Good Morning.

On ocassion, I have been known to stop into the ol' fast-food emporium in between jobs. Never mind that I know it's bad for me and probably the environment. It's fast, convenient, and relatively cheap in the hour I have between my day job and the store.

I've been fascinated by people watching the last few times I've been by the King in Burlington, MA. It's not been lost on me that there's a broad slice of society that patronizes these places.



When we were kids, we undoubtedly learned about the concept of the "Great American Melting Pot"...a lot of us in front of the TV watching this:



Immigration is an issue that's near and dear to me. On my side of the family, it's no longer within living memory, but my Sicilian Great Grandmother came through Ellis Island in 1908 or so...and my Filipino Grandpa made it to San Francisco in the 1920s. For Mrs. TriSec, although she is native-born, both her parents and many of her elder relatives fled the Castro regime with little more than what they could cram into a suitcase.

Of course you know young Javier was adopted from the Philippines.

But I suppose immigration is a topic we can dissect on another day. Let's look at that melting pot again. It's only the arrogance of the early settlers in these United States that led them to assume that they were the "chosen ones". Look at what happened to the natives first, and then every ensuing wave of immigrants that has come to the United States.

Perhaps more than anything else, it's fear that drives the discrimination and hatred that permeates so much of society. We recently celebrated the 70th anniversary of the "Four Freedoms", but something else President Roosevelt said rings true regarding those that are different from us.



Back at the fast-food joint, none of the larger picture matters to any of us. While I'm there on my way to work, I observed a family with young children, a couple of tough-looking young men, and elderly woman reading a book, a couple of the immigrant workers conversing in their native tongue, and a smattering of other folks. We're just going about our daily lives and not really worrying about the person on the other side of the restaurant that looks different than us.

Perhaps we on the street know something the politicians don't.