Reflection 2: Immigration Symbolism

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty, a symbol to all immigrants that their strenuous journey is at last over. Finally, they have arrived to the United States of America, country of the free.

This statue, erected in 1886, was a gift from France to America. The Statue of Liberty is the roman goddess, Libertas, and a sign of the independence of America; a welcoming figure to all immigrants. However, she does not symbolize the illegal immigration of criminals, drug dealers, and murders into the US. She symbolizes hope and freedom for the oppressed and poverty stricken from other countries. We are to open open arms, and our borders to those who are persecuted. Not those who profit from illegal and harmful conduct.

Why do we continuously allow people into our country, who have no qualms with breaking laws to get here? We stand by idly, on occasion turning a blind eye to those who enter. The reason behind this is the fact that we are unwilling to participate in the tertiary job sectors that must be fulfilled to keep this country running. So many of us are intent with keeping the jobs we have already,  ensuring a better living style for ourselves, that we no longer care about the poverty that graces others homes. Therefore allowing uncivil conduct to persist.

So we continue to allow illegal aliens into our country, so long as they keep a low profile and continue working the jobs we care naught for. A good example of this would be the maquiladoras, factories for cheap labor, we have positioned so close to our border,  for the convenience of cheap labor and cheap transportation.

Yet do we really want these people entering our country? Gang rates seem to increase, through no fault of the US citizens. We get caught in the crossfire, and in turn get blamed on occasion for the gang violence that plagues towns.

There are a few examples of this in The Distance Between Us, the memoir by Reyna Grande. The first that we see is within her own family, her father. On page eighty-six, we experience this conflict. Feeling for ourselves the danger and fear that Reyna's mother must have felt when confronted with Reyna's father. "The bystander and my father got into a fistfight when he tried to break up my parents' argument. The gun accidentally went off, and the man was shot.
Luckily for my father, the man did not die. Luckily for my father, he was allowed voluntary deportation, instead of getting thrown in prison. Within a week, he had managed to sneak across the border and resumed his life in the United States as if nothing had ever happened." Many circumstances continue to take place, so do we really want these people entering our country? When they seem to have no qualms with such violence?