Are Latino Immigrants the New Black Citizens: Or Are We All the Same?

The Unites States is this supposedly great country that professes to be a melting pot, whereas all are welcomed.   But how true is that?  Is this country really the land of the free and the home of the brave?  Because the pictures above depict hundreds of very brave children and individuals who do not look free to me.  They are brave because they have journeyed hundreds and even thousands of miles in search of a better life.  And once they make it to this US soil, the same soil that was taken from their ancestors by their ancestors, they are not mixed into the melting pot, but sent to a prison plot.

What baffles me is that many US citizens of all colors are against immigration.  People believe that this country is being taken over by “illegals”.  However, who of us is legal and who gave any of us the authority to be here?  Further, the majority of the people who immigrate to the US from Central and South America do so because of the political and economic turmoil of their host countries.  Such turmoil is usually a direct effect of US and European foreign policies and colonization of these countries.  So how can we deny them?  It seems that the US tends to have a case of temporary amnesia when history is against her.

We live in a country of contradictions.  We believe that so long as we are the ones doing the taking, everything is fine.  However, once those who we have taken from have their hands out, they are then vilified.  But how long do you think that the US can rape, pillage, murder and rob from other countries/races without bearing its fruit.

But this is not simply a case of immigration.  The second picture was taken during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  And the scenes look quite familiar. Where was this great government of ours when their own citizens needed their help?  They were M.I.A.  because it is not about US citizenry. It is not an issue of ones place of birth.  Rather, who you were born too.  It is what Actor/Comedian Paul Mooney deemed “color for protection”.  It is about skin tone and oppressed history.

As Black people in the US, we are no different from anyone from Central or South America.  In order for the US and Europe to grow economically and socially, Africans and Natives were sacrificed.  And in order to keep white harmony our marginalization must be continued.  Please understand your history and know that the slave industry touched most if not every country throughout Central and South America, including the forgotten 150,000 plus Africans sent to Mexico.  I singled Mexico out, because there is a special tension between Black Americans and Mexicans in the US as opposed to an understanding.

So I challenge you to stand with our brothers and sisters of the Diaspora to ensure that we all are treated equal, if by no others than ourselves