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Gimme Some Too!

by Jordan S. Dill, NAV Editor

[March 6, 2003]

Preamble

Jonesboro, Ark. (AP) _ Imagine being in a place where people don't speak English. You have no money and your only possessions are the clothes on your back.

Many Hispanics find themselves in this situation as they come to the United States, said Sister Elaine Willett, who, along with Father Mark Wood, operates the Catholic Hispanic Center.

No mention that these individuals "illegally" (illegally as defined by the Colonizers) entered Amerika. No mention that, legally, they should not be here. No mention deliberately, I assume, to gain sympathy? Is this undue cynicism?

Now, if I sneaked into Mexico with no Spanish language expertise, sans passport or visa, no money, no known supporters and no arranged for job would I have cause for complaint? I think not. Apparently there are many who do not agree.

Topeka, Kan. (AP) _ Illegal immigrants could become legal drivers in Kansas under a bill the House passed allowing them to obtain temporary resident licenses.

The House sent the measure to the Senate on a 66-57 vote Friday after debate that focused partly on terrorism risks. Proponents of the measure have said illegal immigrants often drive anyway but without licenses.

"We're tired of driving with the fear of being stopped and put in jail. We just want to do it the right way. Unfortunately, now we're being forced to do it the wrong way," said Veronica Castaneda, a member of the Wichita-based group Sunflower Community Action/Hispanos Unidos.

Ah, "We're tired of driving with the fear of being stopped and put in jail. We just want to do it the right way."

Hello? THE RIGHT WAY!!! Jesus...is there anyone else who sees something wrong with this picture?

Where!!!

Indians are twice as likely as non-Indians to live in mobile houses. The reason for this has partly to do with laws against repossession of tribal land: banks will loan money on reservations only on property which, in the event of a default, can be towed away.

Ninety thousand or more Indian families are homeless, living on the street or sharing housing with relatives. Forty percent of Indian households are overcrowded or have inadequate dwellings, compared to about 6 percent for the population at large.

Indians are about twice as likely as non-indians to be murdered.

Their death rate from alcoholism is four times the national average, and the rate of fetal alcohol syndrome among their children is thirty-three times higher than for whites. Indian babies are three times as likely as white babies to die of infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Indians smoke more than non-Indians, and smoking is their leading cause of cancer death. They commit suicide at rates that in certain circumstances approach the epidemic.

In Alaska, Native American suicide is four times the national rate; in the past twenty years suicide attempts by American Indians between twenty and thirty years of age increased 200 to 300 percent over that of whites in that age range.

The American medical association says that one in five Indian girls and one in eight boys attempts suicide by the end of high school.

In an Indian town in northern Canada, an Indian teenager dead of alcohol poisoning was found to have a blood alcohol content higher than any ever recorded in North America.

On and on, the saddening statistics multiply. Any modern study of Indians lists them, unavoidably. They tend to overwhelm the few positive numbers one can point to - the increase in Indian life expectancy over the last twenty years, of the growth in the numbers of Indian college graduates, or the success of the many new tribal colleges, or the large decline in the percentage of Indians living in poverty over the last twenty years...On the Rez, Ian Frazier

So What?

Now, let's get something straight. My issue is with the "walk right in and gimme" approach, NOT Hispanics. My issue is the "We just want to do it right" declaration when "right" was left at the entry door.

My issue is with Woody Guthrie and Peter, Paul and Mary singing

This land is your land, this land is my land
>From the redwood forest to the New York island.
>From the snow-capped mountains to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is made for you and me.

As I go walkin' my ribbon of highway
I see all around me my blue blue skyway
Everywhere around me the wind keeps a-whistlin'
This land is made for you and me.

I'm a-chasin' my shadow out across this roadmap
To my wheat fields waving, to my cornfield dancing
As I go walkin' this wind keeps talkin'
This land is made for you and me.

I can see your mailbox, I can see your doorstep
I can feel my wind rock your tip-top treetop
All around your house there my sunbeam whispers
This land is made for you and me.

This song sets the stage for the preposterous assertion/expectation that one can steal across the Colonizers border and then waltz up to the cornucopia as if one had inherited to right to feed.

Key phrases: your land, my land, my ribbon, made for you and me, my wheat fields, my cornfield, your mailbox, your house, yada, yada and more yada.

This song is the epitome of Colonizing gall and "If I had a hammer" (remember that rousing folk ballad?) I would not hesitate to smash "This land is my land" into smithereens.

The People

Ah yes, The People.

I would hope that by stumbling on my declarations that you have a foundation, a frame of reference as regards The People. Those around whom the Colonizer drew his political lines. If you do not, you have plenty of work to do.

The People. Those who stole nothing. Those who by virtue of being first on the street should have to beg for nothing yet still are made to do so.

Am I bitter? Yes. Unduly harsh? I think not.