At the end of the bit, my son commented that I was pretty upset that they wanted to change the 14th Amendment. I reminded my son that while he is regularly picked on in school for being white, if we were living in the mainland, he would get probably still get picked on, but for being Mexican. His response was “Well, I just wouldn’t tell anyone I was Mexican.”
It made me sad to hear him say that, so I did what I always do in a situation like this: hauled out my soapbox and climbed aboard!
I told my son that he should never, ever be ashamed of being part Mexican, but rather he should be proud of his heritage. The Mexicans are a proud people with a reputation for being very hard workers. The problem some people in the US have with Mexicans is that their country tends to be much poorer than ours, so parents want to come to the US to get better jobs so they can take care of their families. Unfortunately, they usually are not given permission to come to the US but because taking care of their families is so important, they sneak in to the United States, thereby becoming illegal aliens.
I explained that there are many Americans who feel that illegal aliens take away our jobs and use up our resources, never mind that the areas they tend to settle in were actually once part of Mexico or that the jobs they typically take are ones that no one else wants to do anyway. I told Ezequiel that most Mexican parents are far more concerned with providing for their families than the prestige of a particular job, so they will take menial jobs like working in the crop fields, housecleaning, or building because making money for their families is what is most important to them.
Further, I told my son, his great-great grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution, along side the great general, Pancho Villa, and that the Mexicans won their freedom from Spain, which is something he should be very proud of. He should be just as proud of being Mexican as he is of being Hungarian like his Nagy Papa (grandfather), New Zealander like his grandma, and yes, American, like his other grandpa.
I told him that one thing that bothered me sometimes about Americans is that they forget that the United States is a country that was founded by immigrants, people who left their original countries in search of a better way of life for their families. One of the principals of our country that has made it so great is that we welcome people to come and seek the American Dream. Yet lately, it seems that some Americans forget that what they're currently fighting against is the very thing that once made them so great.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I told my son that he should be proud of all the parts that make him who he is and never let anyone try to make him feel ashamed of his heritage. And when I was done and my soapbox put away, my son said to me (and I cringed as he opened his mouth, fearing that he was about to say “way too much information”),
“Mom, could you write that down for me. I want to remember everything you just said.”
I nearly cried.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Born in the U.S.A. | ||||
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