March 17, 2024- In 1946, a decorated soldier came back to his hometown of Galesburg, IL, and went with his friends to a downtown movie theater. They were directed, by an usher, to sit in the “Mexican section”. The honourably discharged soldier refused, saying that he wished to speak with the manager. When that wish was granted, the soldier told the manager that he had just finished serving their country, and fighting against Fascism, for nearly three years. He expected the same rights as any other citizen of the United States.

That began the end of racial segregation in Galesburg, and across Illinois. It would take another ten years for the practice to end across the northern and western states, as well as in Canada. It would be another 18-25 years for it to end in the southern states.

In 1917, as American men went off to fight in World War I, there was a vast labour shortage. Corporate representatives recruited Mexican men, by the thousands, to fill the vacant positions. These men were housed in re-purposed railway boxcars, as many of the positions were with the railroads. Boxcar villages, near towns like Galesburg, were established near the railyards.

The same thing happened, on a smaller scale, in World War II. By then, men were allowed to bring their families along, and more permanent “barrios”, many with row houses, were established by the railway companies, and other employers. Thousands of Mexican workers and families were thus brought into the United States, not by “liberal politicians”, but by business and industry leaders, seeking to accomplish their missions.

A century earlier, much the same process unfolded, on the East Coast and in the cities of the Midwest, as Irish (the boyos, they called themselves) and Italian workers, fleeing chaos in their homelands, arrived in the United States, having heard of opportunities here. They, too, encountered prejudice, and were enticed to quarrel with one another, so as to keep a united front from forming among the refuge-seekers and the dispossessed. That tactic would resurface, when each new group: Poles, Hungarians, Greeks, Arabs, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, arrived here and sought their chance at a new life. Then came newly freed people of African descent, fleeing the Jim Crow laws of the former Confederate states-and Mexicans, fleeing the repression and chaos of the Diaz years. Braceros, or manual labourers, did the work that few Americans wished to engage.

This is the backdrop, as the wall goes up and scapegoats are sought, by wirepullers, for the overlooking of homeless veterans and others. Two equally worthy groups of people need the help of their fellow humans, and yes, charity begins at home. It begins at home, and family members get first dibs, then community members-like those who served their country and are now getting short shrift, in many cases. It doesn’t end there, however. Only a truly unified human race can resolve the issue that stem from the mindset that some people are less than others, because of differences in their make-up, strengths and weaknesses, appearance, national origin, religion, personal predilections- you name it. Only seeing that there really is no other, just a mirror of ourselves, will lead to a systematic solution to all that has gone wrong-starting with family, then community, then state/province, country and region, until the entire globe gets the idea.

Maybe then, there will be no cross-border caravans, no twenty-foot walls, no former police/military officers seizing power in their destitute countries, no mindless interplay between ideological rivals, rather than each sharing viable solutions to deep-seated social ills.

Domhan go bragh. (Earth, til the end)