Tondeleo: I am spending my free time going through old notes and recordings of conversations with Doc and Marilyn and their friends. Some of the things that are said are not quite worthy of a post, they are just little glimpses into the minds of these rural Americans. This is one of those brief little snippets that I felt was worth passing on.
Doc has strong opinions on people being allowed to come to America to work, and on the American Independence Day, I thought it would be appropriate to post some of his thoughts on immigration and the American dream.
Doc and Marilyn had been playing music at an outdoor barbecue and pig picking outside of Herndon, VA. A barbecue is of course where the meat is cooked over an open flame, and is marinated in a tomato sauce, mixed with molasses, peppers, onions, garlic and other "secret" ingredients. Nearly every American has his or her own recipe for making barbecue sauce. A pig picking is having an entire gutted pig on a large barbecue grill, with a lid on it, and has cooked overnight. The fat is mostly cooked out of it, and the meat is tender and seems to nearly fall off the bone. The pig in its entirety is on the grill, head to tail.
While they were coming back from Herndon, the first thing in the morning after the barbecue party, they stopped at a convenience store, where there were Mexican immigrants out in the car park waiting to be hired for day labourer work.
Doc and Marilyn know what it is to struggle and to attempt to earn one's own living rather than to depend on public assistance. It is particularly difficult for Hispanic immigrants, due to not speaking English for many of them and no documentation. They get taken advantage of by their employers and feel that they have no recourse. It is very sad.
If a Hispanic immigrant does somehow find a means of getting assistance, Americans get angry. But Americans also get angry of they want to work! As Doc explains it to me, all they want is a better life for themselves and their children, just like all Americans do (except those on welfare, Dc points out).
Doc said to me, "I seen a guy with that WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bumper sticker on his truck down there hasslin' the Mexicans and the people what was hirin' them.
He was cursin' them, tellin' them to go back to Mexico, and hollerin' at the people what was givin' them work. And he had this WWJD bumper sticker on his truck!
I'd like to see a bumper sticker what says WWJH. Who Would Jesus Hate. I'd give that guy one of those, if I had one. Jesus aint hate nobody.
I mean Christopher Columbus was a Mexican, well he was a Spaniard, immigrant without no papers. He was just like the rest of us. He had a dream and came to America and it wasn't even called that yet, but he came over to find his dream.
Most the people what's hatin' the Mexicans, their people was immigrants, too, and aint had no papers. So where do they get off just because Mexicans want the same thing?
As long as there is a place where a person can be free to work all he wants and to raise his children to have a better life, people is going to come there to try to make a better life. It really aint right for the first bunch to come over here for all them years without permission, without papers or nothing, and then say "ain't no one else allowed in!"
I say we ought to round up all the Americans what's on welfare and won't work, and what is sellin' drugs to their friends and neighbors, and send them to Mexico. Except guess what? Mexico don't want them!
