Hey America: Let’s get it right this time!

The way I see it, this recent influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants has given America a golden opportunity to right some wrongs of her past. Our beginnings as a nation are tainted, to say the least, by our displacing of the First Natives. We were the unwelcome immigrants then, coming in droves, speaking a foreign tongue. We weren’t interested in assimilating or learning the languages of the people who were already here. but rather in making this place our own. We planted ourselves onto land that was already occupied and inserted our customs, as well as the English language. Soon after, we decided that in order to work this land we needed slave labor, so we actually went to Africa and bought fellow human beings, as if they were farm equipment! Much as I love my country, I can’t ever forget the inhumane parts of our history. Its a lot like growing up in a dysfunctional family, where at first there’s rosy denial, then outrage, and finally a reluctant acceptance. We know that we can’t change the past, but have we learned enough not to repeat it?

The Latino explosion in this country gives us another chance to get it right. Rather than fueling the anti-immigration fire or fighting for an English-only policy, why don’t we reach out, instead, with a warm American welcome. Let’s shower them with the American values of equality, tolerance and opportunity, and stop talking about building an enormous electrified fence. Let’s embrace the ideas that two languages are better than one, that sharing is always better than controlling and that different cultures can live peacefully in the same land. We blew it with the Native Americans, we blew it with the African Americans; let’s not blow it this time. Our golden opportunity is before us; let’s take it.