Our independence as a people is not so much from our traditional colonizers on this day of freedom from the Spanish monarchy, but more from our individual shackles as we learn to use new tools to spread our wings.

The challenge is larger now because those who oppress us do it by subliminal and frontal attacks on our identities. We need to raise our shields by embracing education and by encouraging participation.

The solution is simple, let them see us for the value that we bring and that they would lose. Boycott Arizona, let Alabama lose its products, bring new life,new thoughts and new resources to the States that welcome us. It's just a matter of time before they finally realize we are just like they were when they first arrived to the Land of Immigrants! If they don't, globalization will dominate, no matter what.

And as they consume Asian products, run their households on foreign energy sources, import higher costing food, and find themselves having no choice, but to do the jobs they say we take away from them, but they won't do, just to survive, we will all miss the days of cheap, delicious foreign foods, from gracious and generous people whose only crime was to hope to become another thread in the fabric of this great nation.