A lesson to be learned...

I was on Netflix surfing films and documentaries when I stumbled on a show called "30 Days".  What the show is basically about is putting a person in another person's shoes, in other words it is empathy.  The one I stumbled across was an episode called "Immigration".  The episode was about a legal immigrant from Cuba who opposes illegal immigration.  He says everyone must follow the law and that Americans should act now before the country is taken.  He has to live with a family of seven who have no papers.  The mother and father and oldest children are considered illegal while the youngest are legal since they were born in the United States.  The episode exposed the family's hardships and what they deal with everyday.  The father works as much as he can helping people for low income.  He earns what he can.  The mother earns money by recycling as much as she can.  Later in the episode there were some parts that really made me feel horrible.  In one scene the mother tells the guy she saves up money from the beginning of the year so she can buy gifts for Christmas.  This part made my eyes water because it wasn't much and she explains that she wants to give the children something of the money.  Another part I cringed was when the guy went to visit the husband's brother back in Mexico.  The brother lived with his mother and father and his family.  The living conditions were horrid, there were cockroaches on the wall and it was filthy.  The guy later learns that the husband was forced to go to America, even though he didn't want to.  The brother shows the guy to the house that they used to live in... it was the worst site I eve saw.  It wasn't even a house... there was hardly a roof.  Couple days later the guy and the husband were working in a yard.  The husband found this slimy lizard and told the guy to leave it alone and let it live its life.  He says something vital and it definitely made me think, this is the translation in English, "as a child our first reaction would be to kill the animal, when we grow older we learn that life is precious."  After watching this episode it made me realize that I take everything for granted.  After seeing the living conditions of this family, I was apolled.  How can people go through that?  No one deserves to live in those types of conditions.  Now that I think about it I must complain about a lot of things.  We complain that it is too cold or too hot, the house is too ugly, or that the basement is scary... small things that others would gladly take.  Next time we think about complaining about something small, remember that someone is living in worse conditions.  I'm glad I got to watch this episode, it made me re-think everything.  I hope you enjoyed this entry and next time I'll talk about immigration.  I hope you have a peaceful day!!!