In a recent news conference Gov. Spencer Cox said, "And thank goodness that we can actually get back to the way things are supposed to happen in this country."

I hope he isn't referring to how in 1933 during the Depression my Mexican-born widowed grandfather was deported with his young American-born children, my five-year-old mother among them. Yet during World War II those same boys who were deported, were drafted to serve in World War II.

Was that "goodness?"

Was it "goodness" to witness school children crying at a loss of what to do because their parents had been deported from their work places while the children were in school, as I did?

The United States has a long history of allowing the border to be insecure when it fits its labor necessities and then, when politically incorrect, disregarding the inhumane aspect of those policies and how they affect people's lives for generations.

Ask the Chinese who were recruited to work on the westward rail line. Ask the Braceros and Filipinos who were recruited to work in the fields to keep food prices low during post war recovery. Ask the Africans who were forcefully brought to enrich the plantation economy of the early country.

It was Alexis de Tocqueville who said, "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."

Maria Luisa Torres, Taylorsville

Submit a letter to the editor