What did my brother do when he was working with Hispanic immigrants on a farm in SC?

[Are_grits_groceries]

My brother didn't know whether they were illegal or not. I know that nobody asked. It was work in bright-leaf tobacco, and it is nasty and hard. I know because I did it for years when I was young.

My brother is a mixed bag. I never know which way he will jump. In the middle of one conversation I was having with him on the phone, he suddenly began a screed about the people who were going to take away his guns. I called him back the next day when he was calmer and told him that he was mistaken. Nobody would be coming to take away his guns unless it was our Aunt Sarah, and she would have to be pissed because he did something waaaaay wrong.

He told me about the people he was working with and wanted a favor. I had no idea where this was going. Then he asked me to get him a simple Spanish/English dictionary he could carry and a basic beginner tape to help him learn the language a little. He wanted to be able to talk to them some at lunch.

When I hung up the phone, I just stared at the wall for a while. People are very complicated when you get right down to it. They may get scared and shout simple slogans, but at the heart of the matter, a lot of them are much more tangled up in contradictions.

Of course, some are unreconstructed idiots who don't let complicated ideas linger because there isn't enough room.

[Hannah Bell]

1. "People are very complicated when you get right down to it."

yes, they are.

[glowing]

2. Shoot, another 50 yrs.. we'll have some kind of spanglish language.

I already mix spanish in with my english on a basic level... and working in FL, its a given... my very white child has a "poppy" nickname as term of endearment... I'm called Mammi (trying to spell phonetically) by tons of people.. term of respect towards female that one knows a bit. AND every other day its Hola or hello.... Its just life and what happens... Look at the English of the UK and the English of the US... and even in the us with diff. pronunciations and expressions. Languages change and some die out.

[Heidi]

3. Recommended.

:kick:

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Oh, so that's it. Maybe we should send boxes of Spanish/English

dictionaries to Arizona the way that the right-wingers pass around the Bible?

[handmade34]

5. When it becomes interpersonal

walls more often come down. In our simpliest form we are fearful of anything we don't know. When we can interact on a one on one or in small groups we can step outside of that fear and get to know the other. Your brother is good for wanting to communicate. ...you are correct, the people that continue to be bigoted can't or won't make room for new ways of thinking. It is an antiquated survival technique...

[Festivito]

6. LOL, someday our brightest eloquences will pale in hindsight.

Send it. We're all on a journey. True, his might pale faster. Yet, this passing passion might well bear fruit for a lifetime. Send it quickly.