The dreamers must go for the simple reason that they are
dreamers. Over 800,000 of them have dreamed in concert since they broke the law
as infants and children by entering this country illegally. Their parents aided
and abetted their crime by holding their hands en route. Now they are
threatened with exile because part of the vocal culture in this country can’t
abide those who dream like they do, especially when almost a million of them do it together.
They dream of a different, more hopeful future than the one
the government has planned for them. Those in power don’t prefer a different
future, especially a cultural one, because it will be, well, different. And the
promise of those in power is that things will not change, they will remain the
same. As Walter Brueggemann puts it, “Moreover, for all the talk of ‘individual
freedom,’ the force of homogeneity is immense – partly seductive, partly
coercive, partly the irresistible effect of affluence, in any case not
hospitable to ‘difference.’” [1]
What does the different dream look like? It isn’t a dream of
being forced to return to a country they don’t remember, whose language they
can’t speak, a country that persecuted them and perhaps threatened to kill them
several years ago.
What does the dream look like? It is terribly sinister. For
some it means remaining in this country to care for aging parents and to remain
a family. It may mean continuing a career based on an education partly or already
completed. Most nefariously it may mean wearing the clothing and celebrating
the holidays and speaking the language and worshiping in the same manner of
their previous culture, and remembering their sacred history. It is a dream of
hope.
Dreams aren’t easily realized, nor do they come cheaply. We recall Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “I still have a dream,
a dream deeply rooted in the American dream – one day this nation will rise up
and live up to its creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal.” I have a dream.” But it isn’t yet a reality in many
places.
Hope is made of dreams.
To us of this generation who have
walked through the ruins of aborted dreams and desecrated ideals … the supreme
question is: How does the road sign read: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
Or: To despair is to betray; at the end His mercy will prevail.
The one road sign may be almost
everywhere, the other road sign is revealed in the lives of those who would
rather suffer than bear falsehood, who would rather be exposed to torture and
living in jail than to remain silent in the face of lies, blasphemy, and
injustice.[2]
So despite the promises of the legislators and all the
president’s men, the Dreamers will in all likelihood be quietly and slowly sent
away. The recent school shooting in Florida, with endless arguments about gun
control, will serve as an adequate cover for the promises to be broken and the
exile to begin. After all, who can possibly focus on two issues at once?
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