Como Ciudadanos. . .

"Como ciudadanos, como hombres y mujeres de ambas aldeas - la global y la local - nos corresponde desafiar prejuicios, extender nuestros propios límites, aumentar nuestra capacidad de dar y recibir así como nuestra inteligencia de lo que nos es extraño. . . . La lección de nuestra humanidad inacabada es que cuando excluimos nos empobrecemos y cuando incluimos nos enriquecemos. ¿Tendremos tiempo de descrubir, tocar, nombrar, el número de nuestros semejantes que nuestros brazos sean capaces de hacer nuestros? Porque ninguno de nosotros reconocerá su propria humanidad si no reconoce, primero, la de los otros." - Carlos Fuentes, contemporary Mexican writer

"As citizens, as men and women of both villages - the global and the local - we are responsible for challenging prejudices, stretching our own limits, increasing the capacity of our minds to give and receive even that which is foreign to us. The lesson of our limitless humanity is that when we exclude others, we impoverish ourselves, and when we include others, we enrich ourselves. Will we have the time to discover, touch, name, and count the fellow beings who our arms are capable of embracing? Because we cannot recognize our own humanity if we first do not recognize the humanity of others."

I am ashamed of the immigration law that recently has passed in Arizona, a law that promotes racial profiling and addresses the issue of immigration with a menacing and heavy hand. It is a law that will promote dangerous divisions rather than build constructive alliances. The law has been discussed extensively in the news here in México. It is difficult to be a guest in México, every day enjoying and depending on the kindness and patient acceptance of various people, and to have such a message of prejudicial rejection sent here from my home country.

We can do better. We can reach deeper, wider.