Dreaming with the American dreamers

Just a reminder: While most of the media focus is on Mexicans crossing the border, the attraction to the United States is still strong among Filipinos. Immigration reform and issues are still major issues for Filipinos.

(The question that raises up in my mind is why isn't there any media concern about all the Canadians crossing over the border with America and taking American jobs and American dollars? People like -- Justin Beiber, Ryan Gosling, Michael Cera, to name a few?)

As the video illustrates, you may know some undocumented Americans but don't know it. They are just like you and I and impossible to identify as undocumented unless they have the courage to come and admit it.

Undocumented Filipinos have along been an issue with the Filipino American communitiy that they've come up with a term for it. If you are here without the proper paperwork, you are called TNT. Tago ng tago basically means "hiding" or maintaining such a low profile that one has disappeared. 

Many young people who were brought here at an early age had no idea that their parents were TNT and that they, themselves, were not citizens of this country until they sought financial aid for college or tried to sign up with the military.

Other tidbits:

• The waiting period for someone from the Philippines to the United States can be as long as 23 years.
• According to the latest Census of 2010, there are more first-generation Filipino immigrants than there are Filipino Americans (those born and raised in the U.S.).
• As a result, Filipinos make up the 2nd biggest Asian ethnic group in the U.S. (Chinese are first). According to a recent survey by PEW, Filipinos from the Philippines like the United States more than Americans do. (More on this in an upcoming post.)

As for the most recent border boondoggle where thousands of Central American kids have been caught trying to enter the U.S., many critics are quick to shout "Send them home." The law requiring that we give them hearings is a law that was signed by the last President Bush -- a Republican. 

The U.S. has given refugee status to people from dictator-run countries, from the old communist bloc and other countries we don't like. But what if the country they are fleeing doesn't have a government and it is run by a bunch of gangsters and if you don't join their gang, they kill you? The second video explains the situation under two minutes and worth watching then ask yourself, "do you still want to send them home to almost certain death?" That's a tougher question now, right?

Look, I'm for control of our borders and yes, most countries wouldn't give a second thought to sending the kids home -- but this is America, and we're supposed to be better than other countries. We're supposed to be exceptional.

Lest we forget ... greeting all ships in New York harbor is the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!