I was recently at a wedding where a friend of mine who knows I am passionate about kayaking asked, “What else I am passionate about?” The question left me speechless for a several moments—it was a great question, some might even say a loaded question. My delayed response after some serious, introspective thought was, “Justice.” While I believe that answer was honest, I must begrudgingly admit that while I may be passionate about justice it is an embarrassingly distant second to kayaking.
There is a little irony that I am writing this shortly after spending my 100th day of the year on the water in a kayak of some shape or form.
If you know me and my wife at all you are aware the she and I recently purchased our first home together. The mixed feelings about actually buying a house are another topic that I may delve into at some point, but not here. This blog entry however, could not occur if Helene and I did not make that decision.
The previous owners had done some work to the kitchen before we put our offer in that was just really bad. I won’t get into the details, but there was a lot of stuff that we decided to have fixed and improved on. Since we cook a lot we decided that we really want/need a range that has an outside duct. We had this work done yesterday. One person came and did most of the work—the only thing that needed to be done was some drywall-finish work. I agreed with the contractor to have his drywall finish guy, Carlos, come to do the work.
Dave, our contractor, said that Carlos was on another job and would come as soon as he was done. Dave also asked me if I spoke Spanish. Needless to say, I was a little concerned that I would lack the skills to communicate with Carlos despite knowing un pequito Espanol.
Carlos a tall guy with drywall-mud-splotched clothes, a pony-tail and quite a few bracelets showed up around 7:00. Even though his English was better than anticipated it was not fluent. Watching Carlos work his magic with drywall mud while having a great conversation would be the highlight of my week, yet bittersweet.
You see, Carlos is an illegal alien from Central America. Amazingly, Carlos was very forthcoming when I asked right out whether he was here legally or not? His wife is here legally and they have a child that is a US citizen because of being born here. When asked if he was worried about being deported his answer was that yes he does worry about having to go back to his country but that he focuses on living in the moment and enjoying the time that he is here. He also said that he loves doing drywall-finish work, which was apparent from the enthusiasm he put into the work that he was doing on our kitchen--work that he was doing after a long day on another job.
Of course this got me thinking about one of the hot-button issues of our day, illegal immigration. When asked why Carlos decided to come to the US and about the journey to get here I got a pretty amazing story. Naturally, Carlos wanted to be with his wife. However, you would think that a person with three years of studying law in his home country would have a promising future there. However, Carlos told me that work is hard to come by even with a law degree, due in large part to a civil war that has been going on for the past 12 years. He stated that even doctors have hard time finding work--he even has a sister who still lives in his country who is a dentist and because of the civil war really only practices with family and friends. Carlos essentially risked his life to come here, walking much of the way and crossing borders that could have easily got him arrested and even killed.
So, Carlos is passionate about his work, supporting his wife and seven year old son and bracelets, while I am passionate about kayaking. This makes me think about the freedom I have been given. I was born in a country that I that I did not choose to be born in, yet gives me the choice to be passionate about kayaking.
In fact, there is not one person that was born in the US that made that choice with their own volition. Yet somehow so many of us, me included, think that being born here gives us rights that others not born here should not have: the right to live in peace, the right to create a good life--the right to the “Pursuit of happiness". Moreover, when one wants to think about it, while England made it legal for people from their country come and settle in the “New World”, it is very apparent that the Natives of this land could look on us exactly like we look on those that are currently here illegally.
Being passionate about kayaking makes me aware of something in my life. I am a US citizen who is just a spoiled rotten child.
Our current unemployment rate has hovered just above 9% for the past several years and the common complaint is that illegal aliens play a big part in this because they are taking our jobs. Well perhaps, just perhaps, part of that high unemployment rate is because of the fact that we are a spoiled nation. Illegals do the work that we consider below us and refuse to take. Moreover, when we make statements like, “They are taking our jobs” it is essentially saying that we are better than they are. Again, being born here was not our choice but it somehow makes us more deserving of having a living wage than it does for someone who is here illegally?
Sadly, I do not have the solution to our immigration problem. However, I do not have an argument against someone coming here to escape a civil war and wanting to make a better life for their family and doing work that so many of us find beneath us.
