Recently I have had a talk with a few people that made me more aware of certain home grown Americans (not natives, but WASPS or maybe Anglo Catholics) as to how Mexicans in our country, of the illegal variety, pose such a problem. These associates hail from many parts of our great Union.
They have me thinking.
I don't see the glass so empty, really.
Obviously there is a problem when undocumented people are here in such numbers that it causes us social, economic and educational problems, but is that the way it is?
So here is my ABECEDARIO of the benefits of our great neighbor to the south.
A. (ah)They never capitulated to the socialists or communists during the Cold War. They avoided a lot of the problems of the rest of Latin America by being cool enough politically to do that.
!Viva Mexico!
B. (bay) They have sent us millions of workers, legal and undocumented, who have worked in many industries helping our prices and employers and industries stay affordable and thriving.
C. (say) They have provided us with an amazing variety of food that we munch on constantly, not the least of them are nachos and salsa. Who doesn't love making a run for the border, both cheap imitation and higher end cuisine establishments? Of course, the American way is to incorporate their styles and then profit from those ideas moreso.
!Viva los Estados Unidos!
D. (day) They play baseball, and help develop talent that adds to our American passtime, even giving a few gringos a few more chances at the big time, not to mention other Latinos.
E. (eh) There is enough cross-cultural swapping where they love our NFL. And they help populate our MLS leagues here, which actually has a native following in places like St. Louis and Columbus, major cities with no NBA or MLB, respectively...
G. (hey) One word. Boxing.
H. (achay) Why else would we all want to learn Spanish? Spain? Mexico helps us be more competitive internationally.
Latin America and Spain have a lot of people, goods and products to trade and profit from, and mutually benefit from.
Including athletes and teams.
Don't you think Kobe would say so? Mexico is our inside helper...To the world.
Capitan Pastene. A score of Italian families relocated to the new world about a century ago, in the early 1900s.
But they didn't go to a large land like the pampa of Argentina or Uruguay, like hundreds of thousands before them; they chose a place on the other side of the Andes...
Far south in the Ninth Region (called La Araucania) of Chile, they found a small area very isolated from everyone, far even from the sea: far from the Spanish speaking mestizo Chileans and the mapundungun speaking Mapuches, in the Malleco province...Some 30-40 kilometers from the provincial capital of Angol.
Angol is pictured in my avatar. My family and I stayed there for five months of 2005, just prior to me starting this whole blog thing.
And there, in remote Capitan Pastene of southern Chile, reacheable through steep pine narrows similar to their native Italy, their people have intermarried, occasionally mixing with the local Chileans, but as often as not staying within their clans...
I met a proud 3rd or 4th generation Italian who was developing his specialty ham leg barn (prosciutto), stringing the pork shanks high above ground in the rafters to become succulent...Different, he claimed, from those who did it in wetter environs such as in Spain and Europe...
I like (am obsessed with) the big US sports of football, basketball and baseball. And I love how they expand globally. I am fascinated by World Cup soccer, Olympics and certain tennis matches.
Oh, yeah, and I will talk your ear off when it comes to religion, politics, right, wrong, demography, history and truth.
Blog on and blog it.
Uh, also I have a Foxsports blog called papaclinch'si t and that was the original, and this was created as a mistake and then a parallel world for more spiritual topics on occasion. More BYU here, more IU over there...
Make sense? I love both schools with an odd type of crazed loyalty... Hard to explain. Thus the blogging.
Keeps me out of trouble, maybe?
