My words are weak. They can't begin begin to express my fiery indignation.
The comments attached to this story fill me with unparalleled rage. The dehumanization of Illegal Mexicans here astounds and disgusts me.
Let's pretend, shall we? I like pretending.
Let's pretend God decided you were to be born in Mexico. Let's pretend you're a virile young man. You fall in Love with a big, breasted, black eyed beauty. You marry her. You experience the euphoria of fatherhood. Your baby toddles to your side and calls you Daddy.
Let's pretend you look around and realize you are living in an adobe home with dirt floors and no job. Let's pretend reality has set in. Your wife and children look to you with hungry eyes and empty bellies. There is No Work. No Work. No Money. No Food.
You know where to find work. Los Estados Unidos. El Otro Mexico. You are willing to risk your life. For that is what Life requires.
Let's pretend you didn't die in the desert at the mouth of wild animals or the by the heat of the unforgiving sun like the 2,000 others before you in this decade. Let's pretend your body was not left unrecognizable in a dry wilderness because of your hopes of feeding your starving family.
I'm done pretending.
True Story Time:
I had a Mexican boyfriend when I was 18. Santos.
Santos is my second cousin. Yeah. I roll like that.
We rode horses together through the washes of Sonora. He spun me around the dance floor at the local Plaza in the moonlight.
He dedicated his bull riding to me in the presence of the entire town. I sat on the talegate of an old truck and wore his cowbody hat as the bull snorted and bucked and eventually threw Santos to the dirt. He swept me off my feet.
In my heart of hearts I always knew it wouldn't last. He was my Mexican fantasy.
Because he lived there. And I lived here. I knew.
I went away to Brigham Young University. He stayed in Mexico. Found a woman. Became a father. Built an adobe home like the one he grew up in and accepted any work that came his way.
About a year ago I saw him. Poverty had not served him well. He looked beat down and haggard. His two front teeth were missing from lack of dental care.
But as I saw him dance with his daughters and sisters I knew he was the same person he had always been. I saw the fire in his eyes and knew his soul was the same boy I had known since I was a baby.
Santos was the Real Life Version of Let's Pretend. Extreme poverty drove him over the border in search of work.
La Migra found him. They apprehended him and shipped him off. Left him penniless with only the clothes on his back and a sandwich in the deep jungles of Mexico.
Santos lives in Sonora. He was a stranger to these jungles and spent weeks begging his way back to his family.
The night I saw him was a celebration of his safe return coupled with the 90th birthday of his grandmother and my great-aunt.
Do you SEE how large Mexico is?
This program to drop Mexicans "home" en La Cuidad de Mexico is well-intentioned. But how many do you think really live there? Nobody cares.
When you see the headline 23,384 Mexicans do you imagine a sea of brown faces with no individual worth? Or do you contemplate the possibility that perhaps each one has a story. Each one has a mother. Each one Loves and Hates and Fears, as you do.
I understand my home state of Arizona is bleeding money due to illegals. We provide healthcare and education to those who do not contribute fiscally. We suffer at the hands of drug cartels and high crime because of illegals. It needs to stop. These facts are not lost on me.
What IS lost on me is the dehumanization of people by other people.
IT MAKES ME SICK! It makes me sick to read and hear the harsh racial slurs by ASSHOLES who live in this country by THE GRACE OF GOD and for no other reason.
What have we done to deserve our status as a citizen of this country? What have we done to deserve the very air we breathe? Could we not exemplify charity rather than anger?
Think about it.
