Posted on 07/12/2009 1:05:09 PM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
CONCEPCION CHIQUIRICHAPA, Guatemala - Leaving Guatemala 12 years ago was the hardest thing Carlos Sanchez had ever done.
Until he decided to come back.
Sanchez still remembers the day he left home: saying goodbye to his parents; leaving his friends; that last tear-stained glimpse of his sweet mountain village in western Guatemala as the bus carried him over the ridge to an uncertain life in "the north." Painful, anxious times.
But not as hard as the return trip. When Sanchez, 36, arrived back in Central America recently, after living a third of his life as an illegal immigrant in suburban Washington, he stepped off the flight from Dulles International Airport into a cultural no man's land. He had been an outlaw migrant in one country; now he was a native-born stranger in the other.
For years, Sanchez had worked all the overtime hours he could handle as a supervisor for a granite counter contractor in Springfield. Last year, overtime slipped to part time and then almost no time. After months of looking for work, he started looking at airfares.
An expatriate's longing for his native land is often searing. But Sanchez, like thousands of Latino immigrants forced back across the border in recent months by the sinking economy, is learning sooner than he wanted to that going home again can be even more complicated.
Almost at once upon his return, he was felled by a bout of the turistas. His Arlington County-born toddler, Marvin, also took sick, and Sanchez nearly panicked at the difficulty in finding a doctor. His wife, Gladys, was no longer comfortable in the traditional garments of Mayan women, finding them heavy and stiff compared with the Old Navy blouses and jeans she bought at Potomac Mills.
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ping
I disagree with your premise. So called Conservatives are no less inclined to reap the benefits off the hard working efforts of their employees than Liberals are. Business is business be it either Left or Right and "honest good will" does not exist in the final profit line that determines whether a company will remain open or close down.
Central America has always been a culture of the "Haves and the Have-nots" with not much in between. If questioned about their political affiliations I am sure the "Haves" would have stated overwhelmingly that they were Conservative.
Look at our country's history with the auto industry and the unions. You know why the unions were formed.........
Our country is still rife with "conservative" run companies profiting from the hard work of their employees but thats just the way it is, there is nothing wrong with that.
My issue with the poster I replied to was his condemnation of the people of Guatamala by calling it a dump and blaming it on the people like Mr. Sanchez who made it way. Mr. Sanchez and the other people like him are not responsible for their economic conditions. For most of them politics is secondary to their trying to ekk out a living to provide for their families under the conditions I stated previously. But one thing is assured, there is no welfare state nor free medical assistance for the ill or injured in these Central American countries.
While I vociferously condemn illegal immigration, the Christian humanitarian in me realizes that it is a deeper problem than "black and white", "right vs. wrong" and the abject hatred towards Mr. Sanchez on this thread is very discouraging coming from fellow conservatives who rail against democrats calling us the party of "no compassion".
I have no answers to these questions but I certainly cannot condemn what Mr. Sanchez has done in order to provide for his family........
Given the same circumstances, and not having been priviledged to lead a life of luxury without having to spend my childhood youth cutting cane in central America, I would have done the very same thing..........
Business is business be it either Left or Right and “honest good will” does not exist in the final profit line that determines whether a company will remain open or close down.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sorry...I just couldn’t get past your first paragraph.
It is impossible to have business without having a population composed of **honest** and moral people of good will.
If the people occupying a country are not basically honest and moral, business can’t happen! The result is poverty.
If the people of Mexico, Central, and South America are poor the first think that needs to be fixed is their hearts.
It likely is a dump. If the people of Guatamala don't want a dump then they should first work on their morality and honesty. (Gee! Do you think the Gospel might help with that?)
Sorry but such a country you are describing is controlled by the heartless, greedy and power hungry elitists. The heartbeat of the country is in the people that they control.............
Old Navy's contractor will probably be reluctant to hire her because she has been tainted with Yanqui ideas and expectations.
Correct, I visited the CIA world factbook instead. It's informative, free, and I won't come back with multiple stomach parasites.
Let's see, 56% below the poverty line, $5000 per capita income. These people sure don't produce a whole heck of a lot, do they?
Time to face facts: America didn't rise to the top of the heap because we had the best damn banana pickers and granite countertop installers in the world. We work smart so we don't have to work hard.
You are unfairly maligning a class of people who on the whole bust their asses more to provide for themselves and their family members just to survive than you would ever have to endure in your entire lifetime.
I am "maligning" nobody. Not everybody wants to (or can) achieve American levels of prosperity. My message to them is simple: STAY HOME.
Worldwide, there are about 3 billion more people just like these folks, living at the subsistence level and busting their backsides just to put food on the table. You can respect them for that, but at the same time realize that our way of life (and the traditions, values, and people that brought us here) are vastly superior. I take no comfort in this fact and feel no joy that others are suffering, but the facts of life are what they are.
After all, isn't it you and your like minded anti-NAFTA crowd who are so damn opposed to our country's major industries expansion in Central and South America? You can't have it both ways dude!
I don't recall ever discussing that topic with you, "dude."
And as for that three room, one bath cinder block house that you are so up in arms about this guy building on the enormous monies he was able to send back to his home
You're reading an awful lot into the two sentences I posted.
Instead of condemning the peoples of the third world who have little control over their futures, maybe you should volunteer with your local church and do some missionary work down there to see what life is really like for them.
You don't have to convince me that life in the third world sucks. And that is precisely why we should not import any element of these failed civilizations into the U.S. We probably cannot do anything about their pitifully low economic output, but we can definitely prevent the cancer from spreading here.
Too many people like to draw a line between economic conservatism and social conservatism. The biggest question I'd like to see answered is why should we expect illegal immigrants to respect our immigration laws when our own damned politicians won't.
Re: Outlaws in the United States, strangers at home
MSNBC ^ | 7/12/2009 | Steve Hendrix
Your article is fascinating on several levels:
1) The initial impulse that inspired you to write an article in that general genre.
2) Or, how you came to learn of Mr Sanchez if it was the specifics of his experience that inspired you to produce the story.
a) did you personally learn of Mr Sanchez’s experience?
b) or, did an editor assign the coverage of Mr Sanchez’s story?
c) or, did an individual or an organization call Mr Sanchez’s story to your attention, or to that of your editor?
It’s these kind of “inside baseball” details that often prove as interesting as the news items themselves.
Thank you so very much for your attention.
The following disclaimer was written on the bottom of the Wa Poo’s E-mail form: Because of the high volume of correspondence, Washington Post staffers are not always able to reply to every message. (no kidding?! LOL)
Before the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, the only way I would have learned of this outstanding person from Guatemala, and his quaint and colorful wife, would have been in the pages of National Geographic Magazine.
OBTW, National Geographic is now a completely left-wing green outfit, apparently staffed by the same sort of liberal Global Warming ani that run NPR.
Yes, friendly and helpful Carlos and his noisy leaf blower will be sorely missed, except by ACORN, which has at least 25,000 "Carlos Sanchez" registered and voting in Maryland as we speak. The gardening service will miss him, too, until they pick up a new Honduran.
“Yes, friendly and helpful Carlos and his noisy leaf blower will be sorely missed, except by ACORN, which has at least 25,000 “Carlos Sanchez” registered and voting in Maryland as we speak.”
Unable to give a damn.... ;-)
Boo-Hoo!
Jeb Bush and CFR announces push for immigration reform
Media begins a fresh round of stories about God's Chil'run wandering the wilderness lookin' for the promised land.
Coincidence?
“Business is business be it either Left or Right and ‘honest good will’ does not exist in the final profit line that determines whether a company will remain open or close down.”
Actually, good will is intrinsic to the survival of most companies. Honest good will. In fact, “good will” is so important to the well-being of companies that it actually has a financial and economic definition, and often is given value on the balance sheets of companies.
There aren't many companies that would last in our competitive economy that didn't have a significant reservoir of good will. “Honest good will” is what your customers give to you that makes them come back time after time. The loss of good will translates directly to the loss of business.
Maintaining good will is a principal task of the business manager.
sitetest
“We **earned** it, and we **worked** for it.”
No, we didn't.
Those who came before us earned it and worked for it, starting even before the Revolution.
We live off their sweat and efforts. We enjoy the fruits of their labor. This is the social capital of our society that has been built up over the centuries.
Our duty is to continue this project, to do what is right and decent and honest to maintain the culture of trust that permits economic flourishing.
But I look around and honestly, I don't think that the folks who comprise our society today are doing a good job of that. Although many of us as individuals try to keep faith with the generations that have preceded us, to me it appears that we're spending our social capital faster than we're replenishing it.
I hope that something happens to turn it around.
sitetest
E.G., from the Potato Famine of the 1840's until today, fewer than 5 million Irish emigrated to the US. We have picked up over 35 million Mexicans just since 1965. The government admits to 12 million more illegal Mexicans (they probably stopped counting after Southern California). South America could ship us another 200 million in a heart-beat. The European-heritage population of the US is now in a minority.
Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles, Swedes, Germans ... societal integration .... fuggedaboutit. Sorry,
¡Olvídelo, mi querida de la pierna larga y elegante!
There is still enough moral capital for our nation to keep limping along, but I fear you are right. The Marxists are doing all they can to destroy the moral foundation and moral culture that make our prosperity possible.
This is why I hammer so hard at our Marxist government schools. They understand that if they can indoctrinate children they can win elections in just one or two generations.
The only solution that I see is for conservatives to set up a system of private conservative schools ( tuition free) and to do all that they can to permanently close down the government schools.
And let's thank Teddy, and Bwaney, and the gang, for the subprime mortgage, student loans and other taxpayer subsidized loans Carlos defaulted on, and is sticking us with.
(Sniffle) Sometimes we might even wonder how many unemployment checks, welfare checks, IRS refunds, Social Security checks, UI, Workmen's Comp, and SSI checks Carlos, and his fam, pocketed (sob.)
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