Global Warming and Immigration

I usually don't get political here -- and it's not that I don't have political views worth discussing, it's just that I don't like discussing and or arguing about politics and pretty much anything else (another reason why I sometimes write about "mommy wars" but don't expose too much of my own attachment parenting position here in the blog for fear of getting "in" the war). I understand that most people whose blog I read and who read my blog probably have a similar political view as myself and moreover, since I am a foreigner, I guess my criticisms of this country could be "discounted" because I'm not really an insider.

Anyway... I have decided to speak up about these two topics that are some of the hottest on the news lately. They were on the cover of the last two issues of Time magazine, which we happen to subscribe to -- mostly because it's my only way to keep up with the news since I don't like to read news online and we don't watch television (I wish I could watch at least BBC news every night, but I really don't like to watch television with the kids around. When I'm driving I listen to NPR/WHYY and enjoy it very much, but since my parents got here, I basically don't get out of the house anymore).

I've always been concerned about global warming issues and felt irritated about the fact that the U.S. has refused to participate in worldwide initiatives to help prevent further damage to the ozone layer, etc... I was not very alarmed until last year's hurricane season proved that global warning and its consequences for the weather are of immediate concern. My brother told me something last night that left me even more concerned. We usually joke that Brazil is definitely a "blessed" country because we have no volcanoes, no snow, no earthquakes, no tornadoes, no hurricanes... well, not anymore. Last year there was a hurricane in the region my in-laws live (Santa Catarina, around Florianopolis) - a coastal region. And last Thursday, out of the blue, there was a mini-hurricane in my brother's town, Piracicaba in the state of Sao Paulo, a town which is well in-land. Two huge trees fell on the building he works on, he saw the roof being torn off and rain falling in his office. He thought he was going to die, really. I asked why he didn't go under the desk, and he said he doesn't know, he just stood there transfixed, looking at the sky and thinking where he would run to if another tree fell on the roof. The damage was not that bad, the computers were saved and just the floors were flooded, because the water tank (those stay in the attics in Brazil) broke. Over 30 cars were completely destroyed by trees falling on them all over town, including 10 in the campus of the university where he works (which is beautiful and very wooded, since it's the school of agriculture and forestry). Had he parked his car (actually my parents' car - my husband is using my brother's because it has power steering, which is better for his still recovering left hand) on his usual parking spot in the shade, the car would have been crashed, but he had parked right by the office, so the car didn't get even a scratch. The bad part is the the car insurance would not pay for such a damage. My brother's mother-in-law happened to be in town that day and was walking to her mother's nursery home, all through the storm! Fortunately she didn't panic and was able to keep walking, she was drenched but unharmed. I can't even imagine what this next hurricane season will bring... and what other climate changes will start happening very fast in the next few years. (For a post exploring many serious issues on this subject you should turn to Jo-stradamus at Leery Polyp :-)

~~~ ~~~

Now on to immigration. I don't even know where to start. I guess what I wanted to say here is that I know personally lots and lots of people who some consider "criminals" because they crossed the border and came into this country. Whole families, little children, hard working people. There was a time one of my best friends in the world was one of them as well as her husband (she has now returned to Brazil with her two American born children who are exactly the same age as mine). I've known these people since I came to the U.S. in 1996, and even before, when I visited in 1993 because I have often visited and attended Brazilian churches. While I was never comfortable with the fact they people do have to lie in order to keep on living here and while in my first 8 years in this country I had scarcely met anyone who had come here through Mexico (all my friends and acquaintances had tourist visas and had simply come and stayed), since I moved to PA I have met more and more people whose trajectory to this country was a dangerous and extremely expensive one.

Believe me, I didn't want to hear their stories, I didn't even want to think of how it would feel to be away from both of my children for almost a year, working hard to be able to pay for them to come, and then to have the courage to let them come and cross the border, with a relative or a friend, one by one, the seven year old, the three year old. I shudder just thinking about it. Can you imagine your three year old girl coming through Mexico with your sister-in-law? But these are my friends, they are people from my country. I even can't bear to hear their stories first-hand. My husband and my parents have heard them and told me, I just can't imagine what they went through. Just to be here in this country, and there's work for them, plenty of work, that's why they keep coming.

I don't want to discuss the whys and wherefores, the effects to the economy, the pros and cons of different legislature, nothing of that. I just want to say that I know these people, I try to help them, even, when we meet every week. Their situation is so abismally different from mine, the foreign student* who can go to Brazil and come back at will, who can speak and write English, who owns a home. Some of my friends haven't seen their families, their wives, their children, for many years, and while I do question their motives for this sad separation, I know they feel they have more of a chance to work and help their families being here. I don't even know how to end, this is long enough already, but I just feel depressed thinking about my friends sometimes. It would be nice if those who have been working hard for years and paying their taxes could be able to regularize their situation. What about the others, would they be considered as criminals?

* It did get much tougher to be a foreign student after 9/11 (and what's my fault in being a foreing student even if several of the hijackers had student visas?) , but that's another story.