Immigrants and the American dream

Immigration reform proposals largely a distraction for the country's real problems

By Alan Ouellette
The Collegian

LAST MONDAY’S WALKOUTS and demonstrations on campus and throughout the country showed Americans just how valuable immigrants are to our nation’s economy. Perhaps Dave Carpenter of the Associated Press phrased it most concisely, “A lot of work wouldn’t get done without them.”

Dubbed “A Day Without An Immigrant,” Monday’s peaceful boycott made visible our nation’s dependency on the labor and services immigrants provide our country.

With immigrants representing 5 percent of the United States economy, the images of the 400,000 people marching throughout the business district in Chicago or the views of empty fields in Salinas from Highway 101 forced many Americans to confront the issue in a new light.

It also functioned in two equally important, yet perhaps more implicit, ways.

While the boycott forwarded a compelling argument against sweeping immigration reform rooted in the economic impact of a future without immigrants, it also served to humanize a traditionally marginalized and, indeed, demonized segment of the population.

“A Day Without An Immigrant” gave a voice to those that have been voiceless for too long — and, as their images on newspapers and on television showed the country, there is nothing fundamentally different between those that some political leaders are trying to deport and the rest of us.

All of us are striving for respect, dignity, the acknowledgment of our contributions to society, and the ability to exercise basic human, not American, rights — to deny someone access to this pursuit is not only ethically reprehensible, but profoundly un-American.

These are not the grievances of people intent upon destroying communities and burdening our economy, as some racist stereotypes forward, but the concerns of people who are, like the rest of us, attempting to better themselves and the lives of their families.

In fact, immigration reform should not be the most pervasive issue in our country today, as one speaker in the Free Speech Area pointed out on Monday.

Rather, it is a diversion that encourages Americans to label a group of people as an affliction to the country that are not, in reality, even obtusely related to the many problems facing Americans today.

Immigrants did not cause gas prices to exceed $3 per gallon.

Immigrants are not responsible for the thousands of American casualties in Iraq.

Immigrants are not the cause of the many scandals and shortcomings of the Bush Administration.

More importantly, immigrants did not render our political leadership entirely ineffective when it comes to advancing the state that our country is currently in — they, for the record, did it to themselves.

The current debate over immigration reform seems to be an attempt on the part of politicians to divert the attention of Americans away from issues that are of significance and, above all, away from their own lack of tangible solutions.

The stigmatization of immigrants in our country should be viewed for what it really is: an attempt on the part of some politicians to gain political momentum by inspiring the cruelty and callousness of the American people to absurd proportions — and creating a scapegoat that blinds us from the actual cause of many of our problems.

You guessed it — our current political leadership.

Amnesty for undocumented immigrants, whether it comes gradually through Congressional compromise or abruptly in the manner many of those marching and protesting Monday have demanded is perhaps the inevitable outcome of this drama.

Ultimately the economic needs of America and the demands of the immigrants already here will make this dream a reality.

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