Hispanic
immigration position paper
“I told Phoenix, Arizona’s Channel 3 News that our
administration would push for total amnesty for illegal immigrants and family
reunification. We would also promote a
living wage, benefits (including access to quality health care) and optimal
working conditions. And we would promote
a move toward a “North American Union” where the borders came
down and there was a tremendous increase in work on joint environmental
projects, humanitarian aid, business ventures, cultural exchanges… I added we have to move away from our myopic,
and quite selfish, American protectionism.” --Joe
*Categories
covered below include: 1) the issue; 2) the plan; 3) face of abject poverty
south of the border; 4) unjust laws; 5) help in El Paso; 6) tough making it; 7)
temporary workers, etc.; 8)“Hispanic Council” means grassroots help; 9)
deportation, split families, slow bureaucracy; 10) illegal drug influx; 11)
living wage, benefits, better housing…; 12) Help Latin America Drive!; 13)
initiatives to help; 14) “North American Union”; 15) “…tremendous opportunity
to help.”
1) the
issues
There are some 12 million
illegal immigrants in this country who have come here, for the most part, to
escape abject poverty and / or political oppression in Mexico and throughout
Central America.
We went to Juarez,
Mexico, to look at this
poverty first-hand. There were a series
of slums with 200,000 people living in tiny, makeshift shacks, no running
water, no electricity. Many were hungry. Children were sick, some dying.
We interviewed Tiffin,
Ohio’s Sr. Paulette Schroeder who went to Nicaragua
on a “Witness for Peace” Tour. She said
Contra forces had undertaken a campaign of terror there to undermine strides
toward moving people out of poverty. In
one village, she heard the story of a Contra attack. Shots were being fired, grenades exploding
and a mother grabbed her eight-month-old child and ran. A bullet pierced her back and lodged in the
leg of the baby. The mother survived,
barely. The baby lost his leg.
This
oppression, this poverty, plays out regularly throughout Latin
America -- so some people come here.
But because
the need is often immediate and the citizenship process is often arduously
slow, and expensive, a Latino rights activist in Fresno
told me some desperate people choose the illegal route. Yet given these scenarios, to deport people
and sometimes split their families in the process is
simply “cruel,” he said.
What’s also
‘cruel,’ we believe, is allowing for the almost exploitive slave labor
conditions that have resulted with these illegal immigrants.
We traveled to the San
Joaquin Valley in California
to look at migrant farm worker conditions.
Scores of illegal (and legal) farm workers toiling in
115-degree heat, sun up to sun down for minimum wage, or less. No benefits, seldom any health insurance and
continual exposure to toxic farm chemicals.
Similar
‘almost slave conditions’ for illegal immigrants exist in the garment district
of Los Angeles and New York, the chicken processing plants in the Midwest,
factories all over…
In essence, many of us in America
(knowingly or unknowingly) are building our lifestyles on the backs of these
illegal immigrants.
Not to
mention, just getting a foothold for many of these illegal immigrants is
extremely tough in the first place.
We traveled to a hardscrabble area
of El Paso, Texas,
to a homeless center and transitional living facility for illegal (and legal)
immigrants who have just arrived to hear about their struggles. We also went to Eunice,
New Mexico, to talk with a man who started
the grassroots Hispanic Council and who told us illegal immigrants are
tremendously stereotyped when it comes to what Americans believe their working
capabilities are.
All these
dynamics, in our opinion, add up to: a tremendous social justice travesty. And one that needs to be reversed now!
Note: And there’s an even more systemic
problem. That is, in being focused so
much on selfish American protectionism, we’ve missed so many more opportunities
to help Mexico
and all of Latin America and South America
to become much more sustainable. It is
our contention that many people don’t want to leave their family, their
country, their culture… to come to America. But, again, their children are hungry.
2) the plan:
During a
talk to a Newman Center
student group at Northern Arizona
State University,
I said the current situation for many illegal immigrants in America
amounts to nothing other than institutionalized “slave labor.” And because America
espouses “liberty for all,” we’re falling tremendously short in this area.
And in the immediate, our
administration would push for total amnesty (no retroactive fines or waiting
period for citizenship) for illegal immigrants, family reunification and a much
easier citizenship process, I told the Kingman (AZ) Daily Miner newspaper. And for those who want to work here (like the
Nicaraguan woman in Ohio) and go
back, we would push to pave the way for that as well.
Beyond this, I told Phoenix,
Arizona’s Channel 3 News that our
administration would try to promote a “living wage” for all these immigrants,
much better working conditions, benefits, adequate housing, better education…
(For those who want to work here, but maintain their citizenship south of the
border, we propose a “Temporary Worker Program” that includes border check
points.)
And I told
the Hobbs (NM) Sun newspaper that all this is designed not only to benefit the
illegal immigrants here, but offers tremendous spiritual benefit to all
Americans who choose to get behind these initiatives to help.
Initiatives
like the Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas. On a stop there to meet with the director, we
learned Annunciation House is a homeless shelter and transitional living
facility for new arrivals here (both legal and illegal). It is subsidized by
churches and private individuals interested in promoting social justice.
Our administration would also point
to projects like Eunice, New Mexico’s
Hispanic Council. On a stop in Eunice
during a “Border Tour,” we learned this ad hoc, grassroots citizens
project is designed to help new arrivals with entering the work force, social
service options, education… (The
Hispanic Council model would work in any town.)
To help with sustainability south (and north) of the
border, we would point to the non-profit “International Good Neighbors
Council,” which has 28 chapters, half in the U.S., half in Mexico. In Carlsbad, New
Mexico, we met with director Stanley Evans. He explained each chapter backs a charitable
project in the other country.
And it was the country of Nicaragua
that Minnesota’s Ed and Betty
Bryce went with other members of their Catholic Church as part of a “Sister
Church” project. Ed told me in the small, rural town of San
Pedro (where there is no running water, no
electricity, no sewage system…) they helped with several building projects.
We have traveled the country
extensively learning about similar “Sister
Church” projects between the U.S.
and Mexico, El
Salvador, Haiti,
Guatemala… I told
the Grand Rapids Herald newspaper in Minnesota
that there is no reason why “every church in America
can’t develop a Sister Church.”
And there is no reason more
families can’t do what the McCarthy family did.
On a stop in Holbrook, Arizona, we learned that Bob McCarthy (as a
youth) and his family went to Costa Rica for two years to help train mechanics
and equipment operators to repair and build a series of rural roads as part of
an AID project.
The list goes on…
But the point is,
our nation is capable of mobilizing a lot more help for nations south of the
border. And our administration would try
to inspire this.
*And more, we believe we should
move far, very far, away from our current American protectionist
orientation. So far in fact, that we
believe we should establish a “North American Union,” like what’s evolving with
the European Union.
We believe by letting the borders
come further down with this type of “union,” it would promote much more: joint
environmental conservation projects, joint business ventures, cultural
exchanges… In all this, we believe
relations would improve and we would move closer to a ‘globalization’ that
would be much more about the common good -- than just economics and political
power.
Note: We believe there should still be some form of
Border Patrol in relationship to national security when it comes to protecting
against, say, terrorists or illegal drug smugglers… But we believe we have
wasted all sorts of manpower and money on trying to stop people simply coming
here seeking a safer, more secure, life.
3) face of abject poverty
south of the border
There are some 12 million illegal
immigrants in this country from Mexico
and Latin America in general. A majority of these people have come here to
escape dead-end abject poverty or volatile political strife in their
countries.
At an immigration rally in Flagstaff,
Arizona, I told protestors we’d been to the
dusty streets of Juarez, Mexico
to look at this poverty first hand. And
what we saw was 200,000 people living on the west side of Juarez
in cobbled together shacks of scrap wood and rusty corrugated metal.
There was no running water, no
electricity and young children roamed the streets as both their parents worked
at multi-national corporations for $3 a shift – in a country where the
inflation rate is higher than America.
The children were hungry.
Many risk climbing or skirting the
border fence to come to America,
so they can feed their children.
Tragically, some don’t survive the
crossing. More than 400 – that border
patrol could count -- died in the deserts of the Southwest before (or after)
getting to the fence in 2005. According
to a USA Today article, those that get lost, or stranded, in the desert
eventually die of heat exhaustion. Their
temperatures go to 107 degrees. They
then become disoriented, then delusional… as all their organs shut down.
And again, these are often Moms,
Dads, and others who are desperate for help.
4) unjust laws
During a tour of southern New
Mexico, I interviewed a retired Border Patrol
agent. The agent, who requested
anonymity, said he worked along the border for 32 years in southern California.
He said during this time he pulled
a good number of bodies of men, women, and some children out of the All
American Canal
near Colexico, California,
in the aftermath of failed crossings.
This former agent told me candidly
that he thought it was a shame, because it was his experience the Hispanics
were generally “good, honest and hard working people” who were just trying to
better the situation for themselves and their families.
Given this, I asked about whether
he had felt qualms about helping capture and deport these people.
He said no, because he was first
sworn to “uphold the law” that the American people wanted.
It is our belief that sometimes the
law of the land is simply unjust. The
laws allowing slavery were wrong. The
laws protecting abortion, we believe, are wrong. And, again, we believe the laws around
illegal immigration are wrong.
And it is our belief we must
stridently work to protest such laws, including, at times, using things like
non-violent civil disobedience (as the Civil Rights Movement demonstrated, for
example) to bring more attention, awareness, and ultimately, change around an
issue.
5) help in El Paso
For those who make it to America
as new arrivals (both legal and illegal), they often struggle to get a
foothold.
We traveled to El
Paso, Texas, to meet with Rubin
Garcia who is the director of Annunciation House, a homeless and transitional
shelter for legal, and illegal, immigrants who have been in America
a short time. Annunciation House is
located in a hardscrabble area of El Paso. There is no sign.
Garcia has been here 28 years. He pointed to the poverty in Mexico
and the wars in Central America as some of the main
reasons for the influx of illegal immigrants.
He said Annunciation House is
funded by donations by a loose network of churches and private individuals who
are concerned about social justice issues.
Issues like people fleeing death squad bullets and getting here with no
money, no belongings and no grasp of the language.
While I was doing the interview
with Garcia, our children played with a two year old Mexican girl and my wife
Liz sat with her mother. A Jesuit
volunteer here from Iowa for a
year explained the Hispanic woman was a single mother who had recently left Mexico
because of the poverty. She spoke no
English and the child was in a tiny, threadbare dress.
Garcia said he didn’t see the
rationale for sending people like this woman back. But rather he thinks it’s our responsibility
to help.
I think so too.
6) tough
making it
Once illegal immigrants move into
the work force here, many end up in the margins of poverty (the way Americans
see poverty) barely scraping by while trying to send as much as money as they
can back to their relatives.
On a tour of California
to look at migrant farm worker issues, I interviewed a man who formerly worked
in the fields of Gilroy picking
garlic, sun up to sun down. Eliseo Hinojosa has a wife and two young children. He told
me the work in the fields was quite hard, the pay was low and by the time he
met expenses here – there was little left (although he tried to send something
whenever he could) for his relatives back in Mexico.
He said this situation was not
uncommon.
Monterey
(CA) Herald columnist Joe Livernois would agree.
In response to all the “crabbing” about undocumented
immigrants taking jobs from Americans, Livernois
wrote about one of these typical working scenarios. He described getting up at 3 a.m. and catching a bus to “some dewy field in
the middle of nowhere.” Then mucking
about in the thick mud, bent over, tending to vegetables all day long for wages
that will force people to move in with several other families “in somebody’s
garage.”
Livernois
also wrote as a youth he had a farm worker job that lasted three weeks. He harvested onion seeds “under a scorching
sun” during 12 hour days for an extremely low wage. “By the end of the day we were covered in
onion husks, which, when mixed with sweat, prickles like fiberglass.
Shortly before I read Livernois’s column in California,
in Ohio I learned about an
illegal immigrant from Nicaragua
who was here to earn money to rebuild a small rural home that had been
destroyed in a forest fire. The woman, a
single mother, had left her children with a relative, crossed several countries
to the north, crossed the border, and through a network of people, ended up at
a Catholic Worker House.
A nun who volunteers at the House
told me the woman performs hard manual labor at a tire company in the
area. The nun said the woman, who is
quite slightly built, often has bruises on her arms because of all the heavy
lifting. The woman’s hope is to be here
several years, make enough money to rebuild, then
return to be with her children.
Our
administration would not only pave the way for this woman from Nicaragua
to be here, but we would make sure she had every advantage any American worker
with a living wage, benefits and good working conditions had. (And we would work hard to try and make sure every
worker in America
had the same.)
*In
addition, we would work to suspend fines and other punitive actions against
employers who hire illegal immigrants.
7) temporary
workers, etc.
We believe there needs to be safe
and efficient conduits for people south of the border to be able to work in the
U.S, whether they plan to become citizens, or not…
In Sheffield
Texas, I interviewed rancher Ron Stuard who said it’s virtually impossible to get American
citizens to work the ranches in these parts.
The “Catch 22,” he said, is if he hires illegal immigrants (who are
indeed willing to work the ranches), he faces sanctions and up to a $10,000
fine.
Our
administration would work to suspend fines, jail time and asset forfeiture for
businesses who hire illegal immigrants.
Stuard also told me that in the 1950s, under the U.S.
“Bracerro Program,” Mexicans and others from south of
the border, were allowed to work on these ranches, and the like. He said in Mexico
there was a list of people available to work, and as jobs came up in the U.S.
(farm working, ranching…), they were simply matched.
Stuard said standard protocol was the U.S.
employer would drive to a border check point, sign for the workers he needed
(including stating the duration he needed the workers) – then get the workers
back to the check point at the stated date.
McClean, Texas’s
Steve Calloway likes the checkpoint idea as well for temporary workers
here. At a campaign stop in this area,
Calloway told me he grew up in South Georgia in the
small town of Claxton.
All around were peanut
and cotton farms. He said, virtually
without exception, that the workers in these fields were Mexican, many
illegal. Calloway continued that this
hasn’t changed for the most part, and Americans have to face the fact that
these Latino workers are an integral part of our economy.
He, too,
believes there should be checkpoints at various places along the border. And there should be background checks for
criminal records, etc.
Calloway
added that if everything is OK with one of these checks, Latinos should be
allowed to work here, either short or long term, including being eligible for
citizenship after working for a prescribed time.
8) “Hispanic Council” means
grassroots help
In Eunice,
New Mexico, Leon
Navarette told me Hispanics are often capable of
doing more than “putting foot to shovel,” but breaking out of the stereotype
(even having equal opportunity to do so) is tremendously difficult.
Navarette,
and other residents in Eunice started the grassroots “Hispanic Council,” an ad
hoc citizens group focused on helping new arrivals here. They conduct seminars to show immigrants the
ins and outs of the job market, including how to start their own businesses. They hold seminars on how to access local
social service networks. Some Hispanic
Council members help tutor immigrant children and others help raise college
scholarship funds.
They also
lobby the city council for better streets and city services in general for
these new arrivals who, for the most part, live in the
poorer south section of Eunice. Many living two to three families in quite
small homes and trailers there.
9) deportation,
split families, slow bureaucracy…
In Dade
City, Florida, illegal
immigrants live two or three families to small homes and trailers as well. What’s more, they (like all illegal
immigrants) live under continual fear about being deported.
I
interviewed Fr. Edwin Barker in Dade City, Florida. He told me a good percentage of his church
was made up of illegal immigrants. Fr.
Barker explained that several years prior some Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) agents came to Dade
City asking questions.
It created
such a scare that many of the illegal immigrants, for weeks, wouldn’t leave
their homes to go to work, to the grocery, to church, anywhere…
In Fresno,
California, I interviewed Thomas Gonzalas who is a Latino Rights activist. He believes it’s unconscionable that people
have to live in fear like this and he is pushing for total amnesty for all
illegal immigrants – including family reunification.
He said,
for instance, to have worked in America
for a year and then be deported for 10 years (policy at the time of the
interview) is not fair. What’s more,
sometimes the illegal person who is deported has to leave his family here. Mr. Gonzalas said
it is very “cruel” to split families like that.
Mr. Gonzalas has also worked with many Latinos to help get them
citizenship and he said the process is often “long and slow.” This, in turn, discourages people from
undertaking it.
Our
administration would also push for total amnesty and family reunification. We would also work to make the citizenship
process much easier and quicker.
10) illegal
drug influx
An issue
that comes up consistently around border security is the influx of illegal
drugs into America
from south of the border.
In Las
Cruces, New Mexico, I
interviewed Sheriff Department Sgt. Jimmy Beasley. He said it is not uncommon for his department
to seize tractor-trailers that have come across the border with a half-ton of
marijuana, cocaine…
He said
besides the trucks, tunnels have been built below the fence and so on. And Sgt. Beasley said the Drug Cartels are so
powerful south of the border, that no matter how much border security, they
will figure out some way to get the drugs into the country.
Several
months earlier, I met with a human rights activist from Columbia
who was here to lobby against U.S. Government spraying of coca plants in her
country. The activist, who requested anonymity, said the toxic chemicals used
by crop dusters there, also (depending on where the wind is blowing) kills the
crops of surrounding subsistence farmers and creates tremendous health hazards
(cancer, respiratory problems…) for adults and children in these areas.
What’s
more, this activist said if a coca farmer’s crop is destroyed, they, more often
than not, simply move to another location and continue to grow.
All this begs the question:
“Are we fighting the war on drugs
on the right front?”
That is, should we be spending
billions muscling up our border security and DEA activities (such as the Columbia
spraying) south of the border? Or should
we be spending much more energy and resources on stemming the demand for
illegal drugs on this side of the border?
Common sense, we believe, would
vote for the latter.
As a former drug & alcohol
counselor, I know that there are varying precipitating factors that lead to
drug abuse. Probably the most systemic
is problems in the nuclear family.
When there isn’t consistent, and
quality, parenting time for youth – they grow up feeling empty inside. To fill these emotional voids, the youth then
turn to alcohol, sex, drugs… (All we have to do is objectively look around
society at this point to see how pervasive these addictive patterns have
become, I told the BG News at Bowling Green
State University.)
On the Monterey
Peninsula in California,
I did extensive research on the program: Take A Stand
for Kids (TASK). This is a grassroots
group of parents who conduct neighborhood meetings, school seminars and open
public forums to raise awareness about better parenting techniques. And they have been tremendously successful.
Likewise,
the DARE Program in America
is starting to make measurable impact on drug abuse among youth. Sgt. Beasley is also the DARE Program
coordinator in the Las Cruces, New
Mexico public school system.
Sgt.
Beasley told me DARE focuses on drug prevention education and sets up peer
group support systems.
In
addition, we believe there should be much more help in general focused on
American inner city youth who are growing up in gang war zones amidst a
tremendous amount of drugs. This can’t
help but be a recipe for continued drug abuse in the next generation.
I
researched a highly effective mentoring program in Wheeling,
West Virginia, for inner city youth. There is a 14-week training program for
adults who then adopt a youth for a year (although the relationships often last
must longer.) Likewise, I interviewed a
police officer from Detroit who is
involved with a Community Oriented Policing Mentoring Project. Police officers there are assigned six youth
who they spend time with every day after school.
Another
cause for the high illegal drug demand on this side of the border is the
tremendous recidivism (relapse) rate of those who have tried to undertake
recovery, either on their own or forced through the court system.
In Needles,
California, we researched the
highly effective “Drug Court.”
(These have been starting up around the country in recent years). First time non-violent offenders (where there
was drugs or alcohol involved with the crime), are referred to a long-term,
comprehensive treatment program that includes three outpatient groups a week,
AA meetings, drug screens…
Common
sense says the longer, and more comprehensive, the treatment program, the
better the chances for long term recovery.
And common
sense also says there needs to be a more wholesome societal climate in general
in America at
this point. Youth are being raised in an
‘MTV Culture’ saturated with media (television, movie, computer…) messages
about the glorification of drugs, and so on.…
During
Campaign 2004, I told the Hicksville, Ohio,
newspaper that it’s time that “parents again be parents,” and take a more hands
on approach to raising their children in a wholesome fashion, which includes
limiting a youth’s exposure to all these corrosive influences.
See, we can strengthen the border
to stem more of the flow of illegal drugs from the south, but in the long run
it doesn’t take away the real problem.
The real problem is on this
side of the border.
11) living wage, benefits,
better housing…
On a tour of the San
Joaquin Valley in California
to look at migrant farm worker issues, I interviewed Doug Blaylock, an administrator
at the National (Cesar) Chavez Center. Mr. Blaylock told me despite some of the
strides the United Farm Workers Union has made, farm workers (both legal and
illegal) are still discriminated against when it comes to wages, benefits,
housing… Just like Irish immigrants, for
instance, were discriminated against at the turn of last century.
We stopped
in Arvin, California, a dusty farm worker town just south of Bakersfield. There we learned about farm workers living
sometimes two to three families in tiny houses, or trailers.
A recent
Mother Jones Magazine article noted Arvin has become “the most crowded
community in all of California.” The article gives the example of “Isabel,” a
farm worker and single mother of three in Arvin. She lives in a small, 300-square foot
home. Two of her sons share bunk beds
and her oldest sleeps in the car. Four
other relatives sleep on the floor. And
she sleeps on a couch.
These
situations exist, in large part, because the wages in the fields (garment
districts, factories…) are so low.
Translated:
The individual farmers and corporate farming entities (garment company owners,
factory owners…) pay low wages because they want to maximize their
profits. On the other end of the
continuum, a majority of consumers simply want to buy the cheapest produce
possible, often for just as selfish reasons.
So what we
are doing, in essence, is building our lifestyles on the backs of many of these
illegal immigrants and, again, have set up what
amounts to a slave populace.
I told the
Kingman (AZ) Daily Miner newspaper that ironically when it comes to migrant
farm workers (as an example), they do some of the most important work on
earth. That is, they help provide us
with: food. In fact, I said I believed
what farm workers (and farmers) do is as important, if not more important, than
what lawyers, accountants, CEOs… do.
“And they should be compensated accordingly.”
And I told
the Lodi (CA) Sentinel News that our administration would push for much better
wages for farm workers (garment district workers, factory workers…), better
benefits, better housing…
In
receiving better wages, for instance, housing would naturally improve for this
populace. And our administration would
lobby non-profits like Habitat for Humanity to start a home-building program
for new arrivals.
On a stop
in Americas, Georgia,
I met with Millard Fuller who is the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity. He told me the non-profit organization has
grown exponentially and revolves around identifying housing needs (both
domestically and internationally) – and then meeting them. (Habitat is an ecumenical Christian outreach
that is networked through churches and relies solely on volunteer help to build
and repair homes for the disadvantaged.)
In tandem
with laws to help farm workers with better pay, for instance, we would also
call on the American consumer to help in a voluntary fashion. That is, we would propose having “Farm Worker
Displays” in produce sections of grocery stores throughout the country. The displays, for instance, would include
pictures of farm workers in the hot sun, their children barefoot, the shacks they live in… With each display would be a
donation bin for a general fund to help the farm worker (garment worker,
factory worker…) and their families.
The Athens
(OH) News noted that I had a populist faith in the American people to fix
problems with “decency and common sense.”
And I do.
12) Help Latin America
Drive!
In Arvin, California,
I interviewed Fr. Lucas Azpericueda, who said he is
personal friends with Vincente Fox, the president of Mexico.
Before
being the leader of Mexico,
Fox was the head of the State of Guanaguato. Fr. Azpericueda
told me that Fox was extremely proactive in developing a model to help change
the infra-structure of Guanaguato, which in turn,
created many more jobs in the business and agriculture sectors, improved the
quality and access to education and provided better housing and social
services.
In kind,
the percentage of Mexicans migrating from Guanaguato
to the United States
dropped considerably, said Fr. Azpericuada. It is our contention many people don’t want
to leave their families, their towns, their culture, their country… to move to America. But the poverty often gives them little
choice.
Given this,
our administration would start a “Help
Latin America Drive!” to aid more transformations
like the one in Guanaguato. This would include a fund to help with
business start ups, more education, more quality housing… This drive would include tremendously increasing
the Peace Corps presence in Mexico
and throughout South America to help within the context
of each country’s culture and sustainable methods for business, farming, etc.
In
Blanchester, Ohio, for instance,
I interviewed Ed Bailey. He and his wife
Dorothy, in their retirement, did a stint with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. They helped arrange micro-loans to small
farmers there.
And this
drive would also target inspiring more church groups and private citizens to
help on as many levels as possible.
13) initiatives
to help
There are a good number of
models already in place for Americans to get behind in the effort to help south
of the border.
One that is
growing in popularity is the “Fair Trade” movement.
In Bluffton,
Ohio, I interviewed Missy Schrock, who was
the manager of Ten Thousand Villages. A
Mennonite outreach project, Ten Thousand Villages sells craft and clothing
items from Central and South America at fair trade
prices to help improve the standard of living for artisans and their families.
Besides
craft and clothing items, Ten Thousand Villages promotes fair trade
coffee. (Coffee is a staple crop for
some 25 million subsistence farmers in countries around the globe, including
many in Central and South America.) And it is this growing support that is
starting to help some of these farmers, not only stay on their land -- but
stave off destitution.
Many
stores, churches and coffee shops across America
have started to sell fair trade coffee.
And Caribou Coffee has even gone a step further. On a trip to Minnesota (Caribou
headquarters), company representative Paul Turek told
me they have established medical clinics in several of their growers’ towns in
Latin America as the next step in trying to bring more equity and social
justice help to those regions.
In Bluffton,
Ohio, I also learned a “Global Concerns
Group” connected with St. Mary’s Church there, did fundraising for Heifer
International. The crux of the program
is that Heifer International funds are used to purchase cows, chickens and
other animals – which are shipped to communities around the world, including
Central and South America. The livestock arrive in the impoverished
villages bringing milk, wool, draft power, eggs – and offspring to pass on to
other impoverished families.
And it is
these impoverished families in Nicaragua
that Ed and Gwen Bryce are concerned about.
The Minnesota couple,
along with 10 others from the St. Paul Diocese traveled into the back-country
(no electricity, no cars, no sewage system, no school…) to help in San Pedro de
la Norte.
During an interview, Ed told me the families live in tiny 20 ft. by 20
ft. shacks and most of the children sleep on dirt floors in those shacks.
The
Americans helped these villagers build a much needed, rice-drying shed.
In Bonita
Springs, Florida,
I interviewed Judy Black. After
retirement in 1985, Judy and her husband Tom moved to modest trailer in Guazmas, Mexico,
for several years. Working with the
Franciscan Order there, Judy taught local women there sewing and pottery to
help them get cottage businesses going.
Tom told me he hired local workers there to help with small construction
projects, and the like, around the trailer – giving them what he’d pay an
American worker, not the standard $3 a day.
Taking all
this a step further, we have researched a series of ongoing “Sister
Church” projects between America
and Central America. With most of these projects, there
is not only a regular flow of funds to help, but church members in America
regularly travel to their Sister Church countries to help in a hands on
fashion.
And it was
the McCarthy family (of 10) who headed to a small rural peninsula in Costa
Rica to help in 1964. They went as part of AID, a U.S. Government
Rural Development outreach. In Holbrook,
Arizona, Bob McCarthy said he was a
10-year-old youth at the time and his father went there to train heavy
equipment operators and mechanics for the purpose of improving old roads and
building new ones.
Bob told me
while people in Costa Rica
got help, he also benefited tremendously by the trip. For one, seeing poverty first hand increased
his empathy for the plight of the poor.
And two, he said learning the culture and Spanish language was
invaluable to him. He said as a result,
he has a good number of Hispanic friends in this country.
Bob added
that, reciprocally, he believed the friends he made in Costa
Rica benefited from learning about his
culture and language. And in all this,
the countries grew closer.
And our administration would like
to see all the countries grow a lot closer.
14) “North American Union’
At a
campaign stop in Seaside, California,
I interviewed Ruben De Anda during the height of the
Immigration Rallies across the country in the Spring
of 2006.
Mr. De Anda came from the town of Lagus de Moreno in the state of Jalisco in Mexico. He is now a U.S.
citizen. And he had a fascinating
proposal.
Mr. De Anda pointed to the evolving European Union and said he
believed a similar “North American Union” would work quite nicely.
That is, he
said he’d like to see the borders start to come down and a formal union formed
between Canada,
the U.S., Mexico
and the countries in Central America.
Our
administration would lean heavily in that direction as well. We believe this type of union would open the
door to more: joint environmental conservation projects, more mutually
advantageous joint business ventures, more tourism (including more eco-tourism)
to help boost economies, more cultural exchanges… And as we got to know each other better, more
of a flow of humanitarian help all the way around – in the form of Sister
City projects, Sister
Church projects, individual to
individual projects…
We are,
after all, fellow human beings – borders or no borders. And the more we do to promote the common good
for everyone, the closer we’ll come to a “globalization,” not based solely on
material gain and political power, but rather a globalization based on
spiritual principle.
15) “…tremendous opportunity to help.”
I said to the Hobbs (NM) Sun
newspaper that America
shouldn’t look at the impoverished immigrants who come here as burdens, but
rather as a “tremendous opportunity to help.”
And our
campaign manager in Georgia, Tom Farmer, recently wrote a poignant
letter-to-the-editor for the Rome (GA) Tribune about foregoing some of our
American protectionism and helping illegal immigrants in as many ways as
possible. It ended with: “Let us not fence our compassion in.”
Enough
said.
