by Vicki Phipps

Created on: November 07, 2009

Because the title of this article is a clear indication of the fear based hate which created the phrase, "illegal alien," in the first place, I'd say their fate won't be quite as liberating as it was for most of us born and raised in the USA, considering that our immigrant ancestors did all the dirty work for us. Because that's true, our immigrant ancestors have never been, nor will they ever be called, "aliens," at least not legally. After all, it would be a disgrace to what made America great in the first place. Those tired, poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free are why we live in a mix of diversity. Beyond that fact, it's that mix of diversity which gives us right to say, "America is the land of the brave."

Still, there was a price to pay for what we claim within that liberty, considering the fact that our immigrant ancestors had to take America from it's native born American Indian citizens in order to say what's engraved in stone on the Statue of Liberty. Even so and although the words engraved in stone on the Statue of Liberty clearly state, "Give me your tired, your poor; your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, don't appear to be true anymore. Today we say "NO, we're closed," and we send these, the homeless, tempest-tost back to their own miserable shores. I suppose our liberty won't be holding a lamp beside the golden door anymore, much less freely welcome anyone who looks like an illegal alien.

It's those monsters in our minds that bite our society's behind and disgrace the immigrants who came to create the United States of American in the first place. Then again, I have no doubt that through the view of the American Indian, our immigrant ancestors looked like illegal aliens too. That's when and why the European immigrants began to refer to the American Indian as, "savages," when they resisted what only persisted until the native American had no country at all. So, the history lesson is this: What we resist WILL persist.

As justified as it was, the American Indians fought against what looked to them like illegal aliens who were taking what belonged to them, only to find that those tired and poor people who came in huddled masses yearning to breathe free would literally do anything to achieve what liberty means. That's why liberty isn't as free as it seems. There's a price to pay for the fact that immigrants took their yearning to breathe free so seriously that they were willing to fight

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