I rarely do post political stuff. I mean, this blog is about art and not politics, right. However, I did appreciate some of what Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio had to say in his concession speech delivered on March 15, 2016 regarding immigration.
...I know immigration in America is broken. No one understands this issue better than I do. My parents are immigrants. My grandparents were immigrants. Jennette's parents were immigrants. I live in a community of immigrants. I’ve seen the good, and the bad, and the ugly. I’ve battled my whole life against the so-called elites, the people who think that, you know, I needed to wait my turn or wait in line or it wasn't our chance or wasn't our time. So, I understand all of these frustrations.
...My mother was one of seven girls born to a poor family. Her father was disabled as a child. He struggled to provide for them his entire life. My mother told us a few years ago she never went to bed hungry growing up, but she knows her parents did, so they wouldn't have to. She came to this country in 1956 with little education, no money, no connections. My parents struggled their first years here. They were discouraged. They even thought about going back to Cuba at one point, but they persevered. They never became rich. I didn't inherit any money from my parents. They never became famous. You never would have heard about them if I had never run for office. And yet I consider my parents to be very successful people. Because in this country, working hard as a bartender and a maid, they owned a home and they retired with dignity. In this country, they lived to see all four of their children live better off than themselves. And in this country, on this day, my mother, who is now 85 years old, was able to cast a ballot for her son to be the president of the United States of America.
I too come from a family of immigrants. My dad is a naturalized U.S. Citizen--he was born in Mexico but grew up in the United States. Both my parents grew up in low-income households, and similar to Senator Rubio's family, my parents struggled.
Senator Rubio, however, failed to elaborate "struggle," or perhaps he only wanted to focus on the social-economic sense of the word "struggle."
...For we in this nation are the descendants of go-getters. In our veins runs the blood of people who gave it all up so we would have the chances they never did. We are all the descendants of someone who made our future the purpose of their lives. We are the descendants of pilgrims. We are the descendants of settlers. We are the descendants of men and women that headed westward in the Great Plains not knowing what awaited them. We are the descendants of slaves who overcame that horrible institution to stake their claim in the American Dream. We are the descendants of immigrants and exiles who knew and believed that they were destined for more, and that there was only one place on earth where that was possible. This is who we are, and let us fight to ensure that this is who we remain. For if we lose that about our country, we will still be rich and we will still be powerful, but we will no longer be special.
My parents lived at a time where blacks and Hispanics had to enter through the back and dine in a different room. They lived in an era where people were judged based on skin color, and called derogatory names associated with their race. But they too persevered to get a higher education and land great jobs. I benefited from that and never really understood the word "struggle," because I grew up not having to worry.
It goes beyond "We are the descendants of slaves who overcame that horrible institution to stake their claim in the American Dream." Try overcoming racism and hate years after the Emancipation Proclamation, during the Civil Rights Movement and even today. Try overcoming discrimination based on the color of your skin and having that hinder acceptance to a university, a job, or a loan.
Yes, we as a collective are "descendants of go-getters," but there are many, especially the go-getters in the minority population, that aren't given the opportunity that privileged whites have.
Source:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-prez-marco-rubio-speech-transcript-20160315-story.html
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