In David Browning’s letter to the editor (The Citizen, Oct. 12, 2011), Browning clearly writes about the plight of alien migrant farm workers in Georgia.
Webster’s definition of the word “alien” would expose our original Founding Fathers, back a few centuries, when you know who sailed the ocean blue. Perhaps some of them carried their Bibles, and the Bible references in Mr. Browning’s letter, about aliens, made the trip with them.
From the days of Columbus, to the Indian Removal Act , signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, to the slaughter of the buffalo, to the many Trails Of Tears, our glorious Founding Fathers slowly but surely forced the Native Americans to move to reservations.
And if “we” needed any part of a reservation, “we” just took it back. Brings to mind Mt. Rushmore, which “we” needed to carve a few faces upon the side of the mountain. (Whoever dreamed up the phrase “Indian giver” got his definition backwards.)
The words “migrant worker,” when heard or read in print by us Americans, first of all brings to mind the American Southwest, and the people risking their lives by crossing the Rio Grande, traveling on foot over the many thirsty miles of desert, with one thought in their minds: how to provide for their families.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-1806 (two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars) traveled 3,700 miles from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. (Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa, crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the Pacific Ocean.)
After Lewis and Clark discovered all of this new real estate, President James Knox Polk (11th President of the United States, 1845-1849) figured that the USA could use more land. He made offers of purchase to the owner, Mexico, but Mexico refused to sell. The end results was the Mexican American War between 1846 and 1848.
During this war, Mexican soldiers, captured, and living the lives of prisoners, would hear their American guards singing a old folk song, titled “Green Grow The Lilacs.” Not understanding the English language words in the song, after the war, they returned to Mexico, and would later refer to any American soldier as “Green go,” which is where the word “Gringo” originated.
I personally know one migrant worker and his family. He works from sunup to sundown six days a week, and he and his family attend church every Sunday.
Mr. Browning is correct by stating that immigrant workers are needed.
Hugh Buchanan
Peachtree City, Ga.
