Rita F. Silva: Wanting a secure border does not make anyone racist
My husband is a retired dairyman. For 42 years, from 1960 to 2002 when we sold the dairy, we never had a hired man from the United States. For 20 years, we had men from the Azores and one black man from Angola; for the next 22 years, we had men from Mexico. These men were all single and my mother-in-law cooked for them and did their laundry and they ate at the table with my in-laws. They were were always treated with respect and were welcome in our home. My husband helped them when they had problems.
Now, because we feel we should secure our borders and that people should enter our country legally and that criminals in this country illegally should be deported, we are called racist. That term is used a lot lately, if you don’t agree with someones opinion, you are considered racist. We do not judge people by their race, ethnicity, color, religion or language. We welcome anyone who comes here legally and obeys our laws and learns our language.
We believe that America has the right to decide who enters and that is not racist, just common sense.
Rita F. Silva, Los Banos
This story was originally published January 18, 2018 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Rita F. Silva: Wanting a secure border does not make anyone racist."