To Kill the Immigrant Mockingbird: An Immigrants’ Racism Tale

by Dr. Irene Lazarus, MD MPH

   Long ago in Latin America across the South and North Americas lived many mockingbird species. There was famine, war, and persecution in their home and most of the species wanted to migrate across the United States of the American border, because of the many accounts by other birds of better living and opportunities for work, food, and safety. Three different tribe mockingbirds became friends during their arduous migrations: the wise Patagonian Antonio mockingbird from Chile. Sebastian the swaggering brown-backed from Argentinian. Lastly, the beautiful and compassionate Maria from Socorro Island a small volcanic island off the western coast of Mexico. 

Antonio, Sebastian, and Maria were the only the 3 mockingbird species that were not killed by predators, rape, lack of food, or disease along their long treks to the United States. They were survivors because they had survived the Northern American humans. It was common for the mockingbirds to be caught killed, or even sold for their singing, but many were returned back across Mexico if found alive in the food and water traps set by the humans.

The three friends eventually settled in Las Cruces, New Mexico for some time. There they grew to appreciate their customs and learned mocking-chirp language tones unique to their region. Sebastian was able to apply for asylum with the Prairie Falcons of the Southwest, the natives of the New Mexico state. The Prairie Falcons understood that the Argentina brown-backed mockingbirds have been suffering from their cousin the Argentavis magnificens, who committed horrible crimes against them and persecuted their lives down to merge extinction. Sebastian was able to get more worms, and better housing with better work now that he obtained New Mexican citizenship. 

Over time Antonio and Maria noticed that Sebastian started to be able to chirp the English local New Mexican language. Eventually, he started to distance himself from Antonio and Maria, because they did not have a legal status like he did and were less useful for him since they struggled more than he did to learn English chirp. Then Sebastian would deny knowing them at the community bird water hole. After the third betrayal, Maria and Antonio realized that Sebastian was not a friend or family as they once promised to be until their deaths.

Given that life for Maria and Antonio was not improving as so promised by the stories of other birds, they decided to migrate further North to the current day region of the United States Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. This region is where the native Northern mockingbird bird ruled. There was promise for freedom in the north because of their distant bloodline to the Southern Mockingbirds. Maria eventually was able to have a family with a beautiful, boisterous, and patriotically Tennessean Northern Mockingbird named, Bobby Walker III. Maria’s children now could have a better life than she had to fight for after much abuse and trauma on her immigration.  

         Unfortunately for Antonio, the Patagonian mockingbird died on the journey from New Mexico to Tennessee. It is told down from the centuries in the mockingbird species, that Antonio died of a fallen spirit because of the experience he had on his immigration trail. To this day the Socorro Mockingbirds say that Antonio lost his ability to mock the other birds and that his wings broke from his brittle health making it hard for him to finish his flight. Maria told her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren until her last days that when he sang out his last goodbyes, the Patagonian spirit raised from the soil up to the sky and chirped the Patagonian mockingbird tribal saying that states:

“You are the light of the world- like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.”

Maria promised Antonio that she would teach her children how to chirp the Patagonian tribal wisdom chirp in honor of his life. If one ever can hear the Northern mockingbird species song, we know that the modern-day mockingbird species, are rooted from the Patagonian mockingbird species of Chile.  Although, Antonio died in his immigration he left a permanent legacy that has touched the mockingbird species and other birds throughout the centuries. 

Spanish presentation from Fort Worth, Tx Caregiver Event