As the school president, speech coach, and mentor of Maria Fe Andrea Lazaro, I feel I must respond to your letter to the editor regarding the speech prepared by her and her speech team for the 30th Annual Attorney General\u2019s Cup Speech Competition.<\/p>\n
To begin with, you clearly misunderstood where she was coming from. As opposed to the \u201cproselytizing tone\u201d you accused her of taking against the CNMI people, she was very graceful in reaching out to everyone in the CNMI, including members of the Northern Marianas Descent Corp., with whom she expressed her empathy and understanding. In fact, she went so far as to say, \u201cAs a Filipino, I think it\u2019s important that we do not dismiss\u2026[the] cultural anxieties [of the indigenous people] as racist or xenophobic.\u201d That statement is far from proselytizing.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, your assertion that \u201cher simplistic views that our local\/U. S. law [sic]\u2026are unjustified\u201d is in and of itself unjustified. She and her speech team offered a critique of the U.S. immigration system that was very much justified by extensive research they conducted for almost three months. In addition to quoting former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, they cited a credible report from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office that enumerated all the economic benefits of immigration reform.<\/p>\n
Their position is further justified by broad support for immigration reform. For example, according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, \u201cThe overriding impact of immigrants is to strengthen and enrich American culture, increase the total output of the economy, and raise the standard of living of American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support for immigration reform has also been voiced by the Catholic Church. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops\u2019 Committee on Migration, has urged the U.S. Congress and the President to act on immigration reform. As he said, \u201cOur current policies are breaking up families in the name of enforcing our laws. That should not be. We should be reuniting and strengthening families\u2014not separating wives from husbands and children from their parents.\u201d Archbishop Gomez added, \u201cCongress and the President have a responsibility to come together to enact reform that corrects this humanitarian problem, respects the dignity and hard work of our immigrant brothers and sisters, and reflects America\u2019s proud history as a hospitable society and a welcoming culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Republican governor of Florida and 2018 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has even said this about immigration: \u201cSomeone who comes to our country because they couldn\u2019t come legally, they come to our country because their families\u2014the dad who loved their children\u2014was worried that their children didn\u2019t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it\u2019s not a felony. It\u2019s an act of love. It\u2019s an act of commitment to your family.\u201d It is from that humane standpoint that Gov. Bush supports immigration reform.<\/p>\n
Despite all this support for immigration reform, I admit that it may not be politically viable in this election year. However, as you can see, politically viable or not, Ms. Lazaro and her speech team are not alone in their support of immigration reform.<\/p>\n
Likewise, you are not alone in your opposition to immigration reform, and we respect your position. However, we should not mistake the so-called \u201cperks and benefits\u201d offered to foreign workers as the kind of island hospitality that they, foreigners, must revere and that we, locals, can take away at will. Just because you invite a guest into your home does not make it right to treat that guest like an animal that is expected to fawn over you and that you can kick out at anytime. And do not mistake that guest\u2019s desire to stay in your home for his family\u2019s sake as him overstaying his welcome. As Governor Bush put it, they are not doing so to abuse your hospitality; rather, they do it as an act of love. As a father myself, I certainly do not begrudge parents who want nothing but the best for their children.<\/p>\n
Besides, whose home is it anyway? Can we, the indigenous people of the CNMI, honestly call these islands home when so many of us have left \u201cfor the states,\u201d and those of who have stayed have often elected leaders that ruin our islands? That\u2019s like saying you are the only one entitled to own a home that you yourself abandoned and ruined, even though others are ready and eager to help you repair and upgrade that home for all to enjoy.<\/p>\n
No, to me, as the saying goes, \u201cHome is where the heart is.\u201d Or, as Ms. Lazaro said, \u201cA Filipino who gives up the bright lights, big city of the states for his humble home in As Lito has more in common with the Chamorro who has lived in Chalan Kanoa all his life than he does with his Pinoys back in the province, or the local who moved to Boise, Idaho, many years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it saddens me that you, or anyone else, would dismiss Ms. Lazaro as an outsider who has no right to call these islands her home. As an indigenous person myself, I am embarrassed and hurt that you would treat her and her family that way, especially when she articulated a very sophisticated and nuanced solution to the anxieties of the CNMI\u2019s indigenous people. She called for a kind of immigration reform that would help \u201cmake Chamorros and Carolinians, [become] once again, the majority of the population.\u201d<\/p>\n
As indigenous people, we should reciprocate Ms. Lazaro\u2019s empathy, compassion, and humanity with what is at the core of my Chamorro culture: respetu.<\/p>\n
Mr. Camacho, I know you share this core value of our Chamorro heritage. I know you must be a respectful man of integrity who is only doing what he can to help his people, and that is something that I deeply respect.<\/p>\n
But we must not let our fight for our people lead us down the wrong path. Just like you and many other indigenous people, I am afraid about the future of our people and our islands. I fear that we are losing hold of our language, our culture, and our home. However, as afraid as I am, I cannot help but take to heart what a very wise sage once said: \u201cFear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
My great-grandfather understood this.<\/p>\n
Gregorio Kilili Sablan endured the colonial rule of the Germans and the Japanese. In the Japanese administration, he was held under house arrest and accused of being an American spy. He barely survived the World War II campaign on Saipan, seeing hundreds of family members and friends die in the cold, dark caves of Marpi.<\/p>\n
But despite all that tragedy and all that loss, he didn\u2019t give into fear. He emerged from the aftermath of war with neither anger nor hatred in his heart, but with love and compassion for everyone in our islands. He didn\u2019t chase anyone away\u2014not the Okinawan and Korean laborers who were left behind, nor the Japanese citizens who chose life over suicide, nor the American soldiers who were thousands of miles away from their loved ones, nor Chamorros who came here from Guam, nor anyone else who survived the tragedy of war.<\/p>\n
As one of the first post-war leaders of our islands, my great-grandfather knew that the only way we could recover from the death and carnage of war was by working together, as Ms. Lazaro put it, \u201cnot as aliens, not as indigenous, but as human beings, who share the same hopes and aspirations for a better future for ourselves, for our families, and for our islands.\u201d<\/p>\n
My great-grandfather welcomed all. He led all. He loved all<\/p>\n
So should we.<\/p>\n
Galvin Deleon Guerrero<\/strong> As the school president, speech coach, and mentor of Maria Fe Andrea Lazaro, I feel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[26,21,142,67],"class_list":["post-36588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-cnmi","tag-life","tag-los-angeles","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGarapan, Saipan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"