Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream

Due to my travels in Mexico both as an adoptive parent of a Mexican girl and as an interpreter for mission trips, I can easily visualize these stories. I have seen kids just like Antonio and Delfino and these stories are all too real to me. My wife and I started an adoption 11 years ago of a baby girl from Mexico and we tried to do it the Mexican way but have now had to resort to the American judicial system for closure. The system in Mexico does not function unless you have money and thus for people like Antonio and Delfino there are no alternatives but to immigrate legally or illegally. According to INS prior to 9/11 the wait to come legally to the US from Mexico was 11 years that's a long time to starve. The so-called "Americanization" is a nice way to say imperialism for the sake of the US citizens. Until we invest in private job- creating industry in Latin America the flow of economic refugees will continue. We must fix the immigration system not with an amnesty but with an open-mind to all suggestions. A guest worker program whereby the workers can be tracked makes the most sense. We must also level the diplomatic playing field so that immigrants from all countries are treated equally. By having a guest worker program we can also better educate the families of those workers while not americanizing everyone. Delfino is following his dream to be somebody just as everyone born here follows. Mr. Bermúndez is an example of the Quijote that exists in the human spirit not only the immigrant spirit. He believes that because of the fact that he has worked hard to make a better life for himself that he can change the system in Mexico which is set to maintain the social structure with little or no upward mobility. Mr. Robles, unfortunately, sounds more like an American in his reference to Mexicans than a Mexican referring to his fellow countrymen. Mr. Robles, like many Americans, fails to see that everyone regardless of race or origin needs the same things from society. Mr. Robles has tried to bring the Mexican methods of government to the US and use them on his own countrymen.However, in the US we have checks and balances that they lack in Mexico. To solve the immigration problems we must first show the immigrant population that they are valued for who they are, not what they can do. Then we must learn work ethic from the immigrants in order to make ourselves better, and we must invest in their countries not their governments.