why i paint what i paint #12

I just read a really good article in The Economist, a news magazine from London that gives me a larger perspective. The article starts with the story of a couple in Oaxaca who cannot take their sick two year old to the doctor because they cannot afford to pay him. They watch their son die. They make a decision to come north to the United States. After multiple attempts and humiliations at the hands of La Migra (America's Immigration and Border Officials); they succeed on their fourth attempt. It has been so grueling trying to eke out an existence working in fields, avoiding La Migra, enduring racial slurs, that the family hesitates when asked if they would do it all over again. "They think we're criminals, but we came here to do good and we're all children of God," says Felix Vega. The article concludes, "People like the Vegas will always keep coming no matter the fences that go up on the border and the helcopters that circle above. For they are like the Joads in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. As Steinbeck wrote: How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other."