The description from the Border Control guy on the Alex Jones show today, drudged up some ancient memories.
As a child, I went to Kelton Elementary school from Kindergarden to 8th grade, kind of unheard of today. The school was built before WW2 and was torn down when the cost of making it ADA compliant was deemed impractical. Dormont is a borough on the South Side of Pittsburgh – most of the houses were thrown up in the 1920s, many of them based on the same basic design – 3 story houses with a front porch on a tiny lot. Dormont was a place where engineers, office workers, professional people could live away from the pollution of the steel mills, and especially far away from the black people. We can’t choose our grandparents… My grandfather was an engineer who designed industrial equipment that ultimately was used by the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
One day, our third grade class went to the Art Room to make pottery or something, and the teacher introduced us to Pedro (possibly not his real name – memories fade). Pedro was an odd person to be in our art class (in the 1960s). Pedro was much older than us – he was probably 12 or thirteen years old. He had braces on his legs because he had been struck by polio, a disease for which I remember getting a sugar cube to swallow. It had just recently been brought under control in the United States.
Paco spoke no English. The Art Teacher gave a vague notion that maybe Miguel would figure out English if we all just agreed to be his friends and let our English immerse him.
One day, I came to school and the third grade teacher (who was pregnant at the time) rushed me to the principal’s office. I had measles. Measles doesn’t occur spontaneously. Within a week, so many students had measles they closed the school until it had run its course.
I remember about the same time being marched to the nurse’s office to be tested for exposure to Tuberculosis (TB). The test was a series of pinpricks on your arm that were examined a couple days later. Swelling indicated you had the antibody indicating exposure to TB that you had fought off, or that you had an active infection. I don’t know if that was related to Carlos, or was just routine screening by the health department. Juan at some point just went away. We were given some vague excuse. Since he was only with us an hour a week, none of us befriended him nor missed him.
So Mexicans (and Other Than Mexicans) are coming over the border with active TB, Scabies, lung problems (we don’t know what they have – whooping cough?), loaded on buses and sent 500 miles inland for resettlement by Catholic charities and other do-gooders.. What could possibly go wrong?