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I think back about the sunset to the west, the red sun dropping down into the forest across the road. I’m a child on the cement stoop in the boon docks of N’orthn Indianer. I am en-wondered by seeing this beauty of light going down into the dark fingers of the trees… a forest that cannot hold the sun forever. It will rise. Again and again.
Even with raging alcohol eating up the men and women in the families, everyone’s family on our road. The tobacco, the same. The aluminum cook pans, the same. The chemicals for house and body and makeup and food, the same. I could still see beauty.
And, because I did not know how a seemingly innocent x often caused an unspeakable y, I did not know, none of us knew that eventually one would be found guilty of manslaughter while driving a sloped backed car and smelling of rye; how another would lose the only job that held the family because of the ten saloons in a row on the quarter mile of highway two roads over and the straw boss paid in liquor chits; another would die screaming from the throat and gut turned to stone by the whispered c word; another would forget where they lived, and then forget they had had children; another would be told go home, there’s no more we can do. Another would be burnt by lye boiling up out of the vat for washing metal at the factory. Another would … and another would.. and another would go down…
I did not know, was not old enough to realize, had no facts other than what whiskey and smoke and bone breaking work had said was the–not truth- but the only reality we had…
I did not realize that Death had come for my family, my neighbors, all the time, all of them, in what they grew, what they ate, the air they breathed, the vessels they ate and drank from and the substances taken in.
And why? Because in large part because they were immigrants and refugees, and there is hardly an easier group to mislead and intimidate.
So each in their own ways, innocent, naive beyond naive, in part because they did not read or write, or could not do it well, and information was kept from them by seeing black dashes and crosses on the page instead of words that meant something.
And because they did not know, they trusted. Though they seeded from plants they grew, and slaughtered their own livestock and hunted and fished… but did not know the rivers were running with cadmium and sludge from the iron mills to the west in Chicago, did not realize roofers and lathe builders were dumping their unused asbestos sotted materials into the creeks, did not realize that food from the grocery, what little one bought, was irradiated, did not realize the naive farmers who ‘seeded the clouds’ for rain, were dusting the fields also with poisons.
And dear reader might ask, what has all this to do with immigrants and the GOP?
Back then, in the time of my time, also certain politicians didn’t listen. We were a huge immigrant and refugee family. Most were in our neck of the woods from the war torn and post-war and thug-overrun E. Eu after WWII. Bulgarians, Hungarians, Estonians, Bohemians, Czechs, Romanians, Transylvanians, Poles, Danubians, Austrians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukraine, Yugoslavians, those of German extraction, as it was said back then… and many more, teeming in the Old Country, rushing at walls to try with every last ounce of strength in them to somehow, some way, board a big black ship in port cities devastated by the war… after having walked, WALKED, often half naked and starved, and worse, and in hiding, overland for often hundreds of miles, and now portside, fibbing and shaping and hoping and sheltering one another to try to come to Ameer-eek-ah.
And so many came. BY hook of by crook they came. And some were often accepted. Why? So many many young sons to work at poor wages. So many young women who could be workers at slave wages. We didn’t see it then. We only see it now… watching others from the Island nations and from Ireland and from the Americas, be treated the same way. The role of the mogul-conservatives in allowing and in fact fostering such conditions for their rich corporate buddies was lost on our elders. But not on us… because why? Because we could READ. Because we could read and learn the truths buried under the bs.
And in the 40s and 50s, when the USA closed off immigration by nationality, NOT favoring the E. Europeans, slamming the doors in the faces of the innocent and beaten down and life-threatened… the big brother, shoulders of North America, CANADA, opened its doors to the refugees and immigrants. And thus in our family, we have relatives who were able to make it to both sides of the border. And God Bless the Canuckts forever. {for us Canuckt was a term of deep affection} For their opening their arms to hard working, war-torn people.
So, just this. Those in our family and many other families who witnessed the conservatives of government saying ‘no way’ to those who wanted only to live and to work… we see it again, in this time right now, in how the government, specifically certain politicians, view the immigrant, the refugee. Badly. Often inhumanely. Often out of touch with the goodness of the poor and gifted and struggling— only happy to have their own personal fiefdoms without care for who stands in such hope and goodness –and weeping– outside their compound walls.
And some might think this is the end of the story. Too bad, so sad, the poor will always be with us.
But it isn’t, for it is an error to think of the people in such la lucha, such deep struggle as only ‘poor.’ To define them only by whether they have money. Huge oversight. Most of the people who want very much to come here, and who are here, with and without papers, are vastly talented and hardworking people with a deep track record of incessant hard work and family life, and struggle to be free.
Like the refugees and immigrants from post-WWII E. Eu. Very similar to them in those ways. Beyond hard working, so hopeful, so torn by so much war of so many kinds.
Some say, yes, I’ve heard all the talk: Keep out the poor people because they will scam the system. Sure. And what will one do about the millions of US citizens who scam the systems every day? Why not clean up our own millions of citizen-scammers first, and thereby free up startup resources for millions of new immigrants —who will put them to good use and be done with them asap— so those resources can then benefit others getting a start.
I could go on. But even those ideas of talent and verve and commitment are not how the GOP is losing in huge seven league boot leaps.
They will lose literally millions of votes, not at the moment perhaps, but in the next generation. The generation of kids of immigrants and refugees and those seeking asylum, those with and without papers –THEIR kids born in the USA, those who are now underage will become a pillar of fire in prominence and power– the power of the vote.
And. They will not forget how GOP politicians spoke about, attempted to harm, tried to dehumanize their beloved parents and often even more beloved grandparents. The daily insults from politicians [and media] in the GOP toward the innocent and those merely wanting to live and make better life for their families… are remembered, will always be remembered… and repeated throughout all the families…throughout each new generation.
Seeing how my father, my aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfather were treated here in the USA–mistreated, spit upon, mocked, menaced, marginalized, insulted, pushed, stolen from, threatened, closed out, treated with contempt and ridicule, treated without just heart, exploited, exposed to harms that the well-off politicians knew about [as in the mines, as in the gas fields, as in the farm fields, as in the vulcanization plants, as in the steel mills, as in contract labor, as in unfair and usurious purchase contracts, and so much more] but the workers were completely unaware–
they were being poisoned, being used, being harmed, for they were grateful. Grateful. To have a job, any skut job they could find.
They were grateful to live, not in squalor, for they cleaned everything ten times before the sun rose, but in the tiniest run down and dangerous neighborhoods… until they could ‘establish’ themselves, until someone would sell to a ‘dirty dp’, an ‘alien,’ a ‘gypsy’, a ___ [add here all the ethnic-smut name-calling of times ago].
And who saw all this. We, the first generation of our immigrant and refugee families, saw it all. And what did many of us do as we watched and processed and learned and were turned inside out with grief to see our beloveds so harmed… beloved ones who often shushed us and told us, do not resist nor retaliate, for the feared what would be done to all of us next? We grew up…with memory burned into us… memory of daily, weekly, yearly injustices… and many of us decided to vote NOT ON PARTY LINES as so so many used to do. But instead, to vote for truly the best person– of humane heart and clear mind.
To vote for those who truly had walked with us in trying to gain justice for those who were new to the nation and did not know its ways, its treacheries especially, while always believing America was good beyond good. Of those who did not insult our parents, of those who did not say, ‘just work them to death and let them die and be replaced by their children in harness–ad infinitum.’
We would not be in harness in the ways our elders were. The first generation in many ways, learned to vote against anyone who would try to do to a new wave of immigrants and work-seekers, what was done to our families. It wasn’t a passing thought growing up. I rowed hard toward the day I and all my peers would be able to vote… as much against those who lowered the boom on our families, as much for those who saw us, had always seen us as gifted in work ethic, family care and loyalty and love. Putting the family first. Working often without complaint. And deserving of being treated, paid and included in all groups and gatherings, all opportunities… with decency.
The bad, sad news for the GOP, is just this then… one might see many a little kid in the barrios which are everywhere hidden in plain sight… just a kid sitting on the stoop being all a-wonder at the sunset, and just think, ‘sleepy little kid.’ And no more thought.
But/and, I can pretty much guarantee that said little kid is taking in all that goes on around him and her. But that the vast beauty of many ways and means of life registering with that child… also causes many a child to become highly aware about the opposite, the ugliness and harms some senselessly bring to light in that child’s world.
Thus many a soul who is still yet a child, is likely planning who to run toward and with –in terms of making policy for the people… and it will never be the politicians who called down their loved ones, who tried to cut the family to ribbons, who tried to deprive, who treated so indecently, who withheld so much, who rained down such inhumanity on ser humanos, true human beings… those who did physical harm, who threatened and frightened an innocent, hopeful people.
Many a soul who is still yet a child and here in the US will grow up to choose those who can choose all the people, not just the favored few— in order to continue being elected ‘king’ of the tadpole pile.
The record of insult and hatred by far too many who ally with or are the GOP, regarding human beings who are here with and without papers, [in the main from Mexico and Central and South America, where ironically the USA has for years interfered and funded wars and mayhem that actually have driven so many frightened and war-torn souls to try to come to the USA] is so long, it would take a thousands of books to list all them in just the last 15 years.
My point is, and I believe I am but one case in point from my own generation which is post WWII… that the GOP has planted the seeds of its future losses in elections, perhaps even in the upcoming election, if GOP candidates are immigrant and refugee bashers, and think the immigrants and refugees cant see through the patronizing idea of a ‘worker program.’ Or setting up some guy or gal with a Hispanic last name as some kind of tribal bait, presuming everyone will think, ‘Ooooo, see Latinos are GOP-ers too, so I can be a GOP-er also’.
The GOP isn’t counting on the older immigrants seeing through that kind of claptrap talk and manipulation.
But the elders are seeing and will continue to see though all the GOP smoke.
Why?
Because their children, born here, and USA citizens, know English fluently and can READ. It is their own children who have told them about the scam of offering crumbs to the very bakers of the bread… the ones who have already contributed so much to our nation.
It is the children who have told their kin that just because a guy has a Spanish last name or married a Latino, or drinks cerveza once every election cycle with the headsmen of the neighborhood, or holds a rally at a “Latino” restaurant, or has one more mariachi band as though that’s the only music Latinos listen to… that those ‘Latino’ “garnishes” are NO proof that a politician is trustworthy and will represent all the people–including that he/she has solidity and the means to carry through also, for la gente.
The GOP falls farther and farther away from ever having viable contenders, with every bashing and slashing anyone gives out in the GOP’s name.
Though the elders of the refugee and immigrant groups may bow their heads, weep, and continue to work hard, heads down… their children are listening. And recording. And remembering. And informing their elders about who is true and who is false. Forever. For the truth about matters that matter, has no national boundaries. It goes by foot, overland, underground, everywhere.
The sun sets, covered over by night once again, at least it seems to us on earth. The sun rises. Brings light all around. Does not discriminate; shines on all equally at any given point. Is covered in darkness again. Rises again nonetheless… whether the cycle is 24 hour, ten years or ten decades. The sun rises again. We too.
CODA
… and the truth shall be spake by children…
Image: hummingbird, because they too have no national boundaries; they go where the work is, and fertilize many plants, bringing such abundance. Tzintzuntzan, ‘place of the hummingbirds’ in one of the old native languages of Mexico, considered a sacred place to remember hard work of great heart.
Sometimes musicians in the Americas are sometimes called ‘hummingbirds’ too, for there is much love through the USA and throughout the world regarding the many many musics of the Americas, from the folk musicians, to the chants of los indios y africanos, the Jewish chants and musics, to hip hop, to classical, to traditional musics of the small biospheres where people reside, to all manner of music mixes and rhythm beats from two or more cultures being in proximity long ago, or recently [and more] –and finding music a common language, including the enthusiastic musicas of the los autenicos, including mariachis, and what used to be called rancheros corridos, which are ballads about life right now and life long ago… often rough and also carrying truth of love and war and struggle.
Like the hummingbird, these hundreds of thousands of musics from the Americas [from most anywhere in the world,] do not respect national boundaries gouged arbitrarily by men onto riverbeds and onto desert sands. Music moves freely, leaps borders, is exemplar to human beings about how to strive to be free. Like Tzintzuntzan, ‘the place of the hummingbirds’ where people of great heart live to work hard and to be free.