In his book Operation Gatekeeper, Joseph Nevin quotes Richard Rodriguez:
People in California talk about “illegals.” But there was always an illegality to immigration. It was a rude act, the act of leaving home. It was a violation of custom, a insult to the village. A youthful act of defiance. I know a man from El Salvador who has not talked to his father since the day he left his father’s village. (It is a sin against family to leave home.) Immigrants must always be illegal. Immigrants are always criminals. They trespass borders and horrify their grandmothers.
But they are also our civilization’s prophets. They, long before the rest of us… they saw the hemisphere whole.
“It is a sin against family to leave home”?
Really? hmmmm…….I don’t seem to recall my parents complaining when I left home for good…….