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