When I was born in January of 1932, another great event was taking place. The United States Government was invading the homes of Mexican Americans, scaring the hell out of their kids, rounding the families up like the Germans did the Jews, Poles, and others during World War II, and shipping them all back to Mexico without even their personal possessions.

All that has to be true because I read it in USA Today and they knows such things.

The purpose of the roundup, which I was too young to prevent, nor did I know it was occurring-it wasn't my fault-was that the Mexicans were working for a living. That indicated that they had jobs that were needed by Americans.

Do I believe that?

Not in out neighborhood.

Few people had jobs, especially the Mexicans.

During World War II, the West Coast was evacuated of Japanese and they were placed in camps where I used to live in Arizona and here where I live now in Idaho. I knew this was going on because I was older. Being a child, I kept my eyes on my close Japanese friends, hoping that they would not be put into camps. Fortunately, they were not.

However, there was an old Japanese man that walked along the railroad tracks gathering coal into a gunny sack. We heard all kinds of rumors about that poor old fellow who was just trying to keep warm.

We heard that he was counting the tanks that were rolling along the rail bed. We heard he had a shortwave radio that he used to report the daily count of trucks, guns, tanks, and what have you. When he disappeared we knew "for sure" that he was a spy.

I don't know what happened to him. He may have ended up in a camp.

I knew nothing about the Mexican deportation until I read it in USA Today. It was not in my history book.

Of course the reason this is being resurrected is that the Mexicans have not forgotten it. They don't like the new proposed legislation that could send them packing again. I don't blame them. They want the government to apologize for the last deportations hoping that will stop them from doing it again.

I think that we should call up the Marine reserves, arm them with brooms, and sweep into Mexico. That will make the Mexicans hate us and no Mexican will want to immigrate into our country. We would strategically let them drive us out and allow them to set up a big defense line along their northern border that no one can penetrate again. Problem solved! (We mustn't get carried away with this and destroy their infrastructure as we did in Iraq. We must run ahead of them as they swing their machetes at our brooms.)

Hey! I'm just kidding!

We need the Mexicans up here in Idaho to run our farms and factories.

The End

Mexico, Mexican, Latin, Latinos, deportation, emigration, government, Japanese, internment camps, World War II, Germany, Jew, Poles, abuse