June 24, 2014
When people escape their native country due to violence, suffering and such, they are referred to as refugees. That is, they are in another country temporarily. The intention is to go back when things change. They have no interest in becoming inculturated into their temporary setting. When the Irish came to American to escape misery, they were not called refugees. They were called immigrants. They never intended to go back to Ireland. They came to America to become United States citizens and fit into their new country. Mexicans are not immigrants. They are refugees. They do not come here to stay. They intend to go back to Mexico. Ask the clergy that work with Mexicans. They will tell you. Our government and the Church needs policies to help these people as refugees. Some priests think that the whole idea of Spanish masses should be temporary. Mexican refugees want it to be ongoing to keep them in touch with the culture to which they intend to return. The children of the refugees, who are born here or grows up here and have never known Mexico, are fine with inculturation. They have no interest to go to “foreign” Mexico. Things change fast. No one policy seems to fit all.
(Photo is of barbed-wire fence at U.S.–Mexican border.)