Aliens

It is interesting that we use the word aliens to describe people from another planet just as readily as we use it to describe people who sneak into the country. Although it is considered bad form, some people use the word freely to describe legal immigrants as well. Either way, the term alien is simply meant to be used to describe something foreign to us. We can have alien thoughts and alien ideas just as easily as we can offend someone with our alien arguments. I don’t think it is the word that is meant to be so offensive, but the connotation we have developed in spite of the meaning.

When we refer to someone as an alien, we are making a statement; most often about their race and the perceived right they have to be in the country. While we are all a little alien to some degree, we hold illegal aliens in the highest form of disregard. There are plenty of ways to enter the country legally, this is true, but for some people coming into the country illegally is their only measure for a desperate situation. The term alien applies to them only in the fact that they were born elsewhere. Yet we look down our noses at the alien population. I wonder how we would regard aliens that came from space, assuming aliens wouldn’t come from elsewhere like the depths of the deepest parts of the ocean. There is plenty for everyone. We need not assign people of different nationalities the title of alien in order to feel like they are infringing on our human rights. If we all worked together, we could make the world a place where there was no need for the “aliens” to escape.