LatinaLista — Now before the insults begin to hurl, there is something that is not widely known on this side of the border:
In Mexico and all over Latin America, today is known as the Day of the Innocents.
In other words, it is their April Fool’s Day.
To give a little background, December 28 is commemorated as the day when King Herod, fearful that a child named Jesus would supplant him as King of the Jews, ordered every male child younger than 2 years of age to be killed.
Herod lived the rest of his days thinking he had succeeded in cheating destiny.
King Herod ordering the deaths of innocent children.
(Source: esmas.com)
It’s this engaño that Herod was victim to that inspired such a unique observance of a serious historical footnote.
Like our national joke day, people play tricks (engañar) on one another all day.
Instead of yelling “April Fools,” there is a short verse in Spanish that is said aloud to the embarrassed victim:
Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar, pues en este Dia de los Inocentes, en nadie puedes confiar.
(Rough Translation: Innocent dove that let yourself be tricked, on this Day of the Innocents, in no one can you believe.)
I have to admit that I forgot what this day was and so I thought it odd that such a headline would make it to a Mexican news site before it hit The New York Times or at least Lou Dobbs.
Before I clicked on the headline, I noticed the main picture of the page. It was one of the newly elected Mexican President Felipe Calderón smiling alongside his arch rival during and after the election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The headline beneath the picture basically said that the two had buried the hatchet and were going to be working together.
That’s when I remembered what day it was.
But it’s a well-known fact among those who monitor US immigration that it is the issue of visas driving the flow of illegal immigration.
As it stands now, only 5,000 Work visas are available every year for unskilled laborers.
When there are industries in this country: agriculture, construction, meat processing, landscape, road construction, restaurant kitchen labor, etc. needing workers, that so far have been able to sustain more than 10 million undocumented, low-skilled workers — something is wrong.
And it’s no joke!
