Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 12, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

Master CraftsMon - Aired Monday, December 12, 2005 at about 11pm CST - Segment 1

That's Neil Diamond's America. I have always thought that it was one of the best rock songs ever written. By the standards of the Left, it is a hackney song, because it expresses the idea that America is country that people are literally dying to get into. I have always envisioned this song as being of the generation that came to America through Ellis Island. What must it have been like for those people coming to America at the beginning of the 20th century? They were leaving countries where their roots were thousands of years deep. They passed through Ellis Island and onward to an uncertain future. Some succeeded and some did not, but wherever they wound up, they were better off than back home. Even today America attracts the dreamers, the nonconformists and the overachiever. The song, America, embodies that. Neil Diamond didn't produce too many songs I liked. America was one of them, because I always saw the song in my mind as a music video. The ship with the immigrants on the deck coming into
New York harbor in a fog, the Statue of Liberty slowly being revealed, a new day dawning. A cheer goes up. Yeah, don't get no better than that.

The United States is a dream that people have. To be an American is to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. Our founding documents allow us to swear to a set of ideals, not people. That optimism that America is an experiment whose outcome is yet to be determined is what keeps us going way past when other democratic experiments have failed.

Why do the immigrants keep coming to America, if we are such a rotten place to live? The coyotes do a booming business in Mexico shepherding people across the desert, but... sometimes they leave them to die. Why do they keep coming? If you say that only poverty is the driving force, I have to disagree.

Let me tell you this story.

An old Mexican sits outside on the patio of a grand hacienda at a hardwood table in a high back chair under an umbrella. He has a pointed gray beard. He is a short man. His face is the color of fine leather from long days in the sun. He sips a cold lemonade from a fine crystal glass with beads of condensation trickling down the sides in the waning afternoon sun. The red shiny bricks of the patio throw off their heat in waves. A slight breeze stirs the ruffles on his fine suit of clothes and disturbs his hair only a little. The man waits with a patience of... a peon. Why should such a man own such a grand house?

Two large men come onto the patio from the house dragging a young man between them. Each is a swat man whose face would be common staring out of the statues in Guatemala or Belize. They have no necks, but many muscles from hard work. They drop the young man on the patio and step back.

The young man is... tall, blond and... wearing gang colors. His bandana is a pose. His hands are soft. His clothes too perfect. His almost brown skin pale next to the old man's. The chains and bling bling rings make him look... silly not tough compared to the two men who have brought him. He says almost whining, "Grandfather, I can explain..."

The old man puts down the drink and says, "Ernesto, I have spoken to you. I have yelled at you. I have shouted past you. You have not listened. Now, you will listen...

Fifty three years ago, I was living in this wide place in the road in Mexico. My momma and papa were poor. You have seen poverty here in San Antonio. It was ten times worse than that when I was growing up. The floors were dirt and we were lucky to have meat once a month. Even then we considered ourselves lucky. There were twelve of us in that little house. The only reason we had it so good was that my poppa was the best handyman there was. He taught me the love of the wood. He showed me the secret of seeing how a building should look, not how it was. Why his own house wasn't better I do not know.

One day he called me aside and said, "Jose, Federico wanted me to talk to you about his daughter, Victoria."

My mouth fell open and I said quickly, "Father, Victoria and I have talked, but that is all. I swear. We're friends, but nothing else."

My father laughed and said, "No, son, it's not like that. Federico wanted to talk to me about you and Victoria getting married."

I yelped, "Married? Me and Victoria? Father, that is insane. I'm not good enough for her. She deserves a grand house and good man to treat her right. Are you sure Federico wasn't drunk? Or... Are you sure you understood what he said?" I had never dreamed of someone so grand for a wife. It was silly dream. Me and Victoria had talked about it, but it was just a dream.

My father said shaking his head, "Son, one of these days you are going to have to get a better opinion of yourself... You ARE a good man. You have a chance of a good life here. You can open a construction business. Federico and I will back you. We think you can make a go of it."

Ernesto, I cannot make this clear to you. It was a different world then. Things like this happened occasionally in the 1950's. Before I knew it, me and Victoria were married. The wedding was grand. Too grand I think, but... it was good. Some of the relatives who came to the wedding... I had never seen them before. Me and Victoria lived with her parents for a bit while I built our new house from the ground up. My business went well. I started getting contracts through Federico's contacts and of course my father's contacts. Eight years flowed past. Good years. We had three children. I had to build an extension onto our house. I built my father a house with a regular wood floor and indoor plumbing. Good years.

I was building a house on this rich hombre's property about 1961. I assumed he was going to house a mistress or two or... three in the house, but it wasn't my business. Victoria showed up one day to talk to me about one of the children. The rich hombre saw her and his tongue fell out of his mouth and he started making passes at her. Victoria took it as a joke, though it offended both of us. She told him that she was an old married woman and he was being silly. She went home quickly after that.

I finished up the house for the guy and he paid up. The next day while I was on another project, he kidnaped Victoria, raped her and left her for dead by the side of the road. I went to the police. They laughed at me. Federico and my father tried to calm me down. It was too strange. They were willing to let this craziness go by. I was not. I found a lawyer willing to sue the guy. The night after the papers were filed, someone burned down my house and killed Victoria and my children. I was away that night or I would have died too.

My father told me at the funerals that I had to make a run for the border. The rich hombre wasn't going to rest until I was dead too.

That night, I drove north cross country through the desert in an old '47 Ford truck. I ran out of gas somewhere in Arizona. I caught a ride with a trucker... I caught other rides. I don't know how I wound up in San Antonio. Three years oozed by without me much caring. I woke up one day on a construction site way out on US 35 past Universal City. There was this pretty blond girl sitting on a pile of lumber next to the house we were working on. I started telling her about how much I liked the smell of wood. As I joke I told her that you could tell how good a piece of wood was by its smell. She giggled and told me I was crazy. The job foreman came up and ran her off. He told me to stay away from her, because she was the boss's daughter.

By that time, I was in the process of getting American citizenship. My friend, Eduardo, took me to a baseball game. After the Star Spangled Banner was sung, I asked, "Wasn't that nice of them?" Eduardo said, "Que?" I said, "They asked, 'Jose, can you see?'" Eduardo exploded with laughter then said, "That's an old joke. It's a bad one too." I said, "I know, but I never could understand what 'Oh, say can you see?' means. That doesn't make any make any sense to me. What's that mean in Spanish?" Eduardo's mouth dropped open and he said, "I don't know. I never thought about it." An old man sitting next us said, "Stop being silly. It's the second part of the sentence that makes it okay. 'O, say can you see by the dawns' early light?' The guy who wrote it was standing on the deck of an old wooden ship in the middle of a battle with all this smoke from these old black powder cannons made. He was asking whether anyone could see whether the flag at Fort McHenry had been struck. Had the American military surrendered to the British? The Americans hadn't. The song says that America doesn't give up easy." Then the old guy laughed and said, "The tune for the Star Spangled Banner was an old English drinking song... It's an immigrant like all of us. The new... plus the old... producing something... better than each part."

I always remember that game, Ernesto. It's the first time I ever felt like an American. The old man said, 'like all of us.'

The construction company where I was working had a Fourth of July picnic. The pretty girl from the construction site showed up. We talked. I pegged her as a bubblehead. She suddenly said, "Jose, why are you so down on yourself? Don't you have any dreams? Don't you have any girlfriends?"

I laughed and said, "Dreams? Me? I'm just a peon. Peons don't have dreams. They just get on with it. Girls? Who'd have me? That's crazy talk... If I... did have a dream, it would be to have construction company like your father's. A wife. A home." I shook my head and laughed, "Like I said, 'Who'd have me?'"

She said defiantly, "What about me?"

My mouth dropped open. I said, "What would a bubblehead like you want with a guy like me? If I WAS going to marry, I would need someone with a little more substance." The girl screamed at me and ran off crying.

So the foreman wandered over. He was drunk. He said, "Jose, it's for the best. That girl's too good for you. She's got a degree from Harvard in Accounting."

I remember saying, "Accounting? Isn't that INTERESTING?"

And it happened again. Six weeks later. Me and your grandmother were married. How Angelina has stood by me all these years is a source of wonder to me.

While he had talked Ernesto had gotten up and stood there defiantly listening. He HAD listened at least. The old man said, "I want to show you a couple of things." He urged the boy over to the balcony. He pointed to a medium sized house down the slope in the trees. "You see that house. I built it with my own hands. Your grandmother wanted this hacienda built. I had it built. I spared no expense. When it was done, your grandmother was all set to move in and I said to her that I was staying in that house down there. She moved all her clothes and the children up here. She expected me to follow. I didn't. She screamed at me exasperated and asked why I had built the house if I didn't want to live here. I told her that she wanted it. I got it for her, but damned if I was going to live like a Mexican grandee. I'm an American. I didn't and don't want to live in a house that reminds me of the worst parts of Mexican life. The rich hombre in Mexico who killed my first family lived in a house like this. I refused. Your father grew up in that house down in the woods. We use this one to entertain rich guests. We entertain friends down there. Ernesto, you are living in the freest country in the world and you are determined to screw up your life. You've had it too easy... Come here." He lead Ernesto around to the side of the house that looked down the street. "You see that house over there?" He pointed to a huge house across the way. "That's Phillipe's place. He started at McDonalds flipping burgers. He had JUST arrived from Columbia and didn't even speak English. He worked himself up to being a franchise owner. He had to go to new suburb close to Boston to get his first burger place. Before it was over he had 10 in that area. He hated the place. Too cold. He sold out for millions of dollars. He did it so he could have the good life here." Silence fell.

He looked Ernesto in the eye and said finally, "I have put up with your bad behavior for too long. Your grandmother has kept saying that you will come around. The death of your parents was three years ago. I must now insist that you put that behind you and get on with your life. I have cancelled all your credit cards. I have stopped the allowance payments from your inheritance from your parent's estate. I have taken the keys of your cars and you may not have them back. You are eighteen. In three years I will be unable to keep the money from you, but until then I may hold the money from you... Tomorrow, you start on a construction site I have going south of here. You will be working with these two men. You can quit anytime. You can go to the streets anytime. You can go to hell for all I care. Ernesto, if you stay in this house, you will have to work at that construction job for the next three years or until I think you have grown up."

Ernesto stared down at Phillipe's house and said kind of musing, "He worked a McJob into being a millionaire. That's too weird." Ernesto sighed and said, "You are right, Grandfather. I will try to do better."

The old man laughed and said, "Maybe you mean what you say. Maybe you do not. Construction shows you what type of man you are. You can't lie to the wood. I hope you mean what you say."

That is only a story. Nothing like it could have happened, could it?

Immigration is an issue that comes up like clockwork every twenty or so years. Too many illegal immigrants... They're taking our jobs... They aren't OUR KIND... I swear to you if you go back to 1905 or 1805, you will find articles on immigration that are exactly... almost word for word... like the ones in any newspaper from today. By my standards, it's all stupidity on both the Left AND the Right. The correct solution would be to increase the standard of living in Central and South America. The only way to make that work is to get rid of the corruption. Activists keep saying that people are poor throughout the world because the U.S. is exploiting them. Nope. Number one reason is corruption. If you have a corrupt government, you cannot get master craftsmen, people committed to excellence. A corrupt government steals from its citizens by preferring one set of individuals or group over another. The idea that it's the United States' fault that the government is corrupt MAY have some validity, but it does not hold up under close scrutiny. Without a belief that they can prosper from hard work, a country's master craftsmen give up and accept second rate status. Why work hard when someone will just come along and steal the fruits of your labor? Corruption means that no one can trust anyone outside their extended family. No one will commit to excellence, if there is no reward for doing so. You want to fix the immigration problem, then you have to support the reform movements in the countries of origin where our illegal immigrants come from.