Migrants just striving for better lives

I have been volunteering with the Workers Defense Project (WDP) in Dallas. The membership-based organization empowers low-income workers to “achieve fair employment through education, direct services, organizing and strategic partnerships.”

Recently, I attended a Dallas City Council meeting as a WDP photographer. About 20 members from various organizations attended to support sick pay for low-wage workers who work sick or don’t get paid. One presenter explained sick leave was a health issue for all since sick food employees can contaminate food.

During the two advocates’ presentations, other low-wage worker representatives stood up and donned sick masks.

Working one-on-one with migrant workers from Mexico, Peru, El Salvador and other countries during ESL (English as a Second Language) classes sponsored by WDP, I was struck by how different they are than portrayed by the president and white nationalists.

Although most are in the country on work visas, many of their children are citizens. Working long hours in everything from painting to housekeeping to construction to support their families, they still come to class after work to better their English.

I felt guiltily privileged at how sincere, humble and grateful they were for everything. The painter told me he earned $10 a day in El Salvador but, by working overtime, over $200 a day in the U.S. He said his 8-year-old son was facing a deportation order.

A housekeeper, raising her four daughters alone, had not seen her family in Mexico in 17 years after she left out of fear of drug gangs.

Despite their hard lives, love, laughter and camaraderie permeated the room as they shared the snacks they brought with us and helped each other with their English.

There didn’t seem to be a drug smuggler, criminal or rapist among them.

When I drove my 6-year-old great-nephew Christian to Galveston on Wednesday for his first ocean experiences, I thought how different his life has been than theirs and so many other children.

Although of mixed race and being raised by grandparents, he has never experienced hunger, hate or violence.

His most traumatic experience was getting kicked out of a McDonald’s playroom for being too rambunctious.

As he tried to catch seagulls other kids were feeding from the back of a ferry, and later “fished” in knee-deep waves with a lure held from his fingers, I didn’t worry about sharks attacking him; I worried about him attacking them.

I wish shark attacks — not ones by politicians, rabid constituents, militias, militaries and terrorists — were the only kind any kid had to worry about.

On a related note, on the way back from Galveston, I spotted the billboard: “Dem-O-Rats Are Going to Pay in the Election: Thank God for Trump and Abbott” (Abbott is Texas governor).

The next billboard was: “Nothing Is Too Hard for God.”

If nothing is too hard and God is in charge of everything, I wonder why God allows almost insurmountable obstacles people need him to help them overcome — often futilely?

Why not just create a wonderful world for everyone in which there is no need for a Workers Defense Project?

On a personal note, would swinging the election to Dem-O-Rats be too hard?

Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]