Winners of the Birth Lottery

See these kids? These totally adorable children? Winners. Winners of the birth lottery.

The Big Issue that Diverts Americans' Attention from the Big War these days is immigration. Oh, we're all very tired of hearing about illegal immigration, so NPR did a week-long series on legal immigration. Yes, it's possible to legally immigrate to this country!

But it's a huge pain in the ass. Seriously, I don't understand how the waiting list backs up for years. One Filipino family petitioned for citizenship and waited and waited--for years!--and, when they finally got the OK stamp, one of their three children had turned 21 and was no longer eligible to go as part of their family visa. So they had a choice--all of them stay, or four of them go and leave the one child to start the visa process all over as an adult. They went. They felt they had to! And they figured it would be no longer than a couple of years. It was NINE. Nine years later, the now 30-year old got his ticket. And, keep in mind, he wasn't allowed to visit his family Stateside--even when his mother got cancer and eventually died--because issuing temp visas to lonely family members is "too risky". But by then he had a wife and a kid. And their visa application was WAY down the list. But he went anyway. As he had "no future" in the Philippines, he felt he had to. So now he has two children (one conceived during a rare visit) and they communicate by computer. And wait.

During this story and another, two different people said virtually the exact same thing--"People born in the U.S. are lucky". And you know what, fellow citizens? They are right. We're in the cat-bird seat, whatever the hell that means.

So, (big inhale) with this in my head, I walked into my comfortable home that I am able to afford because I had access to an education despite the fact that I am female and have a good job in a comfortable building and I looked at my youngest child who received the best prenatal care that was mostly paid for by my corporate master and he was lounging in his $80 exersaucer surrounded by two middle-class and adoring parents who will see to it that he has a good education and lots of fun experiences and a rather large nest egg for college and I gazed at his healthy pink skin and male features and it's pretty easy to see that he will probably be pretty attractive and I thought "Holy Cow. That kid just won the birth lottery."

Now, y'all know that I am not a big cheerleader for the U.S. We have some big problems. Like the Bush administration. Poverty. Overconsumption. Stains in our history that just won't come out. Denial of any wrongdoing. But I really do think that it's a remarkable place. First of all, it's a beautiful country--our 50 states hit the geography jackpot, with the canyons and the good soil and the towering forests and the shining seas. Well, it used to be better. I'll give you that.

And the people are interesting--a mix of folks from around the globe, usually resourceful and hardworking, and the vast majority of them would never curtsy for some figurehead monarch. I like that. And our basic governing plan? It's only flaw is that I'm not in charge of it all. And as singer-songwriter James McMurtry writes, those kids out in a boat with their parents, getting tips on how to ride over the wakes on their waterskis . . . they don't know it, but they live a pretty good life. The kind of life that you usually don't get in Yemen, or Bolivia, or Sudan, but one that you have a much better shot at if you're born here.

I'm not trying to sound all culturally superior, although it's probably coming across that way. I'm really just appreciating what we have that people in a lot of other countries don't, and don't because they are either mired in poverty or oppressed by their government or both. And I'm happy for my children, who have a gargantuan (and unfair) head-start on a global scale and all they've done is get born.