The Immigration debate is a history of the legal issues that surround our border with Mexico and Mexican immigration. Many of us who live in the Western U.S. with our extended families and friends have multicultural roots in this region, we look to the many laws and treaties that govern our rights as citizens in our states that were guaranteed with the purchase of this region by the federal government from Mexico in 1848. Only a mere 160 years ago.
Those interests and rights include many tribal reservations that function as sovereign nations within the U.S., Spanish land grants that date back to the 1500's and white settlers who immigrated into these territories when it belonged to Mexico.
I'll never forget the first time I stood at the base of the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico and realized that I was looking up... at a city 1000 years old, in North America, that had been continuously inhabited by generations of people.
I was born a few miles from here.
Tom Tancredo, my congressperson, is a carpet bagger!
Photo taken by Bobak Ha'Eri
I personally have 29 direct ancestors who walked across the prairies of the great plains to settle in Utah, when it was really Mexico in 1847, to escape the religious persecution of The United States and worship God as they saw fit. They too were seeking a new life in a strange foreign land not so long ago.
Actually, even for decades after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, when the southwestern portion of the United States was transferred to America from Mexico for $ 15 million, all of the southwestern and most of the western states had bilingual constitutions and institutions that were conducted out in English and Spanish for their Anglo and Hispanic populations, as instructed by the treaty. Even amidst the fervor of Manifest Destiny, the rights and traditions of the many Spanish and Native American peoples who had lived here for centuries were just beginning to materialize under the treaty. Those rights and broken treaties are still being fought in the courts today.
My intentions though are not to promote illegal immigration, smuggling or spread blame over the past on any one; but rather to understand the historical, present, and future demographics of Hispanics and Spanish speaking communities in this country and more specifically, the Southwestern U.S.
I know this sounds a bit radical, but it is now time for American society to realize and accept the cultural, historical and linguistic rights and heritage Hispanics and Spanish-speaking communities have here in this country. This, however is not a popular idea in our political discourse nowadays.
Paving a way for legal citizenship is the position of Labor, Human Rights groups and legal political allies. It should at least be understood by progressives, for those of us who write and support justice, civil rights and equality for everyone in America. The emotional hysteria that envelopes the Xenophobia of today should be strongly repudiated. It has no basis in civil law, although it does, unfortunately, have legal precedence in American History.
I want more avenues for people to come here legally to work and for those who are here now, who have demonstrated good citizenship in all but name, to be able to become legal residents. I say my empathy for "illegal" immigrants is based on the knowledge that if I were in their position, I , too, would look north where jobs, education and opportunity are dangled before me. I would further hope that this nation of immigrants would show... compassion and justice towards me and my family.
I abhor the rhetoric I hear from people who say we should shoot people at the border. I choose to believe these perspectives belong to the extreme, though my confidence in this is tested regularly now, even in my family.
I do believe we will never get anywhere if we ignore the history of the problem and simply demonize the people who are its symptom.
Hopefully, I will be able to articulate for you in future diaries the issues that I believe need to be discussed.
Finally, as Hispanic and Spanish speaking populations in this country continue to increase faster than any other group, as recorded by the US Census Bureau, having a more compassionate multi-cultural society will be essential for Hispanics, as many have roots and families with cultural identities in America for almost 500 years now.
Nearly 67 million people of Hispanic origin (who may be of any race) would be added to the nation's population between 2000 and 2050. Their numbers are projected to grow from 35.6 million to 102.6 million, an increase of 188 percent. Their share of the nation's population would nearly double, from 12.6 percent to 24.4 percent.
Almost 25% of the U.S. population by 2050. That's almost as many French- speaking people that live in Canada now. We should begin to prepare for the future with a number of bold initiatives designed so that everyone who is a member of our society can participate more equitably in its resources. This is the true and rightful challenge and spirit of America.