Living the Dream

None of us earned the right to live where we do. We just didn't. Yes, there are laws that govern who can go where and we've created this thing called "citizenship" that gives some people more privileges than others, but nobody earned anything. I get that there are legitimate debates about how a country should be organized and although I am not a believer in borders or nations,
I can set that discussion aside for today.

This who DACA thing makes me sick. If you're unaware, this is the program that allows residents of the US who were brought here or sent here when they were children to get enough legal recognition to live, work, and go to school in the US. Again, I get that there's a series of laws that govern this sort of thing and some people would like to see them followed more closely than others - but I want to come at it from a different angle.

How are these people any different than you or I? They live in the same place, attend the same schools, work in and contribute to the community.
They pay taxes, take their kids to dance class, and volunteer in the same places we do. What makes them different? They were born somewhere else. They might have a different cultural heritage and history - maybe, but that's not even true in all cases. What makes them different?

I get that some people are rooted in one place for generations. I'm a wanderer. I lived in ten different states by the time I turned 30; my family has always moved around. I'm not "rooted" anywhere. I share a different history and cultural understanding from the people with whom I live right now.

Maybe I can only speak for me, but I'm not any different than the people affected by this DACA policy. Well, I'm white, I guess - but, you know what, so are some of the immigrants covered by this policy. Not every undocumented resident is Hispanic - some grew up speaking English. That's the difference, though, right - it's people who look and sound different from us that we want to target. Maybe not even that - it's probably strangers who look and sound different from us; if we know one of these people, live or work or go to school with them, we're much less likely to support their deportation, to send them back into the shadows.

It's the different and the unknown. Those should never be things to fear.

At one point, the English-speaking white folks were the immigrants to this country. They claimed divine right to be here - something higher than whatever law or custom the native people's might have valued. The documents they brought to justify their presence were signed by a foreign monarch who never set foot within the borders of their new land. When the natives objected, we killed them.

Maybe that's what we're afraid of? That the sins of our past will come back to haunt us. That's the message, right? That these immigrants will replace us, remove us, overtake us - that we'll be left unemployed and impoverished and morally defeated, struggling to survive and maintain a once glorious way of life?

I can't help by think about all those laws and regulations, borders and nations - this whole system we've set up to regulate who can be where,
when, and why - I can't help but think about how that process if viewed on the native american reservations scattered across this land.

Even if every bit of racist, fear-mongering propaganda concerning immigrants were true (and none of it is) - we've still got no moral right to object to any of it.

Either the dream is for those who take it or it's not - we can't have it both ways.