Can Mexicans Be Illegal Americans In The U.S.? Poem by Ripuree Rip

Dear President Obama
Your intervention I expediently seek,
To correct the problem of who is, or isn't American
A problem which Donald Trump has re-energized.


Sir, the U.S. is just one country 'of' North America
And America is 'not' just the U.S.
Mexicans, Canadians, Jamaicans and Haitians
Are also Americans from being born in North America
With no less American status, than those born in the U.S.


An undocumented Mexican in the U.S. is only illegal to the U.S.
But 'Illegal American' he cannot be.
Therefore calling any born on any of the American continents
Illegal Americans,
When they move within countries in the Americas
Is an illegal and illegitimate practice
Whose power should be revoked.


When a Zambian goes to Egypt he's still considered African
As a Chinese in Japan, is just as Asian as he'd been at birth
An Italian in France is still European
And they need no legal papers,
To have their: African, Asian or European status conferred.

The land mass of the world is divided into seven continents
Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, and America North
and South
And each continent has some of the 195 countries in the world
And the U.S. is just one of 23 countries in North America, as well as Mexico, Haiti and Jamaica
Making us all equally American from birth.


White Americans once claimed that only they were Americans
Denying even indigenous natives their legal birthright
And although such racist nonsense is no longer blatant
It was never officially, universally and academically debunked.


When I came from Jamaica (of North America) , to the U.S.
My American status was still intact
Naturalization should not have made me a legitimate American
As that description does not singularly belong to U.S. births.


So dear President Barack Obama
Before your final bow from the White House
Please clarify for posterity Sir, the question of
Who is a legal and legitimate American
As opposed to who is illegal just to the U.S.
And thus 'trump' the misconceptions of The Donald and others
Who think that the majority of Americans -not born in the U.S.
Are not as American, as the Euro-American concocted Apple Pie.