Keep the Immigration Protest Going

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21041

by Jay D. Homnick
Posted: 06/08/2007

Okay, class, settle down. Today’s subject is immigration. Oy vey, yelp my non-Jewish readers (who are comfortable using Yiddish colloquialisms.) Goodness gracious, groan my Jewish readers (too self-conscious to employ Yiddish expressions.) Not that again?! Haven’t we discovered and covered that enough? Must we recover this subject? Can’t we recover from this?

The answer is yes we must, no we can’t. We don’t need to beat a dead horse but in politics it never hurts to keep beating a horse that looks moribund -- until the coroner declares it officially deceased. To make our point, let us begin with our favorite immigrants as children, the friendly Italian shoemakers who were posted in storefronts at two-block intervals all around the Brooklyn of our youth.

The old joke went that a man pulled his wedding tux from the closet after 30 years, pleased to find it would still fit him perfectly for his daughter’s upcoming nuptials. He sticks his hand into the pocket and pulls out a colorful piece of stiff cardboard. It is his tag from the shoe store. He had snagged the heel of his wedding shoes dancing and brought them to the shoe repair guy that same day. They had lain there forgotten for three decades. He drives back to the old neighborhood and sure enough, the guy is still there, wizened and stooped. He takes the tag, goes into the back, then returns empty-handed with a terse message.

“They’ll be ready tomorrow.â€