Americans have not seen any large numbers of protests since the Vietnam War era. There were anti-nuclear protests in the early Reagan era, but those soon died down. It’s not as if there weren’t issues that were a matter of life and death: AIDS, job security, homelessness, health care, crime. None of these brought out the placard carrying thousands.

Now we have the awesome sight of hundreds of thousands who are in the streets to demand that America legalize or legislate the status of undocumented workers. Galvanized and politicized against the Sensenbrenner proposal criminalizing illegals, pro-immigrant labor groups are flexing their numbers and influencing the government “to do something”.

But do what? Our own citizens are ailing.

Americans who are born here live with many of the same insecurities as those who crossed the border. They have no job security. The price of housing, transportation, education and a decent neighborhood is out of reach of many of our middle class.

Black, single family households are still drowning in pathos and poverty…as Katrina dramatized. Older Americans struggle to pay for prescription drugs and hospital bills. Millions of retired factory workers are finding their pensions cut back or eliminated. India and China are surpassing us in higher education and economic growth. The environment is under attack by reactionary Republicans who promise a gas refund and drilling in a wildlife preserve in Alaska. Our national debt is financed by Beijing and Tokyo. We are going in the wrong direction on almost every front of domestic policy.

In rural Nebraska and other areas of the Great Plains, towns are dying. In our coastal metro-sexual cities, such as San Francisco, Boston, Miami and Seattle, housing is out of reach of most mom-dad w/kids families. We are waging a war to promote our values in Iraq, yet we haven’t transformed our own Nation for the better.

While the marchers today may be loosely characterized as “illegals” or “latinos” or “labor”, they are the embodiment of the American dream. They want a better way of life, and are willing to speak out for it. They are teaching those cynical, passive Americans who were born here and sit in gloomy silence, that fighting for justice is indeed worthwhile, and that no human life is unlawful.

Yes, it may be wrong to cross the border and live here without going “through the system”. But for too long, the US has treated Central America and the Southern Hemisphere as an underpaid labor and raw materials outlet, suitable only for exploitation and demanding silent complicity from the powerless.

Today those Spanish speakers are answering back in plain English. Millions of us will not like what we hear. But listening to these new voices may teach us respect, fear and perhaps admiration for the newest Americans.