I Guess I’m Not American…

Watching, listening and reading this week about the illegal immigration debate in the Senate, I was struck by one phrase spoken by all parties and usually taken as a given “These illegal workers are doing jobs American’s don’t want to do..”

This was said by President Bush, Senator McCain, Senator Kennedy, generally anyone speaking is saying this sentence (in one form or another). But how did I reconcile these facts with there statement?

• My Father worked as a bartender.
• My Mother worked doing low-end data entry (in the 1970s that meant she “took in typing jobs”).
• My Brother worked in a factory making (of all things) blocks which lined the interior of Nuclear Reactors.
• This same Brother also worked (with my Cousin) as dishwashers. (On a side note, I always picture them working at this job as ripe material for a Sitcom episode).
• My Sister worked as a housekeeper, cooking and cleaning for several priests in a Catholic Rectory (before you Catholic bashers go there, nothing happened to her).
• And I, worked for nearly 4 years doing landscaping. Something worth repeating, LANDSCAPING!

So am I lying about the jobs my family members and I held? I guess it could be faulty recollection.

Although my brother did bring home a “reject” Reactor Core block which he used as a doorstop. I also am haunted by the memory of the first time I got a good whiff of decomposing grass clippings and lost my breakfast over the side of the dump truck. I think my Mom still has her Royal typewriter.

So with physical evidence to prove we held these jobs, this must mean we are not American Citizens. So what country do we belong to? My Birth Certificate says I was born in the United States, but we held jobs which we have been told (incessantly for the last two weeks) which no American wants to hold.

Could it be that the politicians and “talking heads” have it all wrong?

Probably not.

Maybe we are Canadian? My brother loves Hockey, I have never passed up an opportunity to eat Canadian Bacon, and my Grandmother is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (so she says).

Maybe I can find out if Canadians would lower themselves to hold the jobs we did?