Interview 3
This interview, much like the second, helps to humanize illegal immigrants. It is also important because it helps listeners understand why negative perceptions of immigrants are harmful to the US and to individual immigrants.
This TEDx talk is by Erik Daniel Morales Gomez, who illegally crossed the border from Mexico to the United States when he was a young boy, and later became a U.S. citizen.
He begins by talking about the relationship American’s have with immigrants. He goes on to explain that the United States was built by immigrants and those immigrants were the foundation to what the country is today. They are what made this country the greatest in the world.
Gomez continues by explaining that immigrants, despite their praise for the foundation of this country, are “vilified.” Americans say that immigrants are “lazy and dangerous”, and that “they come to this country to steal jobs from hard-working americans, while dragging down the economy, and bringing diseases with them.”This kind of talk about immigrants is not new, it has been happening for the last 130 years or so.
Gomez thinks that the reason that Americans say these negative and hostile things about immigrants is out of fear. Americans believe that if “too many immigrants come to this country, [they] are going to lose their way of life.” This is one of the things that drives them to continue the english-only mentality, and the idea that this is a christian country. Gomez believes that this fear that Americans have is directly connected to their belief that this is the greatest country in the world. American’s think that “everybody around the world wants to come to the greatest country and live here permanently.” Gomez continues by referencing a Gallup poll that found that only ¼ of the individuals (650 million) around the world who would consider relocating permanently, chose the United States as their destination. Considering that there are 7.3 billion people on this planet, the number for those who would relocate to the United States is very small. This is a very different conclusion than the belief Americans have that everyone around the world would want to relocate to the United States.
In order to begin to understand why American’s believe in such a radical idea, Gomez asks the question, “what would it mean for us as a country to live with this idea? How would our way of thinking about immigration change or differ if we didn’t live under the idea that the whole world is clamoring to come and live in the United States?” He then asks, “how would our politicians and our lawmakers talk differently about immigrants and immigration, especially during a political year - we have an election coming up - if we didn’t have this mentality that is based on fear and a lack of education?”
At the age of six, Gomez crossed the border illegally with his family and lived in the United States illegally until he was 14 years old. He recalled going to school during that time with constant worries. “Imagine that every single day, no matter what you do, and no matter how hard you try to focus on your classes, you have this little thought in the back of your mind, and that thought is, ‘is my mother going to be home when I get off the bus this afternoon?’” His mother worked illegally in a mushroom plant in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where there are regular immigration raids and people get deported directly from their jobs. Gomex remembers going to school and learning about all the ways in which America is a great country, but then goes home and is constantly reminded that Americans thought that he was not welcome in the United States, and he should go back to his country.
Gomez continues by saying that a lot of the negativity towards immigrants in America is directed towards Mexicans specifically. This is personal to Gomez because he is from Mexico. The then presidential candidate, Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists, theives, and drug smugglers. He was praised for this by his followers who cheered in agreement. Gomez thinks this kind of mentality is unfair because his parents are Mexican immigrants and they are “two of the hardest-working” and “honest people [he] know[s].” Gomez then asks, “would Donald Trump supporters continue to cheer him on, if they didn’t believe that this was the greatest country in the world? Would Donald Trump continue to make those comments if people were more educated about immigration?” Gomez believes that we might be able to change the way we think and talk about immigrants if Americans get that confounding idea out of their heads that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world.
As his final thought, Gomez continues by stating that, like Americans, other citizens in other countries around the world, including Mexico, love their country too. He says that Mexico is ‘an amazingly beautiful place, with incredible people living there,” but people in America don’t hear about that side of Mexico, they only hear about the drug cartels, and the murders that are happening, and that Mexico is not safe. Ironically, Mexicans hear about the United States in a negative way as well. “In Mexico, they hear about all the mass shootings that are happening in this country; in movie theaters, schools and even in churches.”
According to another Gallup poll that Gomex references, they surveyed and gave a Positive Experience Index Score to 143 countries based off of the amount of times people laugh, learn, or do something interesting that brings them joy to their life. Mexico received a rating of 76, and the U.S a rating of 79. Gomez thinks that maybe if the Positive Index Score of the U.S. was significantly higher, that “we would see this massive wave of Mexican Immigrants rushing to come to the United States and set up permanently.” But in real life, not many Mexicans do want to come to the U.S. to set up permanently, and neither do many other immigrants around the world. Gomez says that the only way we can make American great, like Donald Trump suggests, is “if we change up the lens that we are viewing immigration through, and… start to embrace the immigrants that are already in this country and the immigrants that will continue to come to this country, and embrace all the diversity and all the different cultures that they bring with them.”