“All Second Generations”

By

Gerry Niskern

Does the topic of illegal immigration come up often in your conversations with friends? Everyone has an opinion. Build a higher wall. Pick them all up and deport them. Take back our jobs. Never mind that the majority of those jobs are work that on one else will do.

I have a young friend who constantly worried about illegal immigration too, because you see, she was brought to this country by her parents when she was five. She is a young mother and we often compare notes about her boys and my grand children. When hers wanted to Spiderman for Halloween, so did ours. When hers wanted a special video for Christmas, so did ours!

When her oldest started school he bragged that he was “the smartest kid in the class.” That was because he spoke Spanish and perfect English. He interpreted for the teacher. Her kids also told her about what they had learned about Thanksgiving and that they wanted her to cook a turkey like their friends were having.

She asked me to write out exactly what to buy and how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. And at Christmas time she wanted make traditional Christmas cookies for her boys. I gave her my recipe and my cookie cutters too.

Later on, when I asked how her holidays had been, she laughed, telling me about how her whole family of brothers and sisters and their kids go to her mother’s tiny house on Christmas Eve and spend the night. And just as all off spring do, they love to tease their mother about how hard she was on them when they were growing up.

Turns out, her father had passed away and her mother worked two jobs every day. The older kids had to see to it that everyone was up on time. They had to be washed, fed and ready for school. She told us, “ My mother’s strict rule was that the house and yard had to be clean. She went straight from her morning job to her second job on the city bus.When she came home at night she expected chores and homework to be done and dinner started.

Over the years my young friend has continued on a tough work schedule waitressing and cleaning houses. She and her husband were eventually able to buy their own home. Her two sons are both in college and doing well.

Just like every Second Generation they have assimilated and become woven into the fabric of American life, just as all our grand and great-grandparents did decades ago.

If she were stopped for a traffic violation, could she be deported? Would the family be torn apart? Could you send them with no regrets?

I couldn’t.