But we play with fire when we assume that the internet has everything. Every stern history teacher and exasperated college professor who forbids the use of Wikipedia is, true, engaged in a losing battle against ease and efficiency that is perhaps 90% misguided... but they are also fighting the long skirmish that will save all scholarship.

I struggle here, for I am confessedly a minimalist. The blough (may I take the rhyme with "cup," Grumble? After all--hiccough) is a benighted and aesthetically chaotic medium, of little utility in reaching new heights of human knowledge or art. As for the rest of the internet, I ascribe to Hector's rule, with the Sal corollary (or was it Sal's rule and Melvin's corollary?). Suffice it to say that internet is not, in the end, good for much--it may be a series of tubes, but, not to credit that corrupt old monster, its effect is too dump-truck-like to ever replace real reading or real research (not to speak of actual experience, which I don't consider to be either my forte [pronounce this "fort," SVP, and, while we're on the subject, it's muZAYum, not myuZEEum] my purview, or my bailiwick). More connections among our computers means fewer among our synapses; the lower the fruit, the lazier the researcher.

So, in the best tradition of building sandcastles against the tidal wave or going after Tigers with a 76mm M3, I propose a new Arbiters feature: You Can't Find This on the Internet! Here we ignore the larger problem (that all knowledge can never be uploaded, whatever the astonishingly euergetic/nefarious plans of Google and such like, and that reliance on the internet may actually damage our use of the present as much as the past) and focus on the fact that we rely on what the search engine finds. Until all past knowledge is on the internet, what are we missing, what are we forgetting? We have a baby capable of running its own bath--and a lovely bath it is--but, bathetic as the metaphor may be, I'm interested in this old bathwater.

So here's an amusing piece, I thought, and one still relevant, and worth some attention after languishing for a century and a quarter. It is unsigned work from the "Contributors Club" (I thought that apt) of The Atlantic, AD 1882. I demand commentary from SFM and Sal, especially, who are not pulling their weight these last two days.

NB: Please excuse my primitive and inept scanning and media-posting abilities--these all need to be rotated and re-sized, I think. Leave me in an old scriptorium in the Dordogne with naught but a clutch of pencils, a moleskin notebook, and my wits, and I'll teach you something... but my learning curve is slower here. Also, the University does not provide me with the likes of Clarence, and some materials are too sensitive for undergraduates on work study. Which reminds me, why has the interesting discussion on servitude lapsed? Anyway, here is an interesting article, for your delectation and commentary--You Can't Find THIS on the Internet!

Contributors Club page 1 of 3

Contributors Club page 2 of 3

Contrinutors Club page 3 of 3

The Professor

(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

It was my first day in an immigration attorney's office. Rochester, Minnesota, is a small city of 100,000, and Michael York is one of the only people who practice immigration law exclusively. Although Rochester is small and a non-traditional immigrant center, the population has changed much in the last years because of international workers coming to the Mayo Clinic and to IBM. Other immigrants are refugees sponsored by the Catholic or Lutheran Churches which have a big presence in Olmsted County and throughout the Midwest.

In a matter of one day, I was introduced to immigrants and residents comprising virtually every conceivable situation. Some were applying for marriage licenses, hoping to gain the same citizenship as the woman or man whom they loved. Others were trying to bring their entire family of seven from Durango, Mexico, after having spent the better part of their life working in the United States in order to prepare for this day. Still others were calling the office every day, wondering how the paperwork was coming along for their wife who had been left voluntarily under threat of deportation a year ago. Still others were hoping that, after applying for temporary asylum status every year for more than ten years, they could finally change their citizenship from their war-torn home country which has changed hands some dozen times in the last nineteen years.

...he drove from in from Mexicali, no worse for wear.
money to burn, time to kill.
but five minutes looking in his eyes and we all knew he
was broken pretty bad, so we gave him what we had.
we cleared a space for him to sleep in,
and we let the silence that's our trademark
make its presence felt.
come on in, we haven't slept for weeks.
drink some of this. it'll put color in your cheeks...

(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

Despite the fact it was my first day, I felt I was able to contribute both to the attorney and these clients, these people. I enjoyed speaking Spanish with a Mexican man who has been working here for years and is attempting to get employer-sponsored citizenship. My heart went out to a woman who was calling about her husband's file, a husband she has not seen for two years since he was forced to leave the country. I thumbed through thousands of files, thousands of lives and stories and situations, thousands of big dreams and tiny legalities.

“The problem with our immigration system is that it is reactionary,” the attorney said. Ever since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the legislative bodies of the United States have been playing a form of eugenics or race-based selection through the inclusions and glaring exclusions of our immigration policies. From the Japanese Gentleman's Agreement and the 1924 literacy test to today's surviving questions on immigration forms which ask about McCarthy-ian Communist ties, our laws are still reactionary and therefore not comprehensive or fully just. Until the laws change to more ably reflect the current state of immigration and globalization, each year will see more and more individual exceptions and exemptions costing billions of dollars in bureaucracy.

...they came in by the dozens, walking or crawling.
some were bright-eyed.
some were dead on their feet.
and they came from Zimbabwe,
or from Soviet Georgia.
east Saint Louis, or from Paris, or they lived across the street.
but they came, and when they'd finally made it here,
it was the least that we could do to make our welcome clear.
come on in, we haven't slept for weeks.
drink some of this. it'll put color in your cheeks.

(The Mountain Goats, “Color in Your Cheeks”)

“Our immigration system is like a rewards or benefits program,” York said coolly. “You can come to our country if your grandfather fought with our troops at one point, if you were struck by lightning twice, and if you have never ever lied to another human being. Pictures also help.” At first, this statement seemed a calloused joke, but the more I thought about our immigration laws and our nation's underlying philosophy, it all made sense. Our laws are set up in such a way that we refuse to admit the benefit immigrants inevitably bring to our economy, society, culture, and communities. Our laws and statutes are meant to be prohibitive, to let in merely a fraction of the desirable and desirous immigrants who long to live and work within our borders. Like a lottery or a rewards system, no one is actually meant to win.

As I packed my bag at 6:00 to leave for the day, another person called. Frustrated, I had to remind myself that this was not a client of the firm. This was not just a number, or a passport picture, or an INS file, or even just a story. This immigrant on the other end of the line is a person, a person caught in a game that few are supposed to win, a game based on rules few Americans would agree with if stated explicitly, a competition which pits them against individuals and systems they should be working with rather than against. I answer the phone in such a way that hopefully brings color to her cheeks and a smile to her eyes.

http://borderstories.org/index.php/nogales-born-and-raised.html

E' passato troppo tempo già per dire di esso: (l'inizio di una frase di Adelelmo Ruggieri, poeta, scrittore, ingegnere in quel di Fermo) per dire di quel giorno che partendo da Milano, arrivai di mattina presto, a Cairano. Era maggio. La natura brillava di colori, nei campi asciugava l'erba tagliata che poi riempiva i fienili per l'inverno. Nell'aria si sentiva un profumo particolare, la vita aveva un'altra armonia, il suo cielo brillava d'azzurro. Il paese era percorso da tante stradine di sassi che filavano tra le vecchie case, ma ordinate.  Nel suo libro "Cairano nell'età arcaica, l'abitato e la necropoli." Bailo Modesti dice: "La collina cui sorge Cairano appare in lontananza, più alta di tutte con il suo curioso aggressivo aspetto di mascella protesa verso il sottostante corso del fiume Ofanto. L'abitato attuale di Cairano sorge sulle pendici orientali della collina, là dove essa ha il profilo più dolce, che digrada uniformemente verso la valle del fiume: il versante ovest si presenta invece scosceso, terminando a picco sulla piana in cui scorre il torrente Orato. L'aspetto del paese moderno di Cairano: l'insieme del borgo ordinato per terrazze, con le case addossate addossate alle case e l'intrico delle strette vie che camminano a spirale, occupa tutto il fianco della collina, ponendosi ai piedi del castello, di cui oggi si intuiscono gli esigui resti e che sorgeva nel punto più alto, a 813 metri di altitudine. Degli ultimi avanzi di esso ha fatto giustizia l'impianto del bianco orribile cubo dell'acquedotto pugliese, visibile da ogni lontano punto, circondato da un ampio, silenzioso recinto, che ne tutela l'onore." O invece come si può leggere nelle: "Memorie di Cairano dai manoscritti dei prelati Schiavone (1837) ed Amato (1882)"di Giuseppe Corrado Mazzeo: " Cairano è situato sulla cima di un alpestre monte isolato e cinto tutt'intorno da rupi inaccessibili meno che da parte di levante donde è meno difficile il suo accesso. L'abitato è piuttosto ampio in proporzione al numero degli abitanti. Guardato da levante presenta una prospettiva semicircolare a mo di anfiteatro pendente nel concavo del monte, dal cui mezzo va sempre declinando fino ai due capi uno dell'estremo sud è detto Croci, l'altro all'estremo est detto Cupa." Ed ora io sono qui a parlare di Cairano, a trovare il modo migliore per misurare ciò che mi circonda e a godere di tutta la luce del giorno, fino a quando il sole scompare al di là delle montagne, nel suo viaggio verso il mare. 

Visitors are invited to stroll through six unique gardens that range from a Charleston-style landscape to a garden planted in red and white. At each home, garden owners will answer questions about the creation and maintenance of their home landscapes, and visitors can sample food from unique Concord restaurants. View Interactive Map

The self-guided tour begins on the lawn at historic Locke Mill with registration, a silent auction and a raffle, courtesy of Carolina Tree and Turf. It then continues down Union Street and onto Washington Lane in Concord. The Memorial Gardens on Spring Street will also be featured on the tour.

The garden tour celebrates the vitality of downtown Concord by showcasing public and private spaces. Visitors who choose to walk the 2.2-mile route can stroll through downtown Concord, enjoying the gardens and businesses along the way. The Cabarrus Arts Council Galleries at 65 Union St S will be open during the tour with art exhibits echoing the garden theme. The Cannon Memorial Library at 27 Union St N will offer a children’s story hour from 2-3 pm featuring garden stories.

Parking convenient to the registration location is available at Forest Hill United Methodist Church on the corner of Union and Buffalo Streets. The tour, which takes place rain or shine, benefits the Junior Charity League of Concord. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for children ages 5-10. For tickets or for more information, contact the Junior Charity League of Concord at 704-652-0669 or visit their website, www.jclofconcord.com.

Concord Garden Tour Itinerary

1. Charleston Garden: 213 Union Street North, John and Peg Morrison, Featuring food from Emma’s
This garden was created with the demolition of a flat- roofed garage and the addition of a sun room on the back of our residence. A new garage was constructed, juxtaposed with the south end of the residence, and in this courtyard a dual-level patio was created with a black iron Charleston fountain set in a circular brick pool. Below these two patios is a grass croquet lawn outlined in brick. Note the daughter’s play house nestled in the back southwest corner of the garden. In the rear motor court a custom wood pergola graces the garage doors. The motor court is laid in a herringbone brick pattern. An informal walkway leads to the north side service entrance for easy access to the kitchen. The yard has many Charleston plantings, including the evergreen clematis (Clematis Armandii) on the pergola, two camellia sasanqua espaliers, fig vine, cast iron plants, Chindo viburnum and several boxwoods. The two hemlocks are all that remain from the original plantings in the back garden. Much care was taken to save them during construction. Architect David Kelly of Charlotte and Garden Designer John Byrd of Charlotte worked together in blending the garden with the architectural additions.

2. Centennial Garden: 103 Union Street North, Rob and Glenda Steel, Featuring food from Two Leaves and a Bud
Blessed by the presence of mature boxwoods, magnolias, camellias and oaks on this century-old property, we have edited out the inappropriate, such as barbed wire fencing and given structure to our gardens with new hardscaping, deck, arbor, and fountain. Striving for year-round interest, we have added variety to the mix of plants with viburnums, hydrangeas, roses, and other woody shrubs. In our 25 years on Union Street North, we have added tapestry shrub borders, a woodland garden, a dry shade garden, an herb garden, and a composting center. Birds and wildlife are welcomed by many birdbaths and feeders.

3. Waterfall Garden: 90 Washington Lane, Kip and Faith Lyon, Featuring food from Max’s Ally
We have lived in this house for thirty years and everything is still a work in progress. We had a very small, uninteresting backyard until about 5 years ago when we decided to have a pond and patio installed. The two waterfalls that empty into the pond are nestled into the natural hill that is at the back of our property. We have worked since then to establish flowers and, actually, anything that will grow in the very hot summer sun the garden gets all afternoon. A couple of years ago, we added a white picket fence, enclosing the pond and patio, and now strive for things to climb over the arbor and fence.

4. Whimsical Garden: 104 Washington Lane, Lori McGuire, Featuring food from The Sweet Pea Café
This lovely home and its gardens sit among the rolling hills of Washington Lane. The garden is divided into four distinct areas. The front garden is more formal and is a sunny hot spot. The back and side areas are full of shade and whimsical touches. There is a cozy swing hanging from a branch of an old oak tree and an area devoted to the child in all of us. This garden pops with colorful flower pots and bright, beautiful gerbera daisies and geraniums. It you have ever wondered what to do with a hillside, small gardens or heavy shade, this is a must-see garden.

5. “Little of Everything” Garden: 312 Union Street South, Judy Quickel, Featuring food from The Ibis
This charming garden begins in their front yard which sits on a stately hill under beautiful oaks. Their large front porch beckons for someone to sit awhile and enjoy the view. The Charleston style garden on the south side of the house is full of miniature gardenias and Annabelle hydrangeas. A cozy niche for two is tucked up against the brick wall. In the back yard is a meandering walkway that takes you past roses, camellias, hollies, azaleas, and around the pond. A little of all things beautiful can be found in this garden.

6. “Green Cathedral” Garden: 520 Union Street South, Dick and Jackie Whitfield, Featuring food from The Sweet Life
This small, intimate garden was lovingly planned and planted by the original mistress of the house, Mrs. Elizabeth Davis, mother of Roy Davis. The current residents of the house, the Whitfields, have continued to care for and enhance the beauty of the garden for over twenty years. The garden is planted with many traditional southern plants: a wide variety of camellias and azaleas, as well as forsythia, nandina, acuba, hydrangea, daphne and many types of bulbs. The four corners of the back yard are planted with oak and pecan trees whose limbs arch toward the sky forming the roof of the garden, lovingly referred to as the “green cathedral.” In the center of the arching limbs in the yard is a garden angel sculpted by Joel Haas of Raleigh. A 2007 gallery exhibit sponsored by Cabarrus Arts Council at the Historic Courthouse featured the garden angel. Beautiful brick walls outline the garden and add privacy. Enjoy a stroll or a moment of quiet mediation in our small city garden, a safe and quiet haven from the busy whirlwind of life.

Additional Stops:

• Cabarrus Arts Council Galleries, 65 Union St S, featuring garden-themed art exhibits
• Cannon Memorial Library, 27 Union St N, offering a children’s story hour from – to – featuring garden stories.
• Memorial Garden, 36 Spring Street, three acres of gardens entwined through the 200-year-old cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church. A walk through the 1804 garden leads past an ancient stone foundation flanked with stone resting benches. In summer, brilliant annuals shine throughout. Year-round the garden boasts enormous oaks, magnolias, dogwoods, roses and twisted crepe myrtles.

A great accident! I spent the day playing w/ my macro lens and a plant. To windy out and not enough or the right light in. So bored w/ that I turned around and started shooting things on our bar in the kitchen. And was pleasantly surprised w/ the results. Yea I indulge in the cheap stuff! lol... I still want to capture the plant but I'm going to try it earlier in the morning and am thinking of trying a different bulb so the pictures won't come out w/ such a yellow cast.

The theory in the title has two parts to it.  The author presupposes that the parrots were eating the sheep because they were attempting to model human behavior, as they did with human speech.  Taking this as a given, the author suggests that we try to model other behaviors for other creatures, and in that way "teach lions to eat grass".

That's pretty much the end of it actually.  You'd expect the author to try to push for some sort of conservationist goal, but no, just teaching lions to eat grass.  Really kind of a let down actually.

    Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Progreso, like so many other churches along our walk, absolutely saw the sojourner in us and welcomed us like a Good Samaritan. We came asking only shelter, and Yolanda and Father Thomas fed us snacks. We were looking for a place to lay our head, and they provided us much-needed showers and our only laundry services of the whole 9-day walk. As tired and beleaguered wanderers, we were welcomed wholeheartedly by this faith community, and one gets the feeling that an extralegal immigrant and his family might find the same welcome at the doors of Holy Spirit. Surely they are living the call of Leviticus 19:33-34 which calls peoples of faith to embrace immigrants, stating, “The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

    Day 7 was at least 99 degrees, and by some accounts as hot as 102. Many of us got burnt, I suffered heat hives, and all of us slowed our 2-3 mph pace considerably in the sweltering sun. It was hotter than a human heart, the organ this entire walk has targeted. Believing that people are innately good, we feel that they simply must not know the wonderful people and beautiful places which a wall would destroy and immigration legislation could enhance. As members of the walk give interviews with local news stations or national newspapers, we are laying out the facts of the immigration debate and the logic as to why the United States should not build a wall. The real story, the story we pray is reaching the hearts of the world, is on display behind us, in the gorgeous palm groves and birding preserves and in the single-story homes and land grant ranches which will be devastated by the building of any wall.

One of the most historically fascinating parts of the trip came at the Rio Rico historic landmark. Sipping some much-needed Gatorade (donated by yet another church), we learned that when the international boundaries were moved from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande and everyone to the north was given citizenship status, some people took their rights into their own hands. The people of Rio Rico dug a canal in the 1800s, changing the course of the river so it would flow south of them and give them certain “inalienable rights.” Though this met with some opposition, all 200 of them were finally given full citizenship status and are now proud to be called Americans. People have been subverting unjust immigration laws for a long, long time...

This Friday's march was another great opportunity to dialogue with the amazing people who have pledged 9 days of their lives and 120 miles of their feet to speak out against the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Some new recruits to the group were discussing political figures who have let down the American public, either through faulty promises or mismanagement or the profit motive. Hearing this rhetoric, though, I could see many of the through-walkers bristle at its negativity. We are not waging a campaign against people, because people are never beyond redemption. In his speech “Loving your Enemies,” our hero and mentor Martin Luther King said,

...This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. When we look beneath the surface, beneath. the impulsive evil deed, we see within our enemy-neighbor a measure of goodness and know that the viciousness and evilness of his acts are not quite representative of all that he is. We see him in a new light. We recognize that his hate grows out of fear, pride, ignorance, prejudice, and misunderstanding…

We are working to change oppressive and unjust systems in our nation and in the world, but our struggles can never be directed at a single person because it becomes hate and cyclical violence. So, I spoke up to him as he was bashing a man who has waived 19 different environmental laws in order to build the wall in Arizona. I said that it is fruitless and ultimately violent to direct anger at people. If we have a problem with someone, we should not even say their name. Our conflict is not with them but with their actions. On the other side, however, when someone deserves praise, we should use their names in the most intimate way. Praise should always be extremely personal and direct; critiques should always be directed at fixed systems or established actions rather than people, because people possess the power to change.

With that in mind, I would love to praise Laura and Jonathan Loveless for their generous providence of another homemade lunch today in the tiny town of Santa Maria – your surname is clearly a misnomer. I wish to praise the heedless horseman Vince for riding his horse Tocallo and enlivening us with his sage vaquero wisdom and his cowboy guitar-playing. I would like to thank Gene for riding his bike from Brownsville to join us for most of the day's walk. Jose, your calm discussion about the border region and your work with UTPA students kept me walking when I was most affected by the heat. To all the ladies at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Las Rusias, God bless you for your tambourines and noisemakers as we hobbled home to your fish dinner and your old-time Spanish praise songs. God bless you Nenna for sharing the lives of your eight children, your land along the levee and the site of the proposed border wall, and the encouraging shower at your house. Father Albert – we are so grateful for our kind reception at your church. You and Father Thomas from Progreso, both immigrants from the Congo, illustrate the beauty and the love and the potential immigrants can and do offer if only given the opportunity through our immigration system. Thanks to all 250 of you who have walked even a step of this march thus far; your footsteps give us the faith that we are not alone.

Continuing in the same vein of praise, I would also like to thank the individual members of this walk. These people have dedicated nine days of their lives, 126 miles of their feet, and 24 hours of every single day to the purpose of protesting the injustice of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, supporting the sanctity of all border regions, and respecting the divine spark of humanity in every single immigrant. I am eternally grateful to Mike and Cindy Johnson, both educators from the Brownsville school system who devoted their entire spring break to an issue in which they believe. Mike's endless energy has uplifted our spirits on many a long day, and Cindy's heart for each house we pass reminds me of why we are walking. Thank you Cindy for talking with each of these landowners, informing them of their legal rights, and encouraging them with the faith that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Thank you Matt Smith for your love of the communities on both sides of the river. Your work in the maquiladora factories in Mexico prove that you are willing to work at righting injustice, and you bring that same moral indignation to this No Border Wall Walk. Your guitar-playing and IPOD-blasting have kept us dancing and singing and positive all 100 miles so far, and they are sure to see us all the way to Brownsville. Thank you also Domingo Gonzalez; your offer of transportation has been invaluable, and your happy car honks always seem to lift our spirits. Cesar Chavez, your fellow UFW mate, would be proud.

I have to thank Crystal Canales for her limitless energy, her youthful idealism, and her passion for people. Crystal is the only UTB student who sacrificed an entire spring break to protest a border wall in the Valley she has always called home. Her words of support and positivity, both in Spanish and in English, have been truly profound and have made the most cynical of us act in love.

Elizabeth Stephens, we owe you so much thanks for your organizing skills in Progreso and your understated leadership on the march. Bearing blisters since Day 2, you have found a quiet reserve of strength and managed to “mount up on wings of eagles” when others would be plummeting like sparrows. Perhaps it has something to do with your button which states, “I am loved.” We all pray you will continue your activism here in Brownsville and the greater Rio Grande Valley for many years to come.

Nat Stone, every single member of this walk is grateful for your constant encouragement and your affirmation of our work. Your daily documentary film-making reminds us that our protest is not here in the Valley but in the hearts of our nation. We all pray that your talented filmography manages to prick our country's conscience. Seeing you leap-frogging us again and again has kept us walking when we would just as soon take yet another water break. We also thank you because no other documentary makers would be calling the Obama campaign office everyday, nor would they be handing out legal information to local residents, nor would they stop and be a first responder at a car accident. You make us all proud to live on la frontera.

Jay Johnson-Castro – your 600 miles of walks before March 8 made our march possible. Your guidance from walks past, as well as your teeming knowledge about this issue, have guided our thinking and our planning on this walk. You have brought media attention to the Valley and to the issues we confront, and we pray you will continue to nonviolently campaign for justice on the border.

Kiel Harell, how can we ever thank you for the days and days of accumulated time you spent on the phone rallying support for this March Against the Wall. Your quiet strength, your welcoming persona in your down-home overalls that harken back to the SNCC days of the civil rights movement, your conversational tone with reporters and recalcitrant locals, your well-read understanding of nonviolence and your recent exploration of faith – we are thankful that you canceled your plane ticket home and are campaigning for the homes of thousands along our nation's southern border.

Brother John Moore, this walk was your dream some two months ago. You have lived in San Diego, El Paso, and now Brownsville, and your triangulated perspective on the border gives purpose and far-reaching unity to our efforts here. We are not alone, nor are we simply campaigning for the rights of these people within a 120-mile stretch of this snaking Rio Grande. Our efforts are for the 5,000 mile Canadian border, the largest international border in the world, just as much as they are for the Mexican border. Thank you for directing our anger into purposeful, nonviolent ways; thank you for reminding us of the power of redemption and the promises of our God. Thank you for turning me on to nonviolence and its application to every part of my life.

The thanks could go on indefinitely. We have been brimming with gratitude for the opportunity to hear the stories of this Valley and the opportunity to participate in a story of redemption here on the border. Contrary to the opinions of many, this border wall has not been built yet, and although it is a law right now, so was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the 1924 Immigration Quota based on nation of origin. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 is not inevitable; it has only as much mandate as we give it. Please write your Congressman and convince them to vote for the Grijalva Bill which begins to bring the border wall discussion into environmental accountability, and also urge them to vote against the other bill which would set a certain date for the beginning of construction on this destructive symbol of division. Any prayers and support you can offer this march in its final days would be precious.

    The literacy test, which was first introduced in 1895 by Henry Cabot Lodge and which took twenty-two years to finally pass, was vetoed by a myriad of presidents such as Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, and William Howard Taft. Cleveland's reason for the veto was that the terrific growth of the United States up until 1897 was “largely due to the assimilation and thrift of millions of sturdy and patriotic adopted citizens” (Roger Daniels' Coming to America, 277) He also declared that immigrants of the not-so-distant past were some of the nation's best citizens. In his steadfast veto, Cleveland addresses the issue of citizenship requirements and ends with a conclusion that may be very insightful to our nation's current preoccupation with national security and terrorism. Cleveland said,

It is infinitely more safe to admit a hundred thousand immigrants who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home and an opportunity to work than to admit one of those unruly agitators and enemies of governmental control who can not only read and write, but delights in arousing by unruly speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent and tumult” ( Roger Daniels' Coming to America, 277).

Perhaps our country's leadership could come up with smart background checks which do not discriminate so much on nationality but criminality and past employment.

    Taft's relentless veto was based solely on the economic necessity for a large and constant immigrant base. His reasoning echoes the reasoning of the Bracero Program, worker visa programs, and short-term migrant labor initiatives. Taft's rationale was that, “the natives are not willing to do the work which the aliens come over to do” ( Roger Daniels' Coming to America, 277). The beauty of immigration is that few immigrant families stay in these entry-level positions – the steady influx of immigrants who are upwardly mobile is a dynamic, short-term phenomenon for new immigrant families.

    Woodrow Wilson, in 1915, spoke out on the ethical the cause of immigrants. His veto to the literacy test rested on the fact that the bill would reject new immigrants “unless they have already had one of the chief of the opportunities they seek, the opportunity of education” ( Roger Daniels' Coming to America, 277). Again, this same argument holds true and needs to be taken up by so many groups opposed to a physical border wall. One step into a school on la frontera will reinforce the fact that so many immigrants come to these United States seeking a better education for their families. The DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), which has failed to pass in several bills both in 2006 and 2007, would ensure that all schoolchildren who are high-achievers in our nation's classrooms would have the opportunity, regardless of income or citizenship, to study at institutions of higher education and apply themselves to becoming skilled workers. Had he lived another 93 years, Woodrow Wilson would be one of the staunchest advocates of the DREAM Act, which could have proved one of the most empowering and inspiring legislations of the second Bush administration.

    The literacy test passed in 1917, and was soon followed by Calvin Coolidge's Immigration Act of 1924 which set the first nation-based quota system for all incoming immigrants (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 only applied to “sojourners” from the largest country in the world). This Act also marked the beginning of the first official Border Patrol.

    Arguably the last President to be extremely pro-immigrant died with a couple bullets in 1963. His dream was to revamp immigration legislation to “base admission on the immigrant's possession of skills our country needs and on the humanitarian grounds of reuniting families” (John F. Kennedy's A Nation of Immigrants, 80). JFK firmly believed that the quota system was discriminatory at a time when Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement were also making strides toward a Civil Rights Bill. Kennedy goes on to write that,

The use of a national origins system is without basis in either logic or reason if neither satisfies a national need nor accomplishes an international purpose. In an age of interdependence [read “globalization”] any nation with such a system is an anachronism, for it discriminates among applicants for admission into the U.S. on the basis of accident of birth (John F. Kennedy's A Nation of Immigrants,75).

Had he lived longer than 46 years, perhaps the United States of America would not still have a quota system which permits only 24,000 people from any country to migrate to our land, regardless of whether their sending nation has a population of China's 1.3 billion or Monaco's 32,000.

    One of the last substantial pieces of immigration legislation was the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Signed by Ronald Reagan, this has since been decried as an act which only worsened problems and which amounted to scotch-free amnesty. While neither of these are the case, IRCA did not ultimately address the true problem. By treating the symptom of illegal immigrants rather than the immigration legislation which criminalized them, Reagan departed from Kennedy's lead and opted for the easy, immediate solution. While IRCA did make a substantive difference in the lives of 2.7 million people, it did not address the real problem which finds our country with 12 million residents on the wrong side of current immigration laws.

    The final “immigration law” on the books is one which physically, socially, economically, and ethically affects our nation's immigrants, citizens, and borderlands. The Secure Fence Act of 2006, supported by President Bush and, sadly, both Democratic candidates Obama and Clinton, paved the way for a 700-mile fence along our 2,000-mile southern border. This “secure fence” would reroute extralegal immigrants to the most dangerous desert sections of our border; it would be an affront to American immigrants past, present, and future; it would be a tremendous waste what some estimate to be $5 billion while border communities such as Brownsville and Hidalgo County continue to be the poorest in the nation; it would serve as a severe distraction from the necessity for comprehensive, compassionate immigration reform; it would strand extralegal residents on this side of the border; it would separate loved ones; it would cripple border economies which thrive on the influx of international business; it would destroy precious and rare ecosystems and wildlife which cannot be found anywhere else; and it would cause our young nation of immigrants to wall ourselves off from our neighbors and the globalizing world at large.

    Let's pray that true immigration reform will come with the next Presidency. If protest is prayer in action, then please join your prayers with ours, put your feet to the street, and join the Border Ambassadors and concerned citizens in the March Against the Wall as we walk 120 miles from Roma to Brownsville, Texas, this March 8-16.