Thankful for my Mexican friends

This letter to the Editor of the Orlando Sentinel makes me wish everyone could feel this way. DP

By Mary E. Smith, Orlando citizen

Orlando Sentinel : I read George Diaz's column Sunday with great sadness. You see, I have been watching the United States fall apart star by star, stripe by stripe, until every lie I was ever taught as a big-eyed child has been exposed. The Statue of Liberty has fallen from her pedestal -- her flame has been extinguished.

I am from upstate New York and moved to Orlando. I decided to learn to speak Spanish because it is a beautiful language, and I wanted to be able to converse with my neighbors and co-workers in my new home. I made many new friends here, but when I lost my job, who was there for me?

My Mexican friends.

Only too well they knew how it was to be without family, afraid of the future and without a lot of hope on some days. My new friends organized groups of immigrants and offered me dinner and a teaching job. Every Tuesday and Thursday we would meet at their house, and I would get paid $5 a person to teach English lessons.

In the process, I learned to speak Spanish fairly well, and I cannot imagine a more kind, loving and caring experience. I was touched incredibly, and know that this is the way we are all meant to share. I am still learning and hope to be fluent in Spanish in about a year.

There is more than enough room in the United States for anyone who wishes to come here. My life has been incredibly enriched by knowing people from all over the world. I apologize to all the immigrants from the bottom of my heart for the rude and insulting treatment they receive.

To the Americans, I say: Ladies and gentlemen, we have forgotten who we are. We have lost sight of the eternal, invincible, emotional essence of what it means to be human, living in a great country on the greatest planet in the solar system. We have adopted warrior mind-sets against one another, sad micro-versions of a government that exercises military might over the process of artful and compassionate negotiation.

We have beguiled ourselves into thinking that racism has disappeared because we have allowed for and encouraged the growth of socially and economically self-sufficient ethnic groups, only sharing goods and services in the context of their own self-contained and separate ethnic identities. Where is the heart in that kind of sharing?

It is no better than "You stay on your side of the fence and I will stay on mine." It is a barter, a trade based on a deep-rooted guilt of the white majority. We ignore the great crimes committed in the building of our country, pasting entitlement programs like soggy Band-Aids over the still-seeping wounds of slavery, genocide of the Native American people, and continued racism toward other ethnic groups seeking a new life here.

To Americans who are so afraid to share: Why don't you just one time have dinner with somebody from "the other side of the fence"? Then, you will see that we don't really need fences.

To the immigrants, one more thing: Thank you for bringing the light, the fire back to the torch.

Lady Liberty needs a makeover.

Let's do it together.