This is Chris Garlock, with labor’s contribution to “The House I Live In” WPFW’s daylong “Sonic Contemplation on the Meaning of America.” (audio; Bev Grant “Bones in the Desert”) That’s singer Bev Grant with “Bones in the Desert,” a brand-new song about our southern border, and today I’m thinking about Oscar Alberto Martinez and his daughter, Angie Valeria. Oscar was 25 and Angie Valeria was just 23 months old when they drowned trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, swept away by the high waters of the Rio Grande. I cannot – and must not -- forget the heart-breaking image of the young father and his daughter, lying face down along the riverbank, the tiny girl tucked inside his black shirt and her arm draped over his neck. Oscar and Angie Valeria were from El Salvador, where the president, Nayib Bukele, took responsibility and connected the dots explaining why so many are risking so much – including their lives – to reach our country. Our land of opportunity, our land of freedom. Our land of borders and children in cages. “We haven’t been able to provide anything, not a decent job, not a decent school,” Bukele said. “What if there’s a little girl who had a decent school here, a decent healthcare system for her and her family, a decent house with water supply, a job for his parents, for his mother and his dad, a decent job.” Or as Bev Grant put it, “Climate change and political intervention on the part of the US government over many years has created the crises driving people to our borders.” Like it or not, this world is the house we all live in. As Benjamin Franklin one of the Founding Fathers of our nation – put it so eloquently, “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” (audio; Bev Grant “Bones in the Desert”)
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