In Our Comfort Zone

I know, I know. It shouldn’t be:
Hispanics here illegally.
Eleven million at last count,
A stunning figure bound to mount.
Five states have ruled it’s not okay.
The rest, though, look the other way.

Consider stiff conservatives
Whose law-and-order credo gives
Short shrift to stealthy Mexicans—
Who’ve come in trunks of minivans—
But long for agribusiness cash
To throw a re-election bash.

Who else is going to pick the fruit,
Perhaps that pesticides pollute,
Beneath a sun no clouds assuage
For just the lowest legal wage.
Before the family wanders on
To vegetables in Oregon?

Or clean our rooms, or cook our steak
Two jobs, sometimes without a break?
Complicit are we in this grind
Not out of sight but out of mind.
Reminders, still, of hopes and fears
Of forebears who were pioneers.