You can't really see them, but there are about 75 Common Mergansers swimming around off the end of that last boat in line (the one with the two orange bumbers hanging off the end). As I took this picture a few minutes ago a Song Sparrow was singing just a few feet away. For such a drab-looking bird, they certainly know how to sing.
Today is "A Day Without Immigrants." Time for the people and government of the U.S. to wake up and realize just who it is that harvests and prepares our food, cleans our hotel rooms, vaccuums our offices, assemble our computers...the list goes on. I read in the paper yesterday that Mexican workers in the U.S. illegally send an estimated $10 BILLION dollars back to their families in Mexico every year. I mentioned that to Sonja and she wasn't surprised at all.
When we lived in Jackson, WY, she worked at the local organic food market along with four Mexican coworkers. She told me that they were always at work, and how some of them had not taken a single day off in over seven years (by choice, I think...the owners of the store were very progressive people who paid fairly well and treated all their employees equally). All these folks did was work so they could send the vast majority of their paychecks home to their wives, husbands, children and parents back in Mexico. Their dedication to their families is pretty amazing and their desire for a better future for their children is inspiring.
It's time for many Americans to wake up and realize that the one thing that makes the United States totally unique in the world is its status as an immigrant nation. In fact, 98.4% of all Americans are descendants of immigrants (either willing immigrants or not so willing). To even suggest that the U.S. should limit immigration more than it already does is contrary to everything our ancestors came to this country for.
I hope that today's demonstrations allow this country to think seriously about the issue before any changes are made to our immigration laws.
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