Poverty Factor in Immigration

I feel obliged to respond to Father Gregory J. Boyle’s column “Still They Come; There Is No Choice,” Commentary, May 3:

Everything in it is admirable, but I want to add a few words of my own.

In 1951 my husband and I immigrated to this country as “displaced persons” from a refugee camp in southern Italy. We came legally. (I know well what it is to be an immigrant.) We were both Yugoslavs (specifically Serbs), and in addition I was a Yugoslav Jew. While everybody is aware that in an Anglo society we were not of optimum descent, we were still accepted fairly.

Now we, the former “displaced persons,” have an occasion every week to be confronted with a scene of would-be immigrants from Latin America. As we are returning from San Diego, where we visit our son, we pass through a Border Patrol checkpoint. The cars line up, the guards wave everybody by--except those people who have the misfortune of having Latino color and features. Only they are instructed to park on the side, only their trunks are opened as guards look for “illegals.”

My heart cries out “Shame, shame! You guards are only carrying out orders, but you congressmen and you, Mr. President, can’t you change the laws, can’t you make them more humane?”

Up to this moment my cry has been only silent, but if enough of us voice our anguish, perhaps some laws will be changed.

ELENA GOJOCH

Sun City