Si, Se Puede!

Go look at the photos of all the immigrant justice demonstrations at Yahoo. See the march (credit AP) in Phoenix (left). They erupted in more than 140 cities and towns in the nation yesterday and over the weekend, including here. Doesn't it make you proud to be an American? I watched the rally on the mall in Washington DC on CSPAN yesterday and it gave me shivers down my spine. Literally. I haven't see this much enthusiasm and love for what are genuinely American values, this much hopefulness and excitement on the streets, in years. If there are any perfect symbols for the open-hearted opportunities the nation has provided to the downtrodden and suffering for decades, these marches are it. For me anyway.

Looking at these massive crowds clamoring to be Americans in reality, not just in spirit, I kept thinking, aren't these the very kinds of citizens we have always wanted and, in fact, need to stay alive and jumping? People willing to take a risk for freedom and opportunity -- ambitious, hard-working, energetic, creative, practical, hopeful people. The very types of people who have made our nation what it was for many years -- a beacon of hope and a symbol of justice, fairness and ingenuity. I found the powerful shouts of "si, se puede," of "USA-USA," of "we are one people," to be thrilling and inspiring.

But then again, I grew up in a place created almost exclusively by immigrants, and that's still being molded by them daily. The Chicago where I grew up in the 1950's was a cacophy of languages, foods, customs, religions and ethnicities. I grew up in the blue collar neighborhoods that were the second or third stops immigrant families made after leaving the "old neighborhoods" of their youth. The path out of the masses of tenements that housed their parents and grandparents, and where they grew up mostly poor.

Almost to a household in my era, the grandparents did not speak English beyond a few phrases, but the parents did. And certainly in my generation of children, most of us instead knew only fragments of Polish, German, Italian, Lituanian or other languages of orgin. We were Americans through and through. Although our older relatives were often illiterate, we became college graduates.

The younger ones always become Americans. I don't care whether their parents or grandparents come from Ireland, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Africa, Mexico, Central America, South America or any other place. America is contagious. The very idea and spirit of America is the lure, the reward and the decisive factor. All immigrant families produce Americans, though sometimes not until the next generation. It has always been this way.

Where I grew up, most of the grandparents were the poorest of the poor peasants from abroad, come to make a new home where it would be easier for their children, not so much for themselves. For themselves there was only hard work, sacrifice and perhaps a 5-cent movie once a week. My grandmother, for instance, one of 14 children in her family, left a farm in Poland on her own at the age of 13 to work as a dishwasher in Sweden. Their much subdivided farm plot could not support 16 people. She was one of the youngest, so she was encouraged to leave.

At 17 she made it to America, staying at first with an older sister who had already arrived in Chicago. Again, she worked as a dishwasher, then worked her way up to the position of cook at a quality restaurant in downtown Chicago. Then she married and had three children, two of whom finished high school and one of whom -- my mother -- quit school at 16 to work since my grandfather had died young. Meanwhile my grandmother got a job cleaning offices downtown. My mother's two children -- myself and my brother -- both graduated college. A common story in the neighborhoods I spent my youth.

What is different about the immigrants I knew growing up and those who come from Mexico now? Only one thing -- absurdly low immigration quotas that have made them "illegals or "undocumented." It's important to realize that America had no immigration quotas until the mid-1920s. Before that, it was a free-for-all. The huddled masses were entirely welcome. And even after, for many years, the quotas were very high, the legal immigrants allowed in many. As is the case now, there were dirty jobs to do that weren't appealing to most workers who were born here. Some things never change.

Why were immigration quotas finally enacted? The same fears and biases that are present all too often in the current debate. Remember reading about the signs around New York and Boston that read, 'No Dogs or Irish Allowed"? Oh, it was scary to have so many swarthy, oily, ignorant, smelly, nasty, drunken, unhealthy, sneaky foreigners coming to our soil! They didn't speak English! They never would! They would never "assimilate"! They weren't really Americans. They were disloyal. They were communists. They were dangerous. They would take the jobs of the Americans. Many of the same things are heard now, about this crop of immigrants.

And what is causing the significant increase of undocumented workers from Mexico? Numbers have skyrocketed since NAFTA was enacted. Think about it. The restrictions and requirements imposed by "free" trade, the world bank and other instruments of unfettered capitalism on Mexican workers and farmers has, for the most part, crushed them. When you practically force Mexico to import huge quantities of corn whose low price is subsidized by the American government, it destroys the livelihoods of thouands and thousands of small farmers who can't sell theirs. When you do the same with other goods, you shut down the jobs of small buinesses and their workers. It's not rocket science. And just wait until the full effects of CAFTA kick in. There will, no doubt, be large increases in the number of immigrants leaving their homes in Central America as well.

What results is massive dislocation and poverty on a grand scale, even worse then before. To eat, to survive, these people will do anything and go anywhere, especially when employers are there across the border, ready to snap them up and put them to work. Who wouldn't risk it if they were in the same circumstances? Only those whose spirits are already so broken by poverty and hopelessness that they can't make the move. What is created is an economic structure with a thin layer of ultra-rich investors, a destruction of the middle class, and an eruption of poverty for most people. Just think, the BushCo loyalists would like to create a similar economic mess right here, and they're already hard at work on that project.

So what can we do to solve the immigration "problem"? To my mind what we need to do is expand legal immigration quotas drastically, to suit the real situation on the ground. We need to provide a reasonable way for those already here to attain citizenship -- and stability. We need to put the pressure on our elected officials to make trade more fair and to rein in the worst traits of global capitalists. In other words, we need to push to make global trade, financial and trade forces serve the people, not the other way around. And if we legalize our immigrants in a proper manner, they can help us organize to accomplish this. They can vote for the people's concerns. They can join labor unions and push for higher wages. And you wonder why corporatists of both Parties are fighting this? No mystery to me...