10 Dollars and Hope

Airport layovers are two words travelers dread, but sometimes they result in a pleasant surprise.

We decided to have a snack while waiting for our flight home from Dallas. The woman at the small table beside us was obviously alone and seemed interested in our discussion. After inquiring where she was traveling we engaged in conversation and learned she was from the Dominican Republic.

She came to America 18 years ago with nothing but 10 dollars and hope for a better life. Here she worked her way through university and med school to become a doctor, but had left the practice of medicine to teach nursing students interested in serving the poor. Once established, she helped seven brothers and sisters join her in this country, proudly proclaiming they became doctors, lawyers, architects, and one had just been named to head golf operations at Pinehurst. We were enthralled with her immigration story and inspired by the success she and her siblings had achieved.

Immigration is a subject our leaders either ignore or demagogue, but the facts are clear. There are 17 million undocumented immigrants in America and some 300,000 in North Carolina. We can debate how they got here but what matters is what are we going to do about it? Are we, as some advocate, going to round them up, put them on a bus and export them? Who will harvest our crops, take care of our yards, build our homes or cook our food? What will happen to the businesses that lose their workforce or customers, apartment owners suddenly without tenants and our own families with shortages of meats and vegetables for their tables? Is this what we really want?

Our legislature is currently considering immigration reform, a topic unnecessarily politicized in recent years. Instead of pandering to what for all appearances looks to be racism, we would hope our lawmakers would ask what people in our state really want. I hope the answer is that we want fairness, equal opportunity for all and the continued guarantee of corresponding rewards for honest labor. We want all to contribute their fair share, maintain our laws and be good citizens. Given the opportunity we would hope they would become legal citizens.

We pray our lawmakers will rise above the pandering that resulted in unreasonable immigration laws in Arizona, Alabama and Georgia. These states did rid themselves of illegal immigrants but at what cost and outcome? Farmers are dismayed because they cannot find labor; their crops rot in their fields. Construction projects go unfinished without workers and deportation splits families apart, creating emotional and financial hardship. Is this what these states really wanted?

Have we become so narcissistic that we don’t want to allow others the opportunity we have enjoyed? Are we a people who now believe that if someone else wins we must lose? Can we still come together to find compromise solutions to common concerns? Or are we going to be the generation that shuts the door to those who do not look like, talk like or act like us? We are still seen as the land where 10 dollars and hope, opportunity and hard work can result in achieving the American dream. Our hope is that this dream is still alive and we continue to live into it.