Immigrants are willing to do an honest day's work

Iwould like to applaud Tom Baldwin for the humanity and sanity expressed in his letter to the editor printed in the Aug. 8 News Transcript ("People Come to the United States Seeking Opportunities"), and add my own voice to his.

I am continually shocked by and ashamed of the bigotry and selfishness so often expressed in this country (and in letters to the editor of this and other newspapers) when people attack the topic of immigration today. For the most part, Mexican and Latin American immigrants are the only people left in this country willing to put in a fair day's work.

In a country where almost all of us are the sons and daughters of immigrants, who really has the right to deny the opportunity our own parents or ancestors enjoyed to another person needing a chance to make a life worth living. If people want to look for troublemakers in our society, then let them look to our own spoiled and lazy sons and daughters of suburbia - or the listless and hopeless children of rural America - or the spiritless and despairing offspring of our urban zones. It's the idle hands that do mischief, not the hard-working hands of so many

new immigrants.

For those of you who say "we just don't have room for, and can't afford (whatever that means) this many people" - take a look at China for a minute. Setting aside their controversial policies to restrain population growth, they already have far, far more people in a country of similar size to our own and they have made that a major source of their emerging economic might. The United States of America has flourished for 200 years and more as a melting pot and destination for immigrants with a dream, and it will continue as such for another 200 as long as we don't let small-mindedness and fear trounce any remaining nobility in our society.

Victor Wittmann

Marlboro