Immigration Debate
Posted: May 22nd, 2006, 11:36 pm
www.democracynow.org
Fri. May 19th 2006
AMY GOODMAN: It's very good to have you with us. Let's start where we left off in headlines, and that's the issue of immigration. How do you see, as you look from the south to the United States in the north, the issue of the wall, the issue of the treatment of immigrants in this country?
EDUARDO GALEANO: It's a sad story. A daily sad story. I wonder if our time will be remembered as a period, a terrible period in human history, in which money was free to go and come and come back and go again. But people, not.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote about immigration in your new book Voices of Time.
EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes. There are some stories about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you read an excerpt?
EDUARDO GALEANO: One of them, which is quite short. It's a document on history. Scientific. Pure science. Objective. There is a religion of objectivity here, so I respect it. And this is -- you’ll see, you’ll see. “Christopher Columbus couldn't discover America, because he didn't have a visa or even a passport.
“Pedro Alvares Cabral couldn't get off the boat in Brazil, because he might have been carrying smallpox, measles, the flu or other foreign plagues.
“Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro never even began the conquest of Mexico and Peru, because they didn't have working papers.
“Pedro de Alvarado was turned away from Guatemala, and Pedro de Valdivia couldn't even enter Chile, because they didn't bring proof of a clean record.
“And the Mayflower pilgrims were sent back to sea from the coast of Massachusetts: the immigration quotas were full.”
AMY GOODMAN: Eduardo Galeano, reading from his new book Voices of Time: A Life in Stories.
Fri. May 19th 2006
AMY GOODMAN: It's very good to have you with us. Let's start where we left off in headlines, and that's the issue of immigration. How do you see, as you look from the south to the United States in the north, the issue of the wall, the issue of the treatment of immigrants in this country?
EDUARDO GALEANO: It's a sad story. A daily sad story. I wonder if our time will be remembered as a period, a terrible period in human history, in which money was free to go and come and come back and go again. But people, not.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote about immigration in your new book Voices of Time.
EDUARDO GALEANO: Yes. There are some stories about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you read an excerpt?
EDUARDO GALEANO: One of them, which is quite short. It's a document on history. Scientific. Pure science. Objective. There is a religion of objectivity here, so I respect it. And this is -- you’ll see, you’ll see. “Christopher Columbus couldn't discover America, because he didn't have a visa or even a passport.
“Pedro Alvares Cabral couldn't get off the boat in Brazil, because he might have been carrying smallpox, measles, the flu or other foreign plagues.
“Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro never even began the conquest of Mexico and Peru, because they didn't have working papers.
“Pedro de Alvarado was turned away from Guatemala, and Pedro de Valdivia couldn't even enter Chile, because they didn't bring proof of a clean record.
“And the Mayflower pilgrims were sent back to sea from the coast of Massachusetts: the immigration quotas were full.”
AMY GOODMAN: Eduardo Galeano, reading from his new book Voices of Time: A Life in Stories.