Sandra and the Immigrants

The leaves were still falling and football season had ended a few weeks ago; the air was crisp and dry. It was a normal ride back to my house, down the long curvy road, passed the forest and cornfield after cornfield. After I said hello and patted my dogs hello, who were squirming and howling as if they had not seen me for weeks, I dropped my bag and could feel the indents on my shoulders from the straps from carrying my books all day. I was relieved as I walked into the kitchen to see what was for dinner as my feet glided across the heated rock-slab floor. The room seemed to look as if it was lit up with candles instead of the fluorescent bulbs that were currently being used as the granite counter next to the stove reflected a light glow. The counter looks a lot like different layers of dirt and moss as if they were thrown into a mixing bowl with drops of dark brown here and there then rolled out on top of the cabinets. I was quite excited at the time because Sandra had made it home in time to cook grilled chicken with creamed corn and steamed carrots. Creamed corn was my favorite. I scooped out the corn making sure to not lose any precious cream, then took some carrots out of the steamer. The carrots feel flimsy and look as if they have been painted a matte orange with cracks of brown and green. I pick out the largest chicken breast, I know it’s going to be good because when I press my fork into it, the juices seep out of the striations in the breast. I sat down at the counter while Sandra went to the couch and we both started to watch the news and start eating dinner. The dogs were laying on their beds about 12 steps away, but were staring intently at Sandra’s food out of the corner of their eyes.
The news was depressingly average. The anchors talking without emotion about the shootings of innocent people, houses burning, disasters in far away countries, wars with countless killed, and the other issues going on in the world today. After a Subaru commercial for the new Impreza, which I’ve been looking for around the state to buy but apparently they’re non existent here, a female anchor wearing a suit jacket and her hair actually in a pony tail began to talk about problems with immigration, particularly at our southern border. The news channel proceeded to show a poorly shot video, probably by someone who had a flip phone whose camera had been thoroughly scratched, of illegal immigrants crossing the border over into the United States.This infuriated Sandra.
Sandra set her plate down on the couch before shooting up with stiff legs and began to speak her mind, loudly. Luckily, the creamed corn didn’t spill on the couch when she stood up. That would have been quite the mess. “Can you believe this bullshit? This border should be locked and sealed shut until we clear this country from all the illegal aliens that are already here. What we should be doing, is only allow a select amount of legal immigration and all others who try to enter this country illegally should be shot, killed, and destroyed, just like that.” Her voice made a small creak like a boy going through puberty having a small voice crack and I could tell she was passionate about what she was talking about. She proceeded, “They are the ones making the choice to try to enter this country and they need to pay the consequences. All these people want to just steal our jobs, bring in more drugs and rape the women here. They are the main reason why the drug epidemic in this country is unstoppable.”
Sandra went on to talk about how she feels that the immigrants from Central American countries should just stay in their own country. She went on to show what was rippling through her mind, “It should not be that hard to find a job in your own country. There's no reason to come all the way to America when you can find a job in your own country. They shouldn’t be taking their drugs into our country, I can guarantee they want to spread the drug epidemic because it’s good for their business. Those people are disgusting. If they could use their brains and realize that the economy in their own country is embarrassingly poor and they should get a job there and support that economy instead of sucking money out of ours.” I was surprised she had so much to say on this topic. I cut into another slab of chicken and tossed it in my mouth.
This video really set her off because she’s just going from one thing to another, “This damn country has a ridiculous amount of government programs that allow people to live without doing anything. It’s unbelievably easy for these people to come into our country, then ‘work’ towards gaining citizenship and then proceed to feed off of our welfare and other bullshit programs that let people live for nothing. I’ve seen someone who was apparently ‘jobless’ and working on welfare and they were living an easier life than we are right now. It’s unbelievable.” I was surprised to hear her swear this much because usually she is pretty calm while ranting on about something. She went on and on about how people suck off from her tax dollars and about how she doesn’t think she gets enough of it back.
The way she had been talking to me had kind of scared me; her body was stiff and she was pointing towards the South with her finger so hard that the first knuckle on her finger would actually bend back toward the top of her hand.
I found it a little difficult not to laugh at the same time because normally she is playful and joking about most things that are going on in the world so I wasn’t sure if this was another one of her charades. Also, she was wearing her blue flannel pajamas which are normally nothing to laugh at but I saw the whitish yellowing spot on the thigh area of the pajamas and I had remembered that that spot was when she accidentally spilled bleach on herself. This happened because one of my dogs, Cooper, who is a Saint Bernard and Great Pyrenees mix, was downstairs when she was doing laundry and she didn’t know it. Cooper is a dog who decides to bark at everything, so he was just walking around, silently since our cellar is carpeted, and he saw a mouse scurry along the floorboards of the floor above. He barked his bark which felt like it was peeling into your ears and it scared my mom bad enough that she had dropped the cap of bleach she was about to pour into the port in the washing machine. She had pulled her arm up and the bleach went flying, most of the bleach had landed in her hair but some landed on the pants, which caused the whitish yellowing spot to be on the pajamas and her hair to have patches of blonde hair.
While Sandra was showing me exactly what was flowing through her head in vivid illustrations, I had forgotten about my cream corn and carrots. Since cream corn tastes just awful when it is lukewarm and cold, I put in it the microwave for thirty seconds. Lucky for me, our microwave has a button specifically for 30 seconds so all I had to do was close the small door and press one button.
Sandra had followed me into the kitchen as I got up and put my food in the microwave, she was walking with quick, stiff steps with her finger pointed at me with that slight bend in the first knuckle.This went on for about ten more minutes and personal I was amazed that she could go this long on this topic which I don’t believe she is well informed about and hasn’t done much research about. It was her opinion and she is definitely entitled to her own but sometimes other people have different opinions. By the time Sandra was done ranting we were both laughing about how much she had gone on about it, I had finished my cream corn, and the dog had finished hers.
What I don’t think Sandra realizes is that the Central American countries and the United States of America are two very different worlds to be living in. The countries that these hispanics are living in are run by drug lords in certain parts of the countries and the people are only trying to escape. I brought it back up again after she sat back down on the soft leather couch and threw the blanket over her feet, “ Ya know, if you tried to look at it from the illegal immigrant’s point of view, you’d see that their people and family are in danger much more often than they should be. The jobs in America are much higher paying with better benefits and security. Why would a poor person want to stay in their own country when they and their family is at risk when there is one of the biggest superpowers in the world right next door?” Sandra looked puzzled. I could tell she was thinking what I thought about the situation and it seemed like she might actually consider changing her own opinion on immigration.
Most of these immigrants are just trying to get a better life in a country that whose motto is to Live the American Dream, which is quite impossible in their home country and is something that everyone wants to achieve. The mindset of those who do attempt to cross the border illegally and not gaining citizenship, is that the risk reward ratio is high enough for them to risk their own lives to escape from their own country.
Some of the things Sandra said are reasonable, but all of it was an opinion. I kept mine to myself, and got another serving of cream corn and carrots.