Provisional
Truth |
Essays | May 2006
Immigration Is OK
The real
immigration issues in the Americas began after 1492, although there is
compelling evidence for a brief problem caused by Icelandic Vikings as
early as 1000 CE.
The current
immigration issue now absorbing our national attention has its roots in
all prior waves: the search for a better life. And in support of that
better life, immigrants designated Monday, May 1st as a
national day of protest, a boycott of work and school designed to
demonstrate – peacefully – the economic impact of a “day without
immigrants.”
The president
said he didn't like boycotts and California's immigrant-governor Arnold
Swarzenegger also denounced Monday's boycott. Perhaps they should be
praising the “Day Without Immigrants” boycott instead for the noble,
patriotic tradition it continues.
No doubt the
governor of Massachusetts and the king of England also had frowned on a
five-year boycott of English tea (imported from China no less) that
culminated in the Boston Tea Party of December 1773 when a band of
colonists led by Samuel Adams emptied 342 crates of tea into Boston
Harbor from the holds of three British ships. That particular boycott
fomented the beginnings of a revolution that began officially on July 4,
1776, which we celebrate every year with fireworks imported from China.
Back then the
British weren't making any money selling tea because John Hancock,
patriot and tea-boycott leader, among others, was smuggling tea for sale
to the colonies. Smuggled tea was cheaper for consumers because the
smugglers didn't pay “sales” tax on their tea. British tea sales plunged
to 500 pounds in 1773 from 320,000 pounds only five years earlier, while
smuggled tea sales surged. So the British passed the Tea Act of 1773,
allowing the British East India Company to sell tea below the cost of
the smugglers, which, in turn, led to the destructive acts of those
Boston Tea Party patriots.
Ah, the law of
unintended consequences. The British ended the colonists' tea boycott,
but eventually lost most of the continent in the process because some
treasonous tea drinkers thought the British government wasn't being
mindful of the inalienable rights of its colonists.
The national
monetary impact of May 1st likely will be staggering, and
measured in billions, once the economists have concluded their
ciphering. Here in central Oklahoma, many restaurants were closed or
operations curtailed, as well as countless other businesses closed in
sympathy or by necessity.
So the
tradition of patriotic peaceful protest continues more than two
centuries later. An economic boycott, so effective in 1773, certainly
will draw considerable attention to the financial impact of 11-12
million undocumented immigrants and another 30-40 million immigrant
citizens and resident aliens.
Few Americans
ever see a Mexico other than the resort-splendor of four-star hotels and
restaurants. Once one sees the poverty only minutes away from the luxury
of the tourist meccas, one can understand the burning desire for a
better life, even a life toiling away at some minimum wage job that “no
American would do.”
It is
astounding to see letters to the editor suggesting that we annex Mexico
and make it the 51st state (or states 51-81 since Mexico has
31 states) as if that would solve the issue. What would solve the issue
would be to “let 'em in” - all of them, legally, from anywhere – as they
only desire to have a better life.
The America
that was founded in 1776 stood for exactly that – the pursuit of life,
liberty and happiness. Our immigrant-founders would be ashamed to know
that in 2006 many of its citizens, all descended from immigrants
except the Native Americans, no longer feel the same.
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