Now that the regulations for the transitional workers will be drafted, I am requesting your good heart to consider giving improved status to long-term guest workers who have worked and live in the CNMI legally.
Please consider the contributions the guest workers have made on this island — it’s not our island, but it’s a place we consider home.
I am not trying to boast but I just want to point out that whatever the CNMI’s economic situation is, we are here — we remain its key workforce.
We are willing to undergo the usual screening and processing of U.S. immigration laws, but please consider our length of stay, our contributions, our skills, professions and experience. We are paying taxes in a timely manner, we do volunteer community services and we have never been a burden to the CNMI government and the community.
Whether the people of the CNMI admit it or not, our presence made living here more exciting and wonderful.
Please consider also the welfare of our U.S. citizen children. Because if you truly believe that the children are the future, you might be losing the CNMI’s best assets for a better future. These children of guest workers are usually the ones excelling in academics and sports. And these are the same children representing the CNMI in regional competitions and coming home most of the times with pride and honor for the islands. They may not have the blood of Chamorros or Carolinians but their love for this island as their own homeland runs in their blood too. They got the privilege to be called the citizens of the world’s greatest nation, but please give them the privilege to stay here together with their parents.
Even some of the guest workers have been representing the CNMI in international competitions, whether in sports or in the arts, and have proven themselves champions in their fields. This helps the CNMI to be better known in some parts of the world.
And if what you are saying is true, that once federalization kicks in, there would be more stability in the CNMI economy, then the more you would need us. We have proven ourselves to be survivors — we have remained here throughout the CNMI’s economic ups and downs.
We may not be the best guest workers in the world, but we have tried and worked very hard to do the best we can to keep the CNMI economy afloat.
We have endured the name calling yet we have opted to stay and work here because we are believers of equality.
MALOU H. BERUECO
As Gono, Saipan
