Ever since the beginning of Donald Trump's campaign, the media has made much out of his Mexican immigration comments, like he exposed his genitals on live t.v., or something horrible like that. You may not like that he's blowing the lid off of your illegal $9/hour worker scam (because your basic business model sucks), but you have to see it from a native New Yorker's point of view. The nanny who raises your kid for you, so you can commute to some dull generic job, has no real stake in your child's future, because you can't even feel enough compassion to pay her health benefits, while she stuffs money in her bra on the sly to send to her poor extended family back home.
We have a wonderful recycling program in the city and state of New York, one that has created a false Banana Republic economy out of picking through our trash. The afflicted and addicted on my block are so bad about lifting bottle and can deposits from the county's recycling containers, that I have to use a separate indoor garbage can for just those types of returns, because I don't want some violent fucking drunk using the money from my garbage as an excuse to continue drinking. That's not what reusing our natural resources is about.
Ditto with that tiny little lady pushing a shopping cart, stringing five kids along with her. Sure, she looks small and vulnerable, and you feel sorry for her, but do you really think "The American Dream" for her and her family should be taking our trash as a full-time job? Her children will never see us as equals, or treat us like friends, family, and neighbors. They see "white people" as money, which is laughable, since I see her as a desperate single mother of EUROPEAN descent that's Spanish-flavored, which definitely does not make her a minority. The numbers don't add up to her sense of self about stealing from our garbage.
The media is just as bad at holding up this phony sense of self, to make money off of us, because it's blatantly untrue that Hispanic Americans are some small poor underclass. One t.v channel did this whole piece on some music teacher in Paraguay who uses garbage to fashion instruments for his students because THE PEOPLE OF PARAGUAY decided that it's appropriate for their own people to live in filth. Did we do that to them?! And you know what they want, more than anything in this world? To leave their country ASAP for America. That's right, they want to come here instead of cleaning up the trash in their own community, because apparently they're too good to do what you and I do on any given day. So, I guess it's OK to come here illegally and riffle through our trash than pick up your own garbage? Does that make any sense to you?
The people in these shadowy underground networks adopt the same arrogant attitude as some stateside Chinese: they disdain learning English to favor their own language (something my grandparents didn't have the luxury to do, because they had to work in the city as minors to feed their families during The Great Depression), nor do they pay taxes, or take their children to our schools, just so they can feed off of our cast-off bits and pieces, without ever giving back to the very system that gives them life. They do not fund our hospitals, or vote in our elections, or work in our businesses, all because you want a cheeseburger for $5, a five dollars that will never be adjusted to current inflation rates, because you can't deal without your creature comforts.
Since I've been back in Rockland County and openly encamped in town, not once has that cute little Hispanic lady with five kids—the one who canvasses the block every week during recycling day with her shopping cart piled far above the rim with can returns—ever waved at me, or said "hello" to me, or acknowledged my existence in any way, shape, or form, because to her, I am nothing but a dollar sign. I am not human to her and her family. I am nothing but money to her.
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| The Mexican Wedding Dress: my mom bought it on a family trip to Cozumel many years ago and never wore it once, so she gave it to me. I love it! |
