On December 11, 1973, at about 3am, I landed at JFK, showed my new US passport to the appropriate official, who said "welcome home". I smiled, because this was my first time on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, the US has welcomed me wonderfully, because I am a very lucky man. I was born in England to highly educated and intelligent parents who saw to it that I got a good education. My mother is American, and I inherited her citizenship, as well as my English father's. In college, I fell in love with computer programming, which led me into a life of high pay for delightful work. To this day, I sometimes get told "I love your accent", and I always get a laugh by saying that it is the other person who has the accent - I speak the Queen's English.
On June 1, 2010, at 7pm, I attended a town meeting in Centreville VA to discuss a proposal to put a trailer on a piece of waste land and use it as a job center for day laborers. No taxpayer land or money was to be used - the owner of a nearby shopping center would donate the land and trailer, and a local volunteer group would staff the job center. The owner was clear that his motive was to attract the laborers away from his shopping center, where they irritated his tenants and their customers.
My first reaction was that these laborers were far less lucky than I. They were born to poor, uneducated parents in countries torn apart by rival militias, and received little or no education themselves. To avoid starvation or gunfire, they braved the US border patrol. Once here, they have to beg for temporary, unpleasant work, for pitiful pay. They often meet resentment and contempt because they speak little English. Because they do not understand the many rules and regulations that make life here so safe and pleasant, they often find themselves in trouble. Local businesses do what they can to discourage them from entering their premises, and then complain when they urinate behind a bush.
I was disappointed that most speakers at the meeting opposed the trailer. One speaker pointed out that the trailer would be very close to his business, and he feared that the density of laborers, and the irritation they cause, would increase around his business. He had a point. No doubt he has been less lucky, and probably more hard-working, than I. On the other hand, he has probably been far luckier than the laborers, and perhaps he could accept the irritation they cause as 'just another tax'. Easy for me to say, I suppose.
Most of the other speakers opposed to the trailer made little effort to argue that the trailer would be a detriment. Their attitude seemed to be that they opposed illegal immigration, and any attempt to improve the lives of illegal immigrants offended their sense of justice. A few argued that the trailer would increase the number of day laborers in Centreville, and thus the associated irritation. No doubt some laborers would abandon their street corners in nearby communities in favor of a trailer in Centreville, but this would not change the regional number of laborers. Do these people believe that word will spread in Guatemala that there is a trailer in Centreville, leading to a new wave of illegal immigration?
There is no question that the arrival of large numbers of immigrants without marketable job skills, English language skills, or an understanding of how to behave in this society, creates considerable problems. Those who try to deny these problems do the community a disservice by stifling honest debate, which only increases the frustration so apparent at the meeting. The federal government could certainly do a more cost-effective job of deciding who can be allowed to come without damaging the community, and enforcing that decision.
Meanwhile, local governments are faced with the unenviable task of minimizing the damage caused by the failure of the federal government. The trailer seems to be a step in the right direction. That the majority of people at the meeting could not see past their own emotions to see this struck me as a reminder of the limitations of the schools they had attended as children. Meanwhile, I honor Al Dwoskin, the shopping center owner, and Alice Foltz, who has organized the volunteer group, for their efforts to improve the situation on the ground. But even more, I honor Michael Frey, our local politician, who knowingly put his career on the line to back a worthy but unpopular cause.