From Tomato Picker to Neurosurgeon (by Allison Johnson)
I was touched recently to hear Dr. Alfredo Quinoñes-Hinojosa, honored by the Merage Foundation for the American Dream for his contributions in the field of medicine, tell his exceptional story. Dr. Quiñones' journey began at age 19, just as it has for millions of his Mexican paisanos - hopping the U.S.-Mexico border's perilous chain-link fence. Unable to provide for his family, he remained firm in his decision to head north, even after he was initially caught by the border patrol and deported back to Mexico. He eventually succeeded and labored as an undocumented migrant farm worker in the San Joaquin Valley. The same hands that picked tomatoes in the hot California sun now perform neurosurgery on brain tumors in the halls of Johns Hopkins University. Educated at the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard, he has reaped great rewards from his determination to succeed and his optimistic attitude towards life. Many would say he has realized "the American Dream."
While hearing the story of Dr. Quiñones, I thought of the millions of hardworking and goal-driven students whose dreams to attend college in the U.S. have been put on hold because of their documentation status. The failure of the DREAM Act in Congress last fall halted the aspirations of high school graduates who would otherwise qualify for in-state tuition to public colleges and universities. If we continue to punish these students for decisions made by their parents years ago to bring them to the "Land of Opportunity," we are squashing their aspirations to become world-class brain surgeons, business professionals, teachers, and contributors to the fabric of America.
I heard Dr. Quiñones speak at the National Leadership Awards banquet at which the Merage Foundation for the American Dream was honoring several first-generation immigrants who have made outstanding contributions in the U.S. (Several of us from Sojourners had been invited in recognition of the work of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform). But who knows how many (or how few) awards will be handed out in the future, if our country's immigration policies continue to deflate immigrants' hopes and dreams on a daily basis?
Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.
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Comments
Nice post. We will be praying and advocating with you for an equitable and just immigration law.
Posted by: JamesMartin | June 18, 2008 5:18 PM
Unfortunately, the hate-mongers out there will demonize this post as just another example of why we need immigration reform, no amnesty, more fences, national ID, etc, etc.
We are long in need of a balanced immigration policy. However, it has been easier to demonize the immigrant, pay off campaign contributors with contracts to build the fence along our border( which will stop no one older than years old) , and refuse to do anything meaningful to address the current immigration mess. Thank God for Homeland Security, we feel so much safer!
Congress and the President should all be held to task for this mess...and the candidates should be made to address the issue in the coming campaign.
Christians have a moral duty to see that government policy is fair and just, and immigration policy is just one of many areas in which the current Administration has catered to a few special interests at the expense of the common good. Meanwhile, they have successfully created a howl from the bigots among us who want an America which is exclusively white and Protestant. As believers in Him, we must stand for the spirit of love and God's law, not the spirit of divisiveness and the rule of law.
Let Your Light Shine, and Pray for Peace!
Posted by: Doug & Jan in CO | June 18, 2008 5:35 PM
Wait, I thought poor people couldn't succeed in America? What happened to the societal barriers?
Posted by: DITE | June 19, 2008 1:38 AM
Of course, it would be churlish to observe that criminal gangs like MS-13, the Mexican Mafia, or Nuestra Familia, have proliferated among illegal immigrants. So feel free to just ignore that and pretend that only nice people cross the border illegally.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 19, 2008 10:30 AM
"Of course, it would be churlish to observe that criminal gangs like MS-13, the Mexican Mafia, or Nuestra Familia, have proliferated among illegal immigrants. So feel free to just ignore that and pretend that only nice people cross the border illegally."
--Wolverine
Of course, it would be churlish to observe that criminal gangs like the Hell's Angels, the Bloods, the Crips, or the Aryan Brotherhood have proliferated among native-born Americans. So feel free to just ignore that and pretend that only nice people live on this side of the border legally.
And while you're at it, be sure to do everything you can to focus attention on the bad apples who come to this country, legally and illegally. That way you can ignore the remarkable accomplishments of heroes like Quinones. That's what Jesus would have done. I think it's in the Sermon on the Mount.
Posted by: lloyd crump | June 19, 2008 10:58 AM
All this after I explicitly gave you permission to ignore what I wrote...
Lloyd,
I do not deny that out of a population of over 10,000,000 illegal immigrants there are bound to be a few who do some remarkable and even positive things. I am certainly open to making some exceptions, but let's set that all aside and just assume that Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa gets himself deported. The doctor continues his work in Mexico, and Mexico gains a skilled neurosurgeon. I know that's not precisely what you want, but would that really be such a terrible outcome?
Wayne,
It wouldn't surprise me at all if you were to find that legal immigrants are more law-abiding than the native US population. The question is are illegal immigrants prone to criminality.
So unless your statistics explicitly cover illegal immigrants (which I doubt) they are worthless. But I am anxiously awaiting your evidence.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 19, 2008 12:27 PM
While I comment the efforts of the good doctor, I would be more impressed if he went back to Mexico and worked in hospitals there.
As long as Mexico lives in poverty treating it's citizens as peons, we will always have a problem here with people looking for a better life in America. US companies move to Mexico, not to improve the fates of people there but to enrich themselves by being able to pay sub-standard wages.
I pray for the day that employment for Mexicans will entice them to stay at home. Then and only then will the immigration problem come to am end.
Posted by: Paul | June 19, 2008 12:45 PM
All of you are the children of illegal immigrants, except aboriginal peoples' descendants.
Your parents obtained your advantages through fraud, violence and outright theft and even exploiting the labor of others through indentured servitude and slavery.
Whether some worked hard or not is applicable to your parents - illegality has nothing to do with that.
What hypocrites the lot of you are, who fail to realise this.
Why does "conservatism" so easily morph into defense of the status quo, which favors the advantages of existing caste over the disadvantages? It is vain to hope that selfishness and greed - the root of all evil - can be transmuted like lead into gold - and become ultimate moral good.
Posted by: Pot Kettle | June 19, 2008 2:16 PM
Pot Kettle --
What makes you think my parents came here illegally? My parents were fraudulent? How pious are you?
They were just people coming here for a better life. They got all their papers stamped in all the right places and dug out little lives for themselves. I believe one side of them were endentured servants.
And ours is not a caste system, it's a class system or sorts -- but not nearly as bad as many other class systems. European countries are much more class-oriented.
Posted by: Ralph | June 19, 2008 4:00 PM
"but let's set that all aside and just assume that Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa gets himself deported. The doctor continues his work in Mexico, and Mexico gains a skilled neurosurgeon. I know that's not precisely what you want, but would that really be such a terrible outcome?"
1. That assumes that he would have the same opportunities there, which he probably would not.
2. That would certainly have been the outcome you would have preferred.
Posted by: JamesMartin | June 19, 2008 5:10 PM
As always, backers of mass legalization like to strike humanitarian poses while dismissing the concerns of millions of Mexicans who live in Mexico. It's almost like they aren't human beings until they cross into the US.
At any rate, you have yet to answer my question, which is: why is it such a terrible injustice to expect that a Mexican citizen return to Mexico?
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 19, 2008 7:20 PM
"They were just people coming here for a better life. They got all their papers stamped in all the right places and dug out little lives for themselves. I believe one side of them were endentured servants."
Just so. Legality determined by an exploiter class that wields power over and dominates weaker others has very little correspondence to concepts like justice and morality, no matter how many strut in robes, speaking in self-impressed stentorian tones amidst the trappings of Graeco-Roman imperial architecture.
Posted by: Pot Kettle | June 19, 2008 7:58 PM
Wolverine - it would be nice to know what you and/or your congregation do for the 'least of these.' I am not asking this sarcastically; I just want to know what actions are being taken by those you -- and others with similar attitudes -- to help alleviate poverty. Also, do you get your veggies/fruit shipped in from California or some similar place. If so, chances are the produce was picked by migrant laborers. Would you discontinue buying this produce if the laborers were illegal? Do you, and many of the rest of us, not benefit from a cheap labor force? Or perhaps you'd like to go and work on a roofing or landscaping crew, working 12 hours a day in the sun
Posted by: ando | June 19, 2008 8:08 PM
This is the point where all I can do is walk away rolling my eyes. I make a simple observation: nobody here seems to care about folks living in Mexico. I ask a simple question: what's so outrageous about Mexican citizens returning to Mexico. And here's what I get:
Pot Kettle going off robes and Graeco-Roman architecture. As if the guys in the togas were the only ones with sins. If moral perfection were required to govern, there would be nobody anywhere qualified. The powerless aren't that much purer than the powerful. The world isn't perfect. Get used to it.
And then ando asks all sorts of questions about what charities I give to and who picked my produce. I won't get into the details, but I've given a fair amount of time and money to different ministries. I don't have the slightest clue who picked the brocolli I ate a little while ago.
Now, are any of you sensitive souls the least bit interested in the people left behind in Mexico?
The answer, clearly, is no.
Wolverine
Rolls eyes, walks away...
Posted by: Wolverine | June 19, 2008 9:11 PM
Such utter rudeness and presumptuousness on the
part of certain posters here! But let me jump in
and deflect some of the criticism from Wolverine
for a while. First of all, I speak Spanish. (I'm
a certified Spanish teacher.) Secondly, I've done
short-term missionary work in Mexico. Thirdly,
in the late 80s, when illegal immigration was just
starting to hits its stride, some immigrants came
to my church, not for a handout (they were gainfully employed construction workers), but simply to worship, the language difficulties notwithstanding. From that beginning, a ministry to Mexicans was developed. Now there are many more immigrants, and many Hispanic churches (plus a few Anglo churches with Hispanic ministries). I see the situation as a bifurcation: 1. it is not a good thing to flout the law (lawbreaking simply leads to more lawbreaking); but 2. the coming of immigrants offers tremendous mission opportunities. Yes, there are a whole lot of other considerations, but these two are paramount in my mind. Liberals ignore the first point;
conservatives often miss out on the possibilities
of the second.
Posted by: John G. | June 19, 2008 9:49 PM
The Wolverine is at the door:
"Now, are any of you sensitive souls the least bit interested in the people left behind in Mexico?
"The answer, clearly, is no.
"I ask a simple question: what's so outrageous about Mexican citizens returning to Mexico.
"If moral perfection were required to govern, there would be nobody anywhere qualified. The powerless aren't that much purer than the powerful. The world isn't perfect. Get used to it."
Clearly, Wolverine callously tells us the corrupt govern the world, but the oppressed are no better, so they better "get used to it."
This is a sad example of how a certain kind of "conservatism," wherever in the world or in history it exists, simply stands for the continuation of a status quo of oppression, however reprehensible. Think hardline Soviet conservatives opposing Gorbachev, not just right wing Pinochet-style dictators enthused over by some American "conservatives."
Tellingly, there were no "conservatives" standing in the gap for equality of black Americans with Dr. King when that battle was fought. To a man, those "conservatives" were quite content with and defenders of American apartheid - including even William F. Buckley. Where were the conservative opponents to South African apartheid a couple of decades later? On the side of apartheid, to a man.
Now the remittances that U.S. workers from Mexico sent back to the poor people left in the villages they came from were a major source of survival income for those impoverished folk. And that giving was made sacrificially by people at the very bottom of the economic barrel in America, so it rivals for generosity the widow's mite that Jesus spoke about. They would not have left if their fate had been as dire as those they had to leave behind.
"Conservatives" have bayed to make sure that those remittances are no longer possible. Could it be that they aren't the least bit interested in those left behind in Mexico, who have had the largest protion of their sustenance cut off by those unspeakably wealthy in comparison?
Are they interested in the truth, really, or just winning talking points by clever jesuitical arguing, without real regard for the effect on real human beings - yes, as imperfect as himself, but surely no less entitled to his own standard of living, before God, who is no respecter of persons?
Posted by: Motley Patriot | June 19, 2008 10:05 PM
I thank God for the wonderful people with whom I have had the opportunity to fellowship, live among, serve with, learn from, enjoy, etc. Some of whom, I have learned work in the United States without the benefit of authorized status. I have had the opportunity to offer hospitality to some of these in my own home here, and receive hospitality in their homes in their wonderful countries. I am a better person for it. I look forward to the next wonderful experience here or abroad, with or without papers. Who knows, perhaps I have entertained angels without knowing it.
Posted by: Glen Peterson | June 19, 2008 11:25 PM
How aware are we that legion numbers of us have spread all across the globe, sometimes through economic imperative, sometimes by military might, into country after country where we as foreigners are not wanted by the people born there, either?
Are we willing to be forced to return home to America, or do we arrogantly think something wrong with that?
To echo Wolverine, what's wrong with returning American citizens back to America?
To those for recklessly spending American blood and treasure in foreign lands where we aren't welcome, don't they care about those being progressively impoverished back here in America?
It's precisely because we insist on going where we aren't wanted, over there, that we will have more and more trouble, over here.
We are among the biggest hypocrites on Earth - as Wolverine astutely observes, as the the powerful, we are hardly purer than the powerless.
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | June 20, 2008 1:08 AM
"It's not that you are wrong but your points are undermined by your tone. "
This is such an absurd statement, particularly in light of the manic discussions about immigartion policy.
Posted by: kevin s. | June 20, 2008 1:38 AM
Wayne:
I'll poke my head in just long to tell you that the link to your report doesn't work.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 20, 2008 10:05 AM
My biggest problem with this issue is that we aren't providing transportation to people in other countries who are much more oppressed and in need than our brothers and sisters in Mexico.
We aren't allowing people from famine-sticken countries in Africa, or Chinese who are poor as well as persecuted for their faith these opportunities either -- and none of you here are defending them.
If we grant amnesty to an unlimited amount of illegal Mexicans it will mean we cut off opportunities for others to come here who frankly, need it more.
I really don't think that perspective makes me a white bigot.
Posted by: frankie | June 20, 2008 10:34 AM
It's completely disingenuous to argue that the reason for rounding up, interning for months and years and then dumping our poor fellow human beings en masse at the border is to allow an equal number of oppressed people from other countries to come instead.
Be honest. Stop being addled by any ideology that is at odds with reality. Truth does not need to be twisted then filtered through a sieve of political sloganeering until reduced to absurdities.
Reality check:
"Conservatives" of a certain stripe don't like any immigrants who aren't white Northern European native English-speaking and they don't much like those either these days.
The legal immigration avenues are already closed except to special corporate sponsored people and "conservatives" want to shut down any other immigration totally, especially family-based, for an
unspecified period. Talk about family values. Focus on some Families or what?
Refugee laws are now some of the most draconian. HS is not even allowing the at-risk Iraquis who risked everything to help us to come, despite Congress passing special laws that were supposed to expedite that.
The reality is that "right wing" is really "white wing" and that's no lie. Immigration has become totally political with strange psychological types, with apostles of hate like Tom Tancredo, distorting public discourse. Tom is supposedly "born again" but at the same time spouts inflammatory nonsense that the main reasons immigrants arrive "is to rape and rob your family."
Father Coughlin's radio intolerance on a mass propaganda scale in the thirties, "family values" and all, has been recycled yet again, with a new crop of "white wing" sectarian radio preachers.
This is just good-old fashioned KKK style racism, the sort that bubbles to the surface periodically in the American political bloodstream, whenever times get tough, and those actually responsible, the financial elites, want to find helpless scapegoats to avoid responsibility for the economic debacles created by their untrammelled greed. Such love the ignorant know-nothing flag waving intolerance and bible thumping strife created among those they divide and conquer, without falling for any of that phoniness themselves.
Posted by: In Veritas Vino | June 20, 2008 11:50 AM
John G.: "I see the situation as a bifurcation: 1. it is not a good thing to flout the law (lawbreaking simply leads to more lawbreaking); but 2. the coming of immigrants offers tremendous mission opportunities. Yes, there are a whole lot of other considerations, but these two are paramount in my mind."
That's an interesting perspective. Thanks for adding something genuinely new to this by-now very stale topic on Sojourners.
Posted by: carl copas | June 20, 2008 12:10 PM
wolverine
Sorry, it seems that I evidently this got a little screwed up. I am pretty busy right now and do not have time to pay attention obviously. I think this will work for you
ailf.org/1pc/specialreport/sr_022107.pdf
Posted by: wayne | June 20, 2008 12:14 PM
Has anyone ever thought that perhaps Mexicans feel entitled to come to the "United States" because most people refer to the "United States OF America" as just "America", which is the name for the ENTIRE continent we live on???
Anyone?!?!
Posted by: Superguy | June 20, 2008 1:37 PM
The failure of the DREAM Act in Congress last fall halted the aspirations of high school graduates who would otherwise qualify for in-state tuition to public colleges and universities.
Good, if I have to jump through a million hoops, establish over a year of state residency, which means getting a state driver's license, buyinghome, filing taxes for the full year in that state, then it shouldn't be unreasonable to expect illegal immigrants to pay out-of-state tuition rates. I don't think the Fed should be mandating who gets in-state tuition rates among State University Systems either. They already overburden local government services (which are usually Fed Mandated, unfunded of course), no need to burden the University systems either.
Posted by: aaron | June 20, 2008 3:25 PM
Many are becoming haters, consumed by bitterness and selfishness. Angry white men over 40... many being laid off and seeing their social and economic status reduced to that of the despised immigrants they loathe so much... they just can't take it - loss of entitlements - pensions, health benefits and even their very jobs.
All their economic security, up in smoke...
Posted by: Gord Gekko | June 20, 2008 3:40 PM
In Veritas Vino --
I fear you are as closed-minded as those you hate.
Aaron --
Rock on!
Posted by: frankie | June 20, 2008 4:01 PM
aaron
I know many undocumented who have done all the above plus their kids have made honor roll and every other superlative. Face it. The students who are the focus of the dream act have done everything, paid everything, and earned everything you have, (good for you by the way) the only difference is their parents brought them here the only way they could, with no visa.
I do not see your argument, just that you have a sense of entitlement.
Posted by: wayne | June 20, 2008 6:45 PM
MS 13 actually started in America and spread to Latin America. The Mexican Mafia is a mexican outfit that meets here but is mainly based in Mexico. Nuestra Familia is a group I know too little about to comment but let's make this clear.
Wolverine,
If you are going to use organized crime to strengthen your argument the least you could do is get the history of those gangs right. Many of them are fed in part by immigrant participation but MS-13 is an American gang. The American arm of the gang is American fed by both illegal immigrants and legal citizens. It started in Los Angeles.
my point is that illegal immigrants are part of a lot of different organized crime syndicates. Singling out primarily latin ones doesn't change that fact.
p
Posted by: Payshun | June 20, 2008 6:55 PM
Aren't we forgetting that before 1848 about one-half of what is now the U.S. was Mexican? When those folk come here they are only reclaiming much of what was theirs to begin with.
Posted by: George De Vries, Jr. | June 20, 2008 10:18 PM
Speaking of things like justice and rightness, when Mexicans sneak across the border they are only returning to land that was Mexican until 1848 when we manufactured a border incident so we could invade and seize much of northern Mexico.
Posted by: George De Vries, Jr. | June 20, 2008 10:24 PM
That Dr. Quinones is a highly accomplished individual means nothing to bigots - just as it didn't to those who removed and deported doctors and scientists in Germany during the thirties - when many in America, similarly suffering under the Great Depression manufactured on Wall Street were also sympathetic to anti-semitism and believed that ideologies of exclusion and authoritarianism were the answer.
To accuse someone of being a hater because they disagree with bigotry, is like accusing Jews of being haters because they revile what anti-Semites promote.
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | June 20, 2008 11:35 PM
How come no discussion of any poor legal residents who cannot afford a college education in the US? Dr. Quiñones appartently took the place of a poor legal resident who through no fault of her own could not attend a university.
JKC
Posted by: Anonymous | June 21, 2008 1:04 AM
By requiring a class of people to become invisible we endanger our selves by empowering those who take advantage of them.
Last time America chased away people of Latin American decent we made a bad economic situation worse and promptly fell into the Great Depression. Many of these people were citizens, land owners and business owners who provided jobs for others. Silly us.
Perhaps we should have looked more closely at those who became powerful and obscenely wealthy by sustaining imposed forms of slavery well past WWII with the use of Jim Crow Laws and Black law.
One of my violin students is studying PreMed at Johns Hopkins. I hope he has the priveledge of meeting Dr. Alfredo Quinoñes-Hinojosa. By the way my student is of Chinese decent.
Posted by: Ms. Cynthia | June 21, 2008 8:02 AM
"How come no discussion of any poor legal residents who cannot afford a college education in the US? Dr. Quiñones appartently took the place of a poor legal resident who through no fault of her own could not attend a university."
How many of these types of lies will continue to be spread?
He took no one's place. In order to obtain a medical degree one has to earn their placement. They are given nothing. Not one US citizen has ever been denied a college education so that an immigrant could get into college. None of this can be laid at the feet of immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Your argument is obviously lame if you have to lie like this. You only give credence to the negative charges made here when you do so.
Posted by: wayne | June 21, 2008 5:00 PM
It is inconceivable that one cannot celebrate the success against all odds of a common Mexican laborer and who would wish upon him his return to Mexico. Where is the Christian charity and Christian ethic in all of this?
Posted by: JamesM | June 22, 2008 10:07 AM
No, there is no "right" to be a neurosurgeon. Whether Dr. Quinones accomplishments entitle him to American citizenship or legal residence is a whole other matter, but his medical license is his, he earned it, and he didn't steal it from anyone.
But that begs the larger question: what is so awful about Mexico that it is beyond the pale to expect Mexican citizens to return there. I've seen lots of self-rigteous posturing, but nobody has answered the question.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 22, 2008 7:53 PM
Wayne,
Your second link doesn't work any better than the first.
Payshun,
It doesn't matter whether MS-13 was founded in El Salvador, the US, or the Kingdom of Gondor, they are recruiting among illegal immigrants, as are the Mexican Mafia and Nuestra Familia. Dr. Quinones, admirable as he is, is not the only side of this story.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | June 22, 2008 8:02 PM
Wolverine,
The problem lies in seeing this as a simplistic problem, of people simply not wanting to return to their "own country", for no good reason. There are in actuality so many different scenarios.
There are people who are deported who came to this country as very little children, and are sent back to a place where they sometimes don't know the language, and may have no relatives to help them. They are dropped off basically into intense poverty and oppression. If they are young women, the situation is even more precarious.
There are situations where they had left other Latin American countries to escape persecution and death. To simply return them to their origins is to give them a death warrant. And if they apply for asylum here, they are now arrested and imprisoned, sometimes for years and with poor health care and little recourse to legal assistance. (Another fact: if they can do it, people from other Latin American countries try to convince authorities that they are Mexican, so that they don't have to face the very dangerous trip up through Mexico again, on their way back to their family left behind in the US.)
Posted by: janible | June 22, 2008 11:38 PM
wolverine
just google it
Posted by: wayne | June 23, 2008 9:22 AM
My fellow Americans,
I have declared my home a sanctuary. When someone enters my home we don't check their "documents" or inquire about where they came from or how they got here. If they mean no harm to me or my family they are welcome. The other day one such young man came and fixed my leaky chimney. He didn't speak much english, but he did respond when he saw the "bien venidos" sign on my front door. He did a great job. I thanked and paid him. Then another day some guys came and fixed my broken sidewalk. The color of their skin was different than mine but i needed their services. They did a great job putting in the new concrete. I thanked and paid them. They did such a great job I referred them to my neighbor who has contracted with them to do similar work. My other neighbor is having a man trim his bushes and fix up his yard. I spoke to him about doing some similar work for me. He declined saying that he was booked solid and has had to turn away work. He spoke kindly with a nice accent. Five years ago a young woman from South America came to study at the university where I graduated from many years ago. She needed a place to live. We have an extra bedroom and a desk and plenty to eat. A year ago she graduated with honors. She is now back home working in her career field of computer engineering. Mi casa es tu casa. Especially if you are here to better your life and the life of your family. In fact, I need you. After all, as a North American from the USA I am free to go to your house any time I wish, and I know that you will welcome me. Peace to you, my brothers and sisters. You are welcome in my sanctuary home. Carl J. Malischke, Disciple of Jesus
Posted by: Carl J. Malischke | June 26, 2008 6:01 PM
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