The last Friday in August in central Massachusetts was very hot — almost one hundred degrees Fahrenheit (37.778 Celsius). That afternoon, I went out on my front porch to get my mail, and suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous after which I, without any time lapse, immediately fell down in a kind of faint.
Then I realized not too much later that I couldn’t walk anymore. So I phoned for my town to send an ambulance to my home with instructions that I couldn’t walk and so, I’d need to be carried from my living room sofa to the ambulance, which I did, subsequently, receive as help.
At the hospital, Worcester Memorial, the care was received immediately. As I got more relaxed due to the expert care there, I started looking at my care givers — everyone from the floor washers to the brunt of the both male and female nurse aids, food tray deliverers, nurses, business managers, technicians, doctors and others of which the largest numbers were composed of migrants.
In turn, they were born in many diverse countries — African, Central and South American, Caribbean, Asian, Indian and other lands. In other words, they were pretty much from all around the world for the most part, although some U.S. citizens were present, too. How fascinating and delightfully cosmopolitan!
At the same time, the foreigners were well trained, cheerful and highly professional in their demeanors. What’s more — they often asked what more can they do for you to make your hospital stay more agreeable as they, apparently, liked their jobs and liked helping health compromised others. So they were all for the most part very upbeat and pleasant with whom to engage — not at all like the awful south of the border immigrants who Donald Trump nastily describes:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” (Time Magazine 2015).
This quote from Donald Trump has become typical of the President’s overview of most immigrants as being lazy criminals on the dole who want to sneak into the USA to get free housing, free medical care, free schools for their children, free food, free clothing, free overall care and more that benefits without any effort on their parts.
Since the 2016 campaign trail, Trump has shown open vitriol and hostility toward immigrants and immigration as a whole, and his comments have huge threatening impacts on scared local communities of newcomers and their supporters. In this context, it is clear that Trump, to gain favor amongst racists and bigots, is “othering” foreigners who largely just want to come to the USA to find work, as well as make a meaningful lives for themselves and their family members. ( How Othering Contributes to Discrimination and Prejudice Othering is a phenomenon in which some individuals or groups are defined and labeled as not fitting in within the norms of a social group.)
In addition, they often take low wage jobs that American born people don’t choose. For example, not a single person born in the USA applied for work in a new chicken slaughterhouse that came with nearby nice housing, vacation time, medical benefits, decent salaries, good work hours, isick leave, other perks and a good school system for children. So the company director, exasperated, sent buses, I read, down to the US-Mexican border to hire and legally sign on foreign born immigrants eager and happy to fill his new factory and the associated homes.
Trust me when I say that they are eager and happy to do their work. I had plenty of evidence in both the hospital and the rehabilitation center where I, with a hard cast, went after leaving the hospital. In fact, the latter place was filled with trained immigrants who not only liked their jobs, but who, clearly, enjoyed making life better for those under their care.
For instance, one nurse’s aid from Haiti who got his college degree in Boston (at Northeastern U.) upon coming to the USA in an area related to biochemistry loved, you could tell that he loved,
dipping washcloths into warm water and manually washing the faces and hands of patients as it made them feel refreshed. (His joy at doing the task was truly palpable! You should have seen his face and his pleased demeanor!)
Others always smiled and genuinely offered to help you in anyway that they could devise, including in daily rehabilitation sessions that consisted of fun and meaningful activities such as one learning about the way to pivot on one foot without any weight bearing on the other one, the way to use a wheelchair and a walker, etc., etc.
So all in all, I’ve become very enthusiastic about the immigrants who I have met as they’ve enhanced the quality of life for many others and myself in the region that I live. Indeed, what would our hospitals, nursing homes, farms, slaughterhouses and more do without them being here to help improve our society? (Obviously, they make better the quality of life and we should skip shipping around 30,000 of them to Guantanamo prison, which is a new outrageous plan hatched by the Donald.)
Moreover, they aren’t at all the nasty subhuman vermin that Donald Trump and his government employed cohorts use to gain political favor amongst voting immigrant haters. Instead, they are people who helped me when in a cast and afterwards, a therapy boot while I witnessed them enjoying working hard to improve life for all. So I thank them for their good attitudes and immeasurably excellent work to bring others and me back to good health. I owe them a world of gratitude for sure!
Sally Dugman writes from MA, USA
