Louisville Medicine Volume 62, Issue 4 | Page 13

Reflections CERTAINTY Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, MD G reeting people as they enter the USA at New York harbor is the magnificent and towering Statue of Liberty, a symbol and beacon of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world. Her famous inscription reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” A poem by Emma Lazarus (1883) Powerful, inviting and caring, it was a message that many accepted to start life anew. The ebb and flow of history clearly demonstrates that the problems that we face today, individually and as a nation are not new. Populations grow, disasters strike, bad weather prevails, crops fail, and famine follows. Against all dangers and odds, people leave the familiar and seek a place where they can sustain life again. Ideologies are born, their founders and followers insist everyone should think their way, politics enter the fray, and persecutions follow. Those that do not agree stand their ground, fight for their rights, or failing this, flee. Through persistence, trial and error, blood and tears, they start over. How many among us are descended from or came to this country, the great USA, under similar circumstances? Unfortunately, huge incursions or migrations into a settled host country for whatever reason, self-preservation, invasion, domination, or altruism i.e. to improve and educate the natives, have their flip sides. How many empires, once thriving in solitary splendor have been decimated or wiped out by what seems so trivial by modern standards but so deadly in their times? Transmitted viruses like smallpox and measles and “Johnny come lately” HIV, the bacilli that caused the plague – all were imported from elsewhere and caused their havoc. So did superior weapons that helped ambitious conquerors deprive their less equipped and savvy indigenous adversaries. Thus, host countries have to be wary lest in their generosity they may be harmed. Now, a new plague has descended upon us. The use of addictive mind and behavior altering drugs have been on the rise. The profits that derive from their sales and distribution has created a frenzy of greed and violence that has affected our lives as well as those of our southern neighbors. Its curse has enticed rich and poor alike. Due to increasing poverty, lack of alternatives, and a certain naiveté, the less endowed and suffering population south of the border have been lured by promises of release from their misery and a better life if they cross the border into the USA, the land of opportunity. By the hundreds, and now the thousands, they have pushed their way north and are wanting in, without adhering to the laws of this country, overwhelming those that would impose order, and creating dissensions among our citizens. They are the new poor, the wretched refuse of their teeming impoverished countries, the new homeless, those whom the poem at Lady Liberty’s feet talks about. What do we do with them? Are we to believe that the lice infested, non-immunized, snotty, hungry, unaccompanied three-year-old who just crossed the border is a threat and not worthy of attention? We presume his parents thought long and hard before giving up their life savings and their trust to a coyote in the hope that their beloved child will escape the intolerable situation they are in. Is he less valued as a human being because of his geographical origin? Historically, the people of the USA say he is not. In retrospect, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, did we do right to allow a family to disembark at Ellis Island while detaining their sick mother? Did we, as a nation, pool enough resources to impose the rules of entering this country? In these enlightened times of instant communications, electronic surveillances, and weapons galore, can we still do so? Do we think we can solve the problems of housing, feeding, quarantining the sick, and relocating people which we so adeptly do (although somewhat belated sometimes) to huge populations in times of disaster both abroad and here at home? Or, could we have changed our minds and our hearts? Are we now having second thoughts that we’ve been remiss in protecting that which we carefully crafted against those that would abuse or harm us? Are we ready to modify our laws and our methods of implementing them? Are we still willing to share the bounty of this land with others? Do we still believe that the infusion of new ideas, new blood, brains and brawn will eventually benefit this bountiful land? Is it time to rethink what we stand for and proclaim it with certainty, that is: Preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and act accordingly? LM Note: Dr. Oropilla is a retired psychiatrist. SEPTEMBER 2014 11