Yes, We Do Need Immigration Reform

As the immigration debate rages on (or re-emerges when there's a lull in Iraq and the Senate takes a break from grilling Alberto Gonzalez), our lawmakers are hard at work trying to define who is and who isn't entitled to live and work in this country.

The latest incarnation of a proposed immigration bill has everyone in a tizzy -- and in the middle of the drama, Republicans are making some shockingly sound observations on the impact of hasty legislation. In short, you can't just drag a couple million people out of the shadows of anonymity and call them yankee-doodle-dandys just 'cuz.

But that's not the point of this post.

Given that the face of the immigration debate looks, well, like me, I thought I'd write about the need for reform within the Latino community regarding immigration. In short, if we're gonna make a big (and justified) deal about being in this country, then let's step our game up.

While more and more Latinos are going to college, a lot more of us are also just getting by -- and are happy with it. The trappings of success -- hi-def TVs, cell phones, and instant credit -- have become the American dream for many people. What's worse, many hardworking people are coming to this country so that relatives in Latin America can enjoy these things, too. I wonder, has the DVD player replaced the diploma as the benchmark of success?

Walking along the streets of the neighborhood that I grew up in I see little families that are clearly living paycheck to paycheck with three kids, another in the stroller, and another in the belly. And healthcare isn't really an issue because most of these people receive government-funded medical insurance.

But that doesnt bother me as much as the lack of ambition that I see in so many of these people. It seems that crossing the border was as far as their imaginations could go. And it saddens me. I wonder how many of these children, sporting Dora the Explorer backpacks and guzzling 50 cent soda pop, have ever been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or have ever been to Central Park. I also wonder how many of them will ever read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the definitive, timeless story of working class Brooklyn and the possibility of the impossible.

What I saw in my neighborhood in Brooklyn was a proliferation of Mexican street gangs -- people who wanted to wage war on the Puerto Ricans who had been there for two, three generations before them. In my days as a door-knocking JW I saw squalid homes but no sign that change would come for these people, or if it was even wanted. I was supposed to teach these people about God but thought that I should tell them about Martha Stewart and Windex first.


When I think of the immigration debate, and how it has become a Latino issue I want to shake my own people by the shoulders more so than the politicians who are clamoring for "reform" and "fairness." The question isn't "should we let illegal immigrants stay?" it's "why do they want to be here at all?"