Dreamers
Who Do
“The
world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the
world needs dreamers who do.”
Sarah Ban
Breathnach
We're hearing a lot about
Dreamers this week. Specifically, the young people brought here as
children by parents who entered the country without permission. These
children, who are now adults, are enrolled in colleges, hired into
the work force, and are upright and contributing citizens. They are
now in jeopardy of being deported back to their countries of
origin—countries they don't even know. The DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program has six
months to live unless Congress passes a law that creates a legal path
to citizenship. To me, this makes no sense on several levels. First
of all—“brought here as children” means that they did not
willfully violate the immigration laws. Secondly, they have been
educated in our public schools and colleges, so we have invested in
their training, but if they are deported, we will not be the
beneficiaries of their skills. And thirdly, this country was and is
founded on the premise that it is a land of opportunity. With the
exception of our native people, who are also treated terribly by the
powers that be, we are all here because our forebears were
immigrants. At one time, they too were Dreamers. This is the heritage
of America—we are a nation of dreamers and doers.
In denying citizenship,
the abilities of these educated young people will be lost to us, and
that is simply a sad and unnecessary sacrifice. Here are the names of
a few immigrants you may recognize, who've made contributions to the
Land of the Free: Cary Grant, Albert Einstein, Joni Mitchell, Arnold
Schwarzenengger, Charlize Theron, Neil Young, Henry Kissinger, Yeo
Ming. There are millions of others, whose names we do not know, but
who are here working, paying taxes and bringing their gifts to
America every day. Do we really want to cut off our noses to spite
our faces?
Lastly, as a nation we
are lovers of the good life. We are suffering right now from the
changing tides of industry and mechanization, from stagnant wages,
and especially from excessive expectations of “a chicken in every
pot” and two cars in the garage, four bedrooms and five baths in a
house with a view. We are seeing a normalizing of economic realities.
What goes up, must eventually come down. The unreality of the
sustainability of our ever expanding style of life is sinking in and
hitting hard. I get that, since I too find it hard to make ends meet,
and I remember when industry carried our economy. But these young
people are not to blame for that. They should not be punished for the
progression of technology that has supplanted the industrial age.
We need Dreamers and
especially dreamers who do. They may be the very ones who carry us
into a new age of discovery. Let's don't go kicking and screaming.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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