Our church building hosts a Hispanic ministry in addition to our regular church. If it didn't, I don't know what I would think about illegal immigrants sneaking over the border from Mexico. As it is, my main exposure to anyone of Hispanic origin comes from brief observations of the people who attend this ministry.
I'm sure this is what has contributed to my view on illegal immigration, which is: Haven't you stupid legal Americans got anything more important to worry about than this?
The author of "Nickel and Dimed, on (Not) Getting By in America," refers to illegal immigrants as the people who "clean our toilets and fry our hash browns," or something along those lines. Not much of a threat to Homeland Security, that. Kicking them all out of the country would be more threatening, as so many of our hash browns would then go unfried, not to mention the state of our toilets.
My son, Alan, has recently gotten into making video clips and posting them on youtube. You can see the pinata portion of our church's Hispanic Christmas party (La Posada) at the link below.
We've learned from watching these parties that Americans do horribly boring pinatas. The genuine Hispanics yank the pinata all around on a rope--a guy stands on a ladder and manipulates the pinata. The adults take turns too. The kids attack the candy like a swarm of locusts falling on the last green plant within miles. Fred says that watching the Hispanic girls go after the pinatas has taught him never to mess with a Hispanic woman (at least when she's holding a stick). I've decided that hitting the pinata is a form of self-assertion training.
It's all so much more fun than the typical U.S. hang-the-thing-up, spin-small-child, have-small-child-tap-pinata.
The link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=K6dU4oa2Y70
Now, I ask you--do these people look dangerous? Geez. Let them stay, and maybe the pinata parties in this country will receive some much-needed upgrades.
