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Trickle-down baby here to stay
(by Barbara Christian - September 09, 2010)
WINDOW ON MAIN STREET, BY BARBARA CHRISTIAN
Trickle-down baby here to stay
I may be an illegal immigrant, at least as far as the right wing of political thought in this country would have it these days. But I'll get to a full confession later. For now, let's turn the page to more recent history.
The TV sound was off, but you could tell the blonde woman was telling CNN's Cooper Anderson something important. She was, after all, wearing an outsized, gem-encrusted American flag pin, and everyone knows that means whatever she was saying must be (a) important and (b) the truth.
I turned the sound up. Blondie was talking about what happens when Mexican women cross the U.S. border to have their babies. The birth canal was becoming a path to American citizenship, blondie charged.
A pro-life advocate, no doubt, blondie swore she loves babies and defended their right to be born. If there were a cartoon thought bubble above her head, it would have read, "Just not born here to those women."
Anderson Cooper asked with a straight face if she would support a U.S. travel ban on non-American pregnant women. No, she was not bothered by all pregnant non-Americans. Those from Iceland to Australia were OK. It's just those pesky southern border dwellers.
"OUR BORDERS MUST BE SECURED," she demanded in capital letters.
This seems as good a place as any to confess my possibly illegal alien-ship. Cue the flashback music, please:
One day toward the end of the 19th century, my grandfather, to escape conscription in the German army, stowed away on a ship bound for new opportunity, aka: America. Sad to say, Grandpa didn't have the quintessential immigrant experience standing on deck, tears in his eyes, scanning the horizon for a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. His ship docked 200 miles north in a Boston harbor.
In time, Grandpa got a job in one of the legendary garment industry sweatshops, where he met Grandma, a born American. They had a bunch of kids, my dad included. But we just aren't sure if Grandpa ever became a citizen.
Now, in the new world order, which, by the way, hates the trickle-down theory of citizenship, my dad would be illegal too.
And what about me, my siblings and our children, grandchildren and so on and so forth. Would the far right wing have us all deported? Nothing would surprise me.
It doesn't take a Ken Burns documentary to acknowledge the fact that hardworking immigrants, some of whom arrived here under sketchy circumstances, are the ones who built this country.
It's just so hard to understand why some Americans would fight other U.S.-born citizens over their constitutional right -- at least at this writing -- to call themselves Americans.
May I humbly suggest that the immigrant vigilantes view the Constitution for what it is and not as their personal buffet table, picking and choosing what they may be in the mood for one day to the next.
The thing of it is, they have their own glass houses to tend to, and those houses just may be occupied by a family skeleton or two. Just like my grandpa.
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