On May 1st, the nation saw a series of walkouts and demonstrations in support of the country's 12 million illegal aliens.
Although I didn't attend the rally myself, I did atend a screening of 'A Day Without a Mexican' which examines what might happen to California if all the Mexicans disappeared. It's actually not as interesting in execution as it in concept. Still, it got the point across - without Mexican immigrants (and Latin American immigrants generally), this country would basically collapse. Not enough fruit-pickers, maids, nannies, yard workers, contruction workers, waiters, janitors, etc. In their native countries they might be nuclear physicists, but here they're just cheap labor.
When I was a little kid my parents hired a Guetemalan immigrant to look after me and my brothers. Was she legal? I doubt it. But anyone who wanted to kick her out of this country and send her back had to be totally ignorant of the situation.
You see, a string of US-supported military dictatorships in virtually every Latin American made those countries oh-so-fleeable. And the nearest place that wasn't under the force of American power was America. So that's where they went.
Of course, we were always perfectly happy letting Cubans flee to our country. Cuba is communist and everyone who flees from them deserves asylum. Not so from Nicaragua, Haiti, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, or any of the other places which were just as bad.
Now, most Latin American countries are more or less democratic, though grinding poverty is still the norm thanks to forty years of the 'Washington Consensus'. So the immigrants keep coming.
What to do with them?
Well, you can't deport 12 million people - and anyway, more immigrants would just come to fill in all jobs left empty by their departure. Besides, America depends on immigration to keep it's population from falling.
A 'guest worker' program is a sure fire way to make them feel alienated and sullen. You're here to work, dammit, and work is what you'll do!
Beef up security at the border? After 9/11, everything is about 'security', though of course there are no records of any international terrorists sneaking through American via Mexico. The hijackers come from elsewhere, and drug dealers just fly first class.
Build a fence? That'll work, so long as Mexico doesn't sell shovels and we put five million border guards on patrol.
I say, give them citizenship and stop pretending like our national character is at risk or something.
There's some kind of controversy swirling around the recording of 'Nuestro Himno', a Spanish-language version of 'The Star-Spangled Banner'. I couldn't care less. It's still going to be warlike and unsingable.
