Any of you who have either taken a social work class or is currently a social worker is familiar with the title of this piece. The definition in part reads “… treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity.” What seems like a simple credo is proving to be a struggle for a large number of Americans. We have all read the statistics of the low crime rates committed by immigrants, and most of us have anecdotal evidence of a migrant doing a job that huge numbers of Americans feel too privileged to touch.
My argument for immigration…
I am not going to fill this page with F.B.I data or polling facts and figures. While Republicans seek to dehumanize migrants and as of late, in particular, American Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, Democrats are turning people of color into polling data and statistical proof of their liberalism. I have lived in a densely populated, East Coast city for the past 14 years. On my way home yesterday afternoon I stopped at a corner store that I have frequented for many years for a bottle of water. A few years ago, I was suffering from a terrible cold, I stopped at that store and purchased a small bottle of cough medicine. I was so feverish and weak I hardly remembered paying for the medicine or being handed the bag I carried it home in. When I got home, in the bag was a little note that read, “boil this and some honey and feel better,” signed Reyes. Included in the bag the store owner had given me a free lemon because he considered me a friend.
With his heavy accent, he may have told me it was there or I was just so out of it, I did not hear or understand. That store owner has a wife and two American born children who I have watched grow from small children to his store assistants now. His son stocks shelves and his daughter now operates the cash register his wife did for years, separated from the customers by bulletproof glass. I ordered groceries to be delivered this morning from the local halal market, just as I have once a month for the past 8 years. The food is fresh and the order takers always greet me with, “good morning brother.”
The delivery will come this afternoon and the smiling store owner, who makes the deliveries himself, will ring my bell, we will exchange our latest complaints of working too hard, feeling too sore and wanting some time off. I used to try and tip him and he would refuse, partly because the dignity of being a business owner would not let him, and partly because he was pleased that I was a loyal customer.
Both of these men came to this country with the idea of a better life and safety for their children, one from Latin America and the other from the Middle East. By the way that section from the social worker's code of ethics ends, “They seek to resolve conflicts between clients' interests and the broader society's interests in a socially responsible manner consistent with the values, ethical principles, and ethical standards of the profession.”
I write thrice weekly about the political wrangling of our broken government and meanwhile these men and their families are exhibiting the values that made America Great.
Vote in 2020 for Change.