ChapStick, Registered Trademark

Pass the ChapStick! For the thankless, low-paying work undocumented immigrants provide, I, too, kiss them. For the daily doses of bigotry they encounter, I, too, kiss them. For the subsistence dollars they send home to families they desperately miss, I, too, kiss them. For the brave and frightened immigrant children whose parents send them across the borders – sons and daughters who may be brutalized or “disappeared” by criminal governments or forcibly enslaved into drug gangs that supply our addictions, I, too, kiss them. For the oligarchies & dictatorships, the broken treaties, the theft of their countries’ natural resources, guaranteeing poverty for the many and wealth for the few, I, too, kiss them. For the life-threatening toxicity of their land, water and air due to the offshoring of foreign corporations, I, too, kiss them. For the stresses in the lives of undocumented immigrants, challenges I cannot even begin to imagine, I, too, kiss them. And thank them. And respect them. May their path to U.S. citizenship be intelligent and compassionate.