Cholita, La China Y Gringa

I often being ask in my circle of friends who is fresh-off-the-boat immigrant. It is because I lived a multi-cultural multi-linguistic neighborhood for many years. My weekend church activities involved serving the local community in more than one way.

In my community, we have many immigrants from China, Vietnam, Philippines, Honduras, Bolivia, Columbia, Southeast Asians and Whites. My church is in the middle of a multi-year campaign to bring awareness to the diversity, equality, inclusion (or more common referenced as WOKE). WOKE carries a negative connotation in certain circles so I will use DEI for short.

This article is not about the politics behind DEI. What I want to discuss is behind the scene what moves people of different race and language to live in peace in America. More often we all knows that life is filled with challenges, problems, crises, and emptiness; the bible tells us so. Nonetheless, when you sit down with somebody in your neighborhood and listen to their stories how they landed in this country, you learn a lot about the courage of people who left everything behind, brave the journey, face with uncertainty, and adapting to the ways of their new home in America. What is important about that person is you take the time to listen and remember the greatness of what the country mean to the rest of the world. That is not to say there aren’t area we can’t do better, in fact many immigrants had to do 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet. Their experience of getting affordable health cares, car insurances, and social services have not been a walk in the park. Despite all of that, most migrants legal or otherwise, are just grateful to have the opportunity to come here and seeks a better life for themselves and their children. I know a lot of Whites are good hearted people and want them to come while others are more skeptical about how to afford a sudden influx of migrants.

While writing about immigration is never easy, I want to share some of the stories of people I encountered from the Outreach. One of them is a second-generation American-born girl whose dad came from Honduras, she found her American dream being the first girl in her extended family to finish college, bought her own house, while supported a cousin to go to college. Another story is a Columbia born girl who came study in the U.S., and found a good job after graduation and raise her selves up in the corporate management. A 3rd story is a woman who came with her young son from China seeking freedom and a better life, she was helped by my community church, gain a foothold in America and becomes an outstanding contributing member of our church while working two lower-paying manufacturing jobs.

I could go on…. The migrants are not all criminals, but I am not naïve to think that there are not criminal elements from the diverse groups. No, not at all. I am just saying, that we shouldn’t kick the ladder for people that come after us because this great country was found by immigrants, we are all sons and daughters of immigrants; instead of limiting the total numbers of people who can come in legally, we should be more flexible to the needs of changing world and god willing makes good neighbors with Cholita, La China Y Gringa.Listening to your migrant neighbors and hear their stories, a little empathy goes a long way. In the end, we all can learn something from one another and live in peace.