For weeks in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area, there has been speculation about what is going on at the Cattle Congress, a sort of fairgrounds that hosted the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions a couple weeks ago. The locals have been noting the covered windows, the trailors, the feds, and rumors had it that there would be a bust. Well, they were right.
There was a bust, perhaps the biggest in US history. For several years, Iowa has progressed, nay regressed, into anti-immigration policies. We have the English-only law, where politicians and the like have been sued or reprimanded for providing voter registration forms and other documents online in languages other than English. There have been rumblings in the state house about getting "tough" on the businesses that hire illegal immigrants. And, more and more, in the editorial columns, there are rants about how the illegals are hurting Iowa. Now, we have the bust.
I see this bust as just that but on the part of the Iowan citizenry, as a huge step toward xenophobia and intolerance, and a general lack of humanity and reality. Just like the "War on Drugs" and the like have failed, the war on immigration, legal or not, is an act of trying to fight the symptoms rather than the sickness. The state and the country are dependent on labor, and a lot of labor they depend upon comes from people from Central and South America. The sickness comes in when we forget to see laborers as people, people with families, with needs, and with few choices. The sickness comes when we see "them" causing troubles and as "taking from Iowa" when we have built an economy based on "their" exploitation. That's sick, to blame people when they are basically invited in (and have been, on and off for the last 150 years).
Dear Iowa Representatives: first, get educated about the history of these groups of people. Second, how many languages do you speak and how many hours do you work with no insurance and no community respect? Right, and then think about how hard it is to learn a language well enough to read tax forms or legal documents. Third, start at the source. If we truly are going to bust the businesses, let's take those fat cats to the cattle congress holding cells, away from their families, and let's figure out humane and logical answers for people who are working hard and in need of help. Sure, they have some "blame" but let's get the whole picture here and look at the power structures involved.
