from their land, so that we could create a country of our own here: the United States. Our land.
No, the Thanksgiving story is not about a past we remember, it is about a future we envision. It isn’t a story about the actual European encounter with the Wampanoag tribe. It is a story about a tribe we have yet to create: a tribe in which nobody is left out.
Thanksgiving is about a tribe we long for, but whose existence must yet be proven. A tribe that has long lived within our moral imagination, and whose existence we can prove right now.
May Thanksgiving inspire us to transcend the boundaries that would divide us,
and help us see that we are all brothers and sisters.
May we each do our part to make this a land
In which nobody is left out,
In which everybody has a God-given place.
Amen.
