The Immigrant Saga, Played Out On a Soccer Field in the South
Only one member of the state championship team a decade ago went on to college. Now, the majority of Cuadros' players do. Many receive academic scholarships, not athletic.
Cuadros has noticed a change in immigration patterns as well. After the housing bust and recession of 2008, the new arrivals from Mexico trickled to a halt and tended to come instead from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, most often fleeing spiraling violence and poverty in their home countries.
The series offers much needed counterbalance to current headlines. The week after a red-carpet screening the "Los Jets" series was held, protesters in Southern California blocked the roadway so busloads of the migrants who have been streaming across the border could not pass. The plan had been to get the migrants to a processing center. The angry protesters chanted "USA!" "Impeach Obama!" and "Deport! Deport!"
The humanitarian crisis at the border is not alleviating. People continue to show up daily, including children traveling alone, overwhelming border patrol agents and further stressing a system that was inadequate in the first place.
House Republicans continue to claim they can't trust Obama as an excuse for sitting on their backsides instead of legislating reforms.
Obama threatens to take executive action to fix things, but the only "fix" he has done is separate more families by deporting more immigrants than any previous administration. It's a political stalemate with no resolution in sight.
Meanwhile, last week, Los Jets players were glued to their mobile devices, social media fiends that they are, sharing their disappointment over the USA's much too early exit from the World Cup.
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Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or via e-mail at msanchez@kcstar.com.
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