Liberty for all or for some?



Strange, how a person can personally enjoy freedom, happiness, and the necessities of life but believe that these blessings should be denied to someone else. Representative Douglas Bruce from Colorado Springs caused another of his characteristic uproars recently when he announced in the state legislature that he did not want to see another 5,000 illiterate peasants coming to Colorado from Mexico.

Never mind that the subject under consideration in the chamber pertained to workers with green cards, who are needed to work in our fields, warehouses, and other jobs. And never mind that most Americans, even Mr. Bruce, might be functionally illiterate if they visited a foreign country.

Peasants? Possibly sometime in the past that derogatory term was the correct one word to identify a person who grew food, whether for his own family or for others.

About my feelings regarding legal immigrants, blame my parents. They raised me to believe that all people everywhere are created equal, regardless of race, creed, color, nationality, gender, or faith.

You can also blame my freedom-loving ancestors who immigrated to America, although I am sorry about what their presence meant to the Native Americans who were already here. A few generations after they arrived in America, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Luther, moved from Connecticut to Ohio to take up land that was awarded to his father as just compensation for losses suffered during the Revolutionary War.

From everything I know about Luther and his clan, I can respect them as intelligent, hardworking, and decent people, though none was ever rich. I especially admire Leander, a son of Luther, who believed that all people, even slaves, should be free and who endangered himself to assist African-Americans fleeing through Ohio along the underground railroad to escape slavery.

The underground railroad was not a real railroad but a network of secret escape routes north of the Mason-Dixon line. Many runaways were trying to get to Canada because the U.S. Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850 required the arrest of African-American slaves who were fleeing in this country, and not many succeeded in making it to Canada as a result.

The activities of Leander could have resulted in the burning of his home or his being tarred and feathered by the agents or others who combed the region in search of fugitives. Leander kept a diary, which included a description of his activities, and luckily he never had to write that he or his property was harmed.

The location where Leander met escapees on the underground railroad happened to be beneath an actual railroad bridge, not far from his farm. He would drive a lumber wagon to the meeting place with food, hot coffee, blankets, and other supplies, concealed with straw.

Once, he met a young couple with a very sick baby under the bridge. Leander worried afterward in his diary about whether the baby survived and whether the family made it to freedom.

I feel fortunate to have grown up in a family that had unbiased feelings about people of different races or places. Unlike Leander, however, I can claim no credit for daring deeds on their behalf, but, taking my own freedom for granted, I sometimes might have gotten into trouble with the law simply through heedlessness.

For instance, I could have been in big trouble with the law in the Big Bend area of the Rio Grande, where a few of us gringos used to enjoy raft trips. During those adventures, it mattered little to us which side of the international border we were on when we stopped to investigate interesting sights.

On one such trip, while hiking on the Mexican side, we came upon a startled but friendly herder, cooking a pot of beans in his remote camp. Another time, we walked a mile or so across the desert to a tiny Mexican village, where we purchased cold soda pop from an astonished but smiling café owner, who seemed to wonder where we had come from.

We slept wherever we found a nice sandy beach, and as often as not it was on the south side of the river. Arrogantly or irresponsibly (you choose which), we did not even consider that unfriendly, unsmiling Mexican authorities might arrest us for illegally entering their country without papers.

With my memories of those raft trips, the scenery, and the wildlife, I must agree with ranchers and environmentalists who are protesting the construction of a border fence along the riparian area of the Rio Grande. The remark by Representative Bruce seems equally deplorable to me.