In Memory of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and Her Unborn Child and All Farm Workers Who Have Died to Make our American Life Easier

Today in the United States, the Border Patrol will check the documents of residents of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas in the event of a hurricane evacuation before they are allowed to board evacuation buses or they will be put on buses to Immigration Centers for deportation. Can you imagine? Now when a disaster hits and any brown skinned person needs help with evacuation they will all suspect that they must produce proof of their citizenship to be able to get help. If they lack the proof they are turned over for processing. Processing, let us see, where did we see that term last? Try Nazi Germany! [Yet the JDL and all the Jewish organizations remain strangely quiet when Mexicans are processed in their communities.] Many have voiced their outrage at these tactics, including the Asian American Justice Center in a recent joint press release with many Latino American Civil Rights Organizations.

Many Americans today are buying the right “wingnut” lie that Mexican workers are destroying the economy. They buy off on the xenophobia put out by the wingnuts who blame the war, gas shortages, and deaths in Iraq on workers who come here to pick fruit and clean toilets at your friendly neighborhood motel.

The hypocrisy must come to an end with this upcoming US Presidential Election. No one in their right mind can blame the worker; it is always the end user. This means us! Yes, even you are at fault. Our society remains silent and thus allows workers to suffer under conditions that you would not put your dog in. You allow workers to be beaten, raped, and murdered by the lack of Judeo Christian concern over what is going on. Why isn’t the winery and wine company who buys the grapes not being held responsible for this death, oh I know why because the republican gubernator in California vetoed the bill to make them responsible. He said at the funeral this death could have been prevented. It should have but he is too spineless to make the factory responsible for this murder.

I am looking for a US Presidential candidate who has spine. One who has the spine to address the economic inequities that exists in our Country today and by doing so will not forsake the rest of the world in the process. One who has the spine to hold business responsible for the deaths in the fields.

I am looking for one who will take responsibility for the way we treat our neighbors. Recently the narco traficantes put out a death list in Baja California which listed 22 Federales who were to be murdered. As of last week of the 22, 17 Federales in Tijuana, Mexico either were murdered or shot while on duty and seven resigned from their positions as drug enforcers so that your American community could continue to use illegal drugs. And you blame it on the Mexicans. The fact is that if there was no demand there would be no supply. Obviously we are not getting very far in our Country’s War on Drugs.

Now is the time for all Americans to demand that a real foreign policy be set forth that allows for a fair equitable treatment of Mexico and all of Latin America. This is the candidate that I and a lot of Mexican American voters are waiting to vote for. If the Democratic Party fails to address the kinds of issues raised above, get ready for President John McCain and his minions who will continue policies of murder and destruction.

This editorial is dedicated to the memory of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and her unborn child and all workers who have died to make our American life easier.

I will be at the march in Sacramento on Wednesday at the capitol where will you be?

©Steven Ybarra Jis a retired civil rights attorney who operates a consultant company in California. He is a member of the Democratic National Committee and a long time political activist. Contact Steven at: sjybarra@aol.com. This article is copyright by Steven J. Ybarra JD, originally published in www.Hispanicvista.com and Obsnews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this entire credit paragraph is attached.