Hope is a Thing with Wheels

Nuns on the Bus visit Tallahassee

Inspired by faith, ten nuns are traveling the country to gather support for immigration reform. When they visited Tallahassee this morning they were greeted with a resounding ovation from the standing-room only crowd gathered at First Presbyterian. I, along with other UUCT members, area clergy, representatives from Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant traditions, as well as AFSCME, and the NAACP; heard stories about deportations, disrupted families, and racist reactions to reform. But, I also heard hope rising in the presence of these ten nuns.

They came to meet with Senator Marco Rubio's aide to offer encouragement for his work with a small group of legislators who've put forward a bill that will give some undocumented people access to a more secure status.  They also came to push the Senator toward being a full-fledged leader supporting the bill in both the Senate and the House as amendments and alternate bills are brought to the fore. Finally, they came to leave -- to go on to other Senators -- and to leave us with a spirited willingness to continue to engage our Florida legislators on the issue. 

Our legislators will need all the encouragement, support, and concerted nudging supporters of immigration reform can give them. Recently, we've heard of toxic reactions to ideas labelled with the word liberal. Public officials supporting gun control have had ricin filled mail sent to them. Senator Rubio is already under verbal attack from opponents of his bill. An author of the Heritage Foundation study on immigration, Jason Richwine, holds fast to his dissertation theory that Hispanics have lower IQ's than whites.* Nothing is certain, and there may be many struggles ahead.

And, yet, ten nuns with gray hair and glasses, exuding their dedication to a life of loving inclusivity, dare to offer themselves as witnesses for those who can not speak for themselves for fear of being deported.  Ten nuns found in themselves a willingness to act for human dignity, to call immigration reform a moral issue, to tickle our hopes with their enthusiasm for doing the right thing.  Can we do any less?    

 - Robin Gray (sporting gray hair and glasses)

* Heritage Study Author: ‘Hispanic Immigrants Will Have Low-IQ Children’, http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/05/08/1978961/heritage-study-author-hispanic-immigrants-will-have-low-iq-children/?mobile=nc