You could be next

I like meeting people from other countries. They’ve taught me things I never could have learned from a homeboy. I made a list this week of how many countries have supplied me with friends in the United States. I stopped counting at 24 countries. Here are some of them.

An Iranian  fellow’s free-thinking father ran a construction company and was arrested, put in a metal cage, hauled to the top of a tall construction crane and left to die there. His son got out, and I’m glad he did. He was a good reporter.

A smart Georgian  fellow vamoosed after Russia invaded his country in 2008. Great guy. He teaches kids in the USA.

A nice fellow escaped Kosovo  with his wife and kids during that country’s disastrous civil war. He’s teaching me his country’s language, Albanian, one word at a time.

I’ve met many Russian  friends here. ‘Nuff said about that.

I met a reporter from Romania  who speaks five languages; she is a dear friend.

I helped a Chilean  refugee bond out of a Texas immigration prison. He is covering small parts of our country with beautiful art.

A Bulgarian  bassoonist told me how he escaped from the old USSR, and why. He survived to play in an orchestra with me.

A Colombian  amigo came here legally to go to college, married a Gringa and became a U.S. citizen, then devoted his life to building houses for poor people.

A **Garífuna  man who educated me about his country, Honduras , got out of an immigration prison without my help: a prison where he never should have been confined. Do you know anything about Honduras, or the Garífunas? Neither did I.

Friends from **Pakistan  and India , who hate each other relentlessly: Man, I’m glad I didn’t grow up like that.

An **Australian ** musician has educated me about China for years, and continues to do so.

A Bolivian  man who helped the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration bust cocaine dealers in his homeland, then had to come north when the DEA leaked his name. He showed me, inside a U.S. immigration prison, a handwritten letter from a cartel, promising that they would kill him and his whole family, for working for the DEA. Yet we imprisoned him and deported him to Bolivia.

A very good friend from **Mexico , now a U.S. citizen, who runs his own company and provides paychecks for half a dozen families. His father was just visited by a cartel in Michoacán, who evicted him from the house my friend’s father had built,  because the cartel “needed it.”

Dozens of American Indians  I have learned from, who are treated as foreigners in their own land.

I shall close this sad/happy litany with two short scenes.

Some time ago when I lived in Vermont, I saw two Guatemalan  guys pushing a filled-up grocery cart at the store. All they had in their piled-up cart was fresh vegetables and fruits. (Vermont, a dairy and farm state, depends upon immigrant labor.) As they argued about what else to buy, they came to a conclusion, and turned the cart around to pick up some more vegetables and fruit.

Finally, I know that I am not alone here. I know that many of my paisanos welcome people from other lands, and despise the hatred that Republicans urinate upon them, day after day, hour after hour, minute by minute.

OK. Here is the only solution to this.

When I worked as a paralegal in the immigration prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, during President Ronald Reagan’s war against Central America, a lot of Maya speakers were imprisoned there.

They were not bad guys; they were farmers. Looking for something better for their children.

Some of these Maya guys didn’t speak much Spanish. (Maya women did not take the trek.)

So one day, we gathered eight or 10 Maya speakers into a small room in the prison, and tried to explain, slowly, in Spanish, what the hell was going on.

I do not know to this day whether the Maya Q’eqchi’ and Quiché speakers ever knew what was happening to them. But as they left the room, a newly hired prison guard from Oakdale held the door for them. Total Southern boy. Hospitable. As each Maya man passed through the door, back to the prison’s innards, the good ol’ homeboy said, “Grashyus, Grashyus, Grashyus, Grashyus — Y’all come back.”