Give thanks for our Mexican immigrants

Greetings. I am a native of New Mexico. My grandfather had a successful ranching business, built on his knowledge, but mostly on the sweat of illegal Mexican immigrants. The following is a perspective on Thanksgiving that I believe is pertinent.

Thanksgiving, an American tradition, a day of expressing gratitude and forgetting to give thanks to what’s really important: thanks to one another, thanks to the creatures whose lives have been sacrificed for the feast and thanks to those who provide the feast from the field to the kitchen … Mexicans.

While people indulge in the tradition of gluttony, there are people living in fear and poverty without whom the American economy would collapse, and yet they are ridiculed for having thankless jobs. Lack of bureaucratic documentation does not make one less of a human, less hungry or feel less pain.

Coming to America from the South and contributing has been scorned. Coming from the East practicing genocide and stealing other peoples’ land is considered a noble epoch in American history. The absence of “Illegal Aliens” would financially destroy America.

There is not one of us who is not a part of all of us. Law is a shelter for both victim and villain. It exists when respect and grace have been disregarded. When that happens, who are we as a people? Predators, cowards looking for a scapegoat. For two centuries, the scapegoat has been our neighbors to the south. It is always the poor and the immigrant that bears the blame of cowards.

I give thanks to those with whom I have worked with on horseback, in the factories and kitchens, in the courts and behind the shovel. If there are harder working people, I don’t know who they are … and they do it all with laughter and grace.

Take a case of wine, a card … whatever; send it to those back in the kitchen with a note that says, “En este Dia de Agradecer damos Gracias a Ustedes.”

Happy Thanksgiving. MICHAEL TARLTON BOND

Santa Fe