porous borders
Down at the South End we got some pretty porous borders. Immigration’s starting to put a burden on our social services network and I got to tell you, it’s tearing a hole in our delicate social fabric too. We got right-wing conservatives yelling to build a Seawall around the whole island 20 feet high and guarded by killer dolphins. And we got left wing hippie yahoos screaming bloody murder to give the whole crowd amnesty.
It’s a tough issue for us in the land that says bring us your tired, your teeming masses. I don’t think they meant just Ellis Island when they put up the Statue of Liberty. Probably Camano too. But this latest influx, well, we’re all alarmed. We’re concerned. Most of us are up in arms.
Every week they roll across the borders, bringing strange customs and odd dialects. We tried, at first, to welcome em in, boil em down in the melting pot, make em one of us South Enders. But they kept to their own. Set up communities within our community. Made it clear they wanted to be left alone, not assimilated. A lot of em locked the gates — it’s America, after all, you can be unfriendly if you want. But then came the Gated Communities, the guard stations, the checkpoints.
And pretty soon all our jobs were going to servicing THEM. We became gardeners and housekeepers, handymen and servile artists. We got all the low paying service jobs for these rich newcomers, these dot.com millionaires, these Boeing exec retirees. Our pride and our way of life dried right up.
I’m not saying we ought to stop this immigration completely, but I think we’re reaching a dangerous tipping point. Maybe some quotas would help — you know, no more than one millionaire a square mile. Keep the property values in reach of our kids and make it possible to live out our lives here without becoming indentured servants. Write your congressman. Put a stop to unchecked immigration.
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