Discrimination and Immigrants Rights

It scares me to death to think about the possibility of Trump with the power that being the US president would give him, and what he would do with it. After reading the news about two “white” men with extensive criminal records beating up a homeless guy and declaring that “it was OK because he was Latin” I started thinking about what this whole campaign circus is causing to our society. I don’t live in the US, in fact, I’m from Uruguay, a small country in Latin America. Even though, due to our strong Spanish and Italian heritage, we look more like European than Latin, we are part or Latin America and so I feel bother by this whole topic.

First I want to start by saying that we don’t need people encouraging crazy people. We have enough of those already. The last thing our international society needs is powerful people prompting more hate and discrimination. We need our leaders to set examples of tolerance and respect, we need to show people that we can’t develop as a society if any kind of discrimination is still happening everyday. And I know it’s a long process but c’mon people, this is the twenty-first century. We know we are all the same, we have the same rights and obligations and nobody should have the power to tell someone  they are inferior. Trust me I also live full of pre conceived concepts and clichés, but a few years back I realized how poisonous that is and started to change my way of viewing the world.

I hate the fact that people think that because we are from Latin America we are somehow inferior in any way. It’s true, our countries don’t have the same means, and we have a lot of problems with security and economy but we do the exact same things. We have internet access, we go to school and work, we have scientist, we have doctors, we develop lots of things everyone in the world use today, we have fast food chains, and malls and airports. We don’t live on the middle of the jungle, or the dessert, or between the dirt. I can’t count the amount of times someone from a developed country asked me if we watch tv here, or if we use Tumblr or go to college. THE FREAKING ANSWER IS YES! We do all the same stuff, we even have similar laws and religions and politics, we just don’t have everything developed yet, and probably won’t have for a couple hundred years more.

When I read what Trump had said about Mexican people, and what I believe is a generalized view on all Latin immigrants, I was sad and pissed. I was sad because it felt like a huge step backwards in the mutual understanding of our international society. I was sad because I know there is a lot of people, in the US particularly, that think like him. That they believe they are better than anyone else just because they happen to have been born there.I was sad because they are ignorant, they clearly don’t care to find out the facts and just go with what makes them more money. And I’m pissed because this is affecting us in more ways than we are able to see today. This crime I read about, opened my eyes to the notion that people are taking his words as a truth and are going to scary extremes.

As I read in another article, the illegal immigrants are about 4% of the working population in the US and they mostly concentrate in some areas or services. Imagine a pyramid and at the bottom of it are the "illegal" immigrants, you take them all out and the jobs nobody wants to do but are necessary to the functioning of a country are left without doing and you have a huge void impossible to fill. Besides the fact that it is virtually impossible to make disappear a whole 11 million people, but who’s counting.

My point is, every person who went to the US illegally risked their lives and are most certainly  trying really hard to survive, and make their dreams a reality. Something that sadly people take for granted, in other parts of the world is hard to envision. They are fighting for a better future, they don't want to take your jobs, or rob your house, or kill, they just want a better life. Don’t we all? The US would not be what it is today without the immigrants. One of the things that make the US big is the cultural diversity, the different languages being spoken, foods, jobs , and its people. As someone watching everything from outside, I honestly believe that if tolerance and respect were the norm and not the exception, the US and generally the whole international society would be a million times better.

I have so much more to say but it would require a lot of room and time. But this is basically  why I think we have to fight Trump and this whole train of thought. We have to make the world listen, and be loud. I know we can do it, after all we, the younger generation, are the future of this world, and we have to fight to make t better for everyone. 

L.D