Alright, so the lady I replied to yesterday commented back, and this is what she said: I am absolutely impressed with your thoughts. And, I am in agreement, from an humanitarian point of view. Realistically, however, you will have to overcome not bigotry or prejudice but the natural human behavior to protect what they own and their territory. You say that it is different here in the CNMI. To the extent that it was not colonialism in its true form, yes I agree with you. However, it is no different than what I would call passive colonialism in that without political motivation infiltration has occurred and has become a threat to the control, livelihood, and existence of our own people. And, I agree with you too that they were indeed invited to work. That is just it, noh? This where we part company, because when they were invited to work it was not a promise and never intended to be a promise for permanent residency and citizenship. We, and our political leaders, have done wrong in allowing the exploitation - and I beg you to check records again because the majority of the abuse were committed by companies not owned by US citizens. However, opening the floodgate, as you said, to permanent residency and citizenship is also not the answer especially when majority of our local population are denied their right to earn a decent living in their own home. So, I honestly do feel you and the foreign workers who have been with us for a long time. However, it would be next to impossible to achieve what you and they are asking because this is not only a local CNMI issue, it is a national concern. Then, again, I could be wrong. I encourage you to continue writing and perhaps you just may achieve it. Here is what I said in response: Thank you for your thoughtful response, Juanita. I understand where you are coming from, but I would first like to clear something up. You said that infiltration has occurred and has become a threat to the control, livelihood, and existence of our own people. I have to disagree with you, because these guest (at what point does a guest stop being a guest? For how many years can one continue to be considered a guest? The term guest implies that one is only in a certain place for a short, limited amount of time, and as we all know, this isnt the case with these people anymore) workers did not infiltrate our society. The term infiltration suggests that these people came to our islands secretly and gradually over the years, and Im sure you know that simply isnt the case. These thousands of workers who came to our Commonwealth through the invitation of our government came in full view and with accompanying documentation; therefore, the idea that they have infiltrated our community and are posing a threat to it is unfounded. I understand your fears or concerns that the large presence of non-indigenous people in our islands could negatively affect our culture, language, and livelihood. However, as I stated in my manifesto, before these workers ever came to our islands, we had already set the stage for the eventual downfall of our local language, culture, and livelihood when we decided to conduct the majority of our communications in the English language, and when we allowed the globalist Western culture to permeate our society and overtake our local culture. Furthermore, I understand that for many, this is quite a controversial idea that I am about to suggest (and that I have suggested in my manifesto), but in terms of the control, livelihood, and existence of our own people, I think we should look at our history, at all of these years in which we have been in charge of the way things work in our Commonwealth. Please understand that I am not saying any of this to try to disparage our people, I am simply trying to address the common fear that the official admission of our brothers and sisters into our CNMI family would completely ruin our society and lead to our downfall. Look at the dismal state that we, the legal wardens of our Commonwealth, have allowed our islands to fall into. We did all of that on our own, without any contributions from our brothers and sisters, because they have had no say in what goes on in the CNMI due to their inability to vote. It wasnt our brothers and sisters who have been posing a threat to our control, livelihood, and existence; it was ourselves. It has always been ourselves. It was we who allowed our government to get away with their countless abuses and usurpations of power, it was we who continued to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear when someone we were related to or someone who had hooked us up in some way committed criminal acts or otherwise proved to be working against the best interests of our Commonwealth. It was we who allowed businesses operating on our islands to continue abusing and exploiting our brothers and sisters, and it was we who allowed our government to hire Jack Abramoff to prevent any federal reforms to our system, thereby prolonging the exploitation and suffering of our brothers and sisters over the years. Because of our failure to confront our government about this issue, it was we who essentially enabled the federalization of our immigration system after the feds realized the severe failure in our own management and implementation of our labor and immigration system. Our brothers and sisters have been victims of our exploitative system due to our own collective approval of our governments actions. It is we who are leading ourselves down this road that threatens the control, livelihood, and existence of our own people. I have faith that our people can rise again someday, however, I will posit, based on our own history, that we cannot do this alone. We need the help of our brothers and sisters if we truly wish to put out the inferno that threatens to consume us all. Like I stated in my manifesto, I believe that we need their help, because of our cultural predisposition to consider as a sign of respect for our elders, to support our relatives no matter what they do and to stand up for them even when what they are doing is not right. The fact that our culture deems respect for our elders in such a high esteem is not a bad thing, not by a long shot. However, if were going by our track record over the years, we seem to not be able to break out of this vicious cycle no matter how much we seem to have issues with our elected officials actions, and this is precisely because our cultural upbringing has taught us that we should not criticize our relatives/elders, that we should support our family, and to do otherwise would be a sign of disrespect, which is generally considered taboo. Now, if we were to suddenly have thousands of new voters added to our electorate who have no blood ties to any of the candidates for election, who dont feel an inherent need to support a relatives campaign due to family relations, perhaps we could finally pave the way to REAL elections with real candidates who have real merits and who really deliver on their campaign promises. This is how I see our people finally reversing this negative trend that weve been on these past few decades, and I hope that you can see it as well. If not, then I respect your opinion regardless, and I thank you for at least entertaining my thought process. Now, to address your point that our brothers and sisters were only invited to work in our Commonwealth and were never promised any permanent residency or citizenship to begin with. I absolutely agree with you, thats exactly what happened, and that is where I have a problem. As I outlined in my manifesto, this invitation to work in the CNMI came by means of a system that was set up to be exploitative from the start. The Nonresident Workers Act of 1983 included a provision in it that specifically stated that none of the time that these people spend in the Commonwealth would count towards any form of permanent residency or citizenship. This would have been fine, if these people were truly only intended to be guest workers. However, the same law also included a provision that allowed, and outlined procedures for, renewal of contracts and the changing of employers or job titles. This, of course, meant that the people we invited to work in our Commonwealth as temporary guest workers were provided with a way to continue to live and work in the CNMI, essentially indefinitely, as long as there were employers who were willing to hire them. Of course, these business-minded employers (which, as you stated, the majority of which were companies that were not owned by U.S. citizens), knowing that the guest workers had no voice and were coming from countries in which opportunities were scarce compared to the CNMI, were always willing to hire them over the local population because these people would continue to work for whatever low wages they were getting. So our brothers and sisters continued to live and work in our Commonwealth over the decades because they were enabled to do so by Public Law 03-66. Unfortunately, this same law that allowed them to live and work in the CNMI indefinitely, also barred them from any hopes of becoming official members of our community and our Commonwealth family. And this is why I have a problem with the common perspective that they should not gain improved status because they were only ever invited to work and were never promised such a thing. I hope you can understand where I am coming from here; its not that I favor them over our own people, its just that I believe that we need to do what is right, what is just, and grant these people what they deserve after their long years of service and dedication to our Commonwealth. Its the Christian thing to do, and are we not a predominantly Christian society in the CNMI? As for your concern that granting these people permanent residency and citizenship would continue to deny our people their right to earn a decent living in their own home, I will posit that it is actually their lack of permanent residency status over the years that has continued to deny our people their right to earn a decent living. As I stated above, the employers have continued to hire our brothers and sisters over our own U.S. citizen population because they know that these people will endure whatever low wages, exploitation, and abuse they experience due to conditions in their countries of origin being much worse. It is because these people are exploitable, it is because they have no permanent status in the CNMI, that employers time and again choose them and deny our people their right to earn a decent living in their own home. However, once our brothers and sisters are granted permanent residency and secure their spot as official members of our CNMI family with equal rights as us, their exploitability goes out the window, along with employers ability to manipulate wages and job requirements in the private sector. This will level the playing field and open up the job market to our own people, finally giving them a fair chance for employment with decent wages. I guess what Im trying to say, is that we do not need to push our brothers and sisters out of our Commonwealth in order to address our peoples legitimate concern that they cannot get jobs because employers prefer to hire nonresident workers. Again, I hope that you can see the logic in my position, but if not, then I still respect your opinion on the matter. I know that this response has gotten ridiculously long, and I apologize for taking up so much of your time (should you actually end up reading this whole thing). However, I do have one final point to address, and that is the cultural aspect of all this. One common (and understandable) fear that our people have is that officially admitting our brothers and sisters into our CNMI family will eventually lead to the death of our language and culture. While this certainly is possible, this is in no way the only possible outcome, especially if we take proper measures to ensure that we dont go down that route (without preventing people from obtaining what they deserve). The following are just a few of the ideas I have come up with to address our cultural concerns in regards to our brothers and sisters: we could implement a testing system for our Commonwealth in which our brothers and sisters can prove their allegiance to the CNMI by passing Chamorro language and NMI history tests in order to permanently secure their residence. For instance, we could first advocate for a temporary CNMI-only permanent residency status, that would not only allow them to continue living and working in the CNMI, but also give them time to learn the Chamorro language and the history of the Northern Mariana Islands. Then, at the end of their CNMI-only permanent residency period, if they truly call our Commonwealth their home, they can take tests to assess their knowledge and understanding of the Chamorro language and the history of the NMI, and upon passing, they can be granted U.S. permanent residency status, which will provide them with a pathway to U.S. citizenship. I believe this will address the fears that their prolonged presence in our islands will destroy our language and culture, and also the fears that upon receiving improved status, they will fly away to greener pastures and leave the CNMI behind as a distant memory. After all, if they had just been required to spend all that time and money on learning the Chamorro language and the history of our islands, do you really think that they would just leave as soon as they obtain true permanent residency with a pathway to citizenship? Again, sorry for writing such a long response. I hope I havent bored you to death yet, lol. Also, I hope I havent been overly repetitive and annoying. Thank you for your time and consideration of my points. I look forward to further discussion with you on this matter.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 06:47:36 +0000
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