While sitting on a chair in
his bedroom. The man sits there and thinks deeply. What should I say, what words should I use. How do I explain this? I want so much to be able to communicate my
feelings. I want him and the world to
know what I feel and what pain I have in my heart. I want them to know how I
wake up every day dazed, confused and frustrated over what I see daily. How it pains me!!! God, please give me the
words. Please guide me to be able to say what I so desperately want to say. I
feel overwhelmed; so many ideas flood my brain.
So many words come to mind, but I don’t know if they’re the adequate
words to use.
The man sitting on the couch
with pen and paper in hand, noticeably upset feeling overwhelmed by his
emotions as a teardrop runs down his cheek, extends his hand and touches the
paper with the pen. And starts…………………………………
Dear Mr. President, I am
writing this letter to ask that you help my people. Mr. President you as a man of color has personally
been touched by discrimination. You know
well what discrimination feels like and the pain and suffering that racism
brings to a person of a different color or a different nationality. You must
understand what an Immigrant goes through in this great country built by
Immigrants for Immigrants.
Mr. President I ask that you
analyze the state of our country and the state of the economy on which this
country so desperately depends on my people and it’s low skilled labor. That you analyze all that the Immigrant has
done for this Country. Yes, many of them
are undocumented but they have been equal contributors to this great nation. They in fact have been the backbone of our
country. These immigrants have been the
foundation on which others have stepped on to build businesses and to promote
this country that we are all so proud of. These Immigrants have remained hidden in the
shadows and have been a silent part of our community for too long. They have
worked diligently to provide for their families while remembering the loved
ones they left behind, all the while, with a desire to travel freely to their
country of origin to visit those loved ones that every day, wake up, hoping
that today is the day in which they will see that family member who left to
that great melting pot to create a better life for them and their families.
Mr. President, Dear Mr.
President, you, yes you, can help us. You
can make a valid argument to Congress so that they, together, with your efforts, can create a change in Immigration law. A change that is just, that does not
persecute those who came here seeking a better life but that will in turn allow
those immigrants to come out of the shadows and enjoy that shining city on a
hill. As one of our president’s stated “In my mind it was a tall, proud city
built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with
people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that
hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the
walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart
to get here.”
Mr. President, as these Immigrants walk towards that shining
city on the hill allow them to do so with dignity and respect and with their
heads held up high as they walk towards that beacon of light that will guide
them to that shining city, for as Jesus
himself said it from his sermon on the mount “A city set on a hill cannot be
hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it
gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they
may see your good works.” So it should be for these great
Mr. President, I know well
that our people, the Immigrants shall unite to your cause as they did when you
ran for President and as they so diligently worked to help mobilize those Latinos
who helped elect you as our forty fourth President of these the great United
States.
For us, you represented
change, change that this country desperately needed, and that change that the
immigrant so desperately seeks and desires.
A change which will allow a
reprieve from the daily attacks both physical and emotional that have taken
their toll on our Latino and Immigrant communities.
That change which will stop
dividing our families, which will stop leaving children orphaned and their
parents incarcerated for dreaming of a better life.
A change which will stop that
persecution of our people, a people who have come to this country to contribute
as other immigrants have throughout history, but who are instead received with
anger and hostility.
A change is what we ask for, a
change in this nation which we have helped put in your hands Mr. President.
Mr. President, I ask you from the bottom of my Heart, Please Mr. President, help our
people. Move with the efficiency of a
well oiled machine, with justice and with compassion to change these unjust
laws and archaic immigration system that simply serves as a virtual wall to
stop new Immigrants from integrating into this country and stops those
immigrants from forming part of these great United States of America as they
have done for the last 232 years.
The man still sitting on his
couch stops, reflects and reads what he has written. Not sure of himself and feeling like he has
not done what he had set out to do, rips the page from the notebook and
crumples it up ready to throw it in the trash, when he reflects once again, smoothes
the paper out, folds it neatly and puts it in it’s envelope as he says “YES WE
CAN”
Written by:
Carlos E. Galindo
Arizona Coordinator
Project Letters
602-222-9100
Text Messages:623-308-2558
Please send your letter to
President Obama requesting Immigration Reform and a restructuring of the
Immigration system. Your letter needs to
be sent on
Send Letters on
President Barack Obama
