Attribution: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that as the keeper absorbs all the constant hoopla about immigration and the borders, he and Phyllis look back a very few generations when their predecessors were getting off the ships in New York and heading west in search of better lives with hope as their primary asset.
They did not find those better lives without challenge and hardship—tumbleweed prairie dirt farms, Canadian lumber camps, and always making their way by dint of physical skills over brainy schemes.
That those struggling great-great-great-grandparents got us all where we are today is a miraculous thing and leaves us ALL with the need to apologize to the Native Americans for the audacious elbowing that ensued, and to encourage development of a depoliticized immigration policy that has “hope” at the top of the requirement list.
Photo by Bill Stokes