The Melting Pot in Action

The following tidbit about immigrants was brought to my attention by the Liberator Online, a Libertarian newsfeed. Libertarians are making more sense to me than the fascist-leaning Republicans. Never thought I would come to that!

"Immigrants contribute nearly one-fourth of the
economic output of New York State, and outside of New York City, they are
overrepresented in some of the most critical occupations, including higher
education and health care, according to a study to be released today. In the
suburbs north and east of the city, about 4 of every 10 doctors and more than
one-fourth of college professors were foreign-born, the study by the private
Fiscal Policy Institute found. In upstate New York, where just 5 percent of
residents are foreign-born, immigrants accounted for about one-fifth of the
professors and more than one-third of the doctors, according to the study. The
study, conducted over the past year, concluded that the contributions of people
born outside the country have spread far beyond the low-wage, low-skill work
often associated with immigrants."

-- "Immigrants Pull Weight in Economy, Study Finds," New York Times, November 26.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26report.html?ref=todayspaper

The New Colossus

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Like every Jewish school child, I learned about Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) in Hebrew School and felt pride that these words, which grace the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, were written by a fellow Jew. It was the violent anti-Semitism of the Russian and German pogroms in the early 1880s that radicalized Lazarus’ poetry, and led to the passion about immigration that she expresses in her seminal work.
Love,
Lilly

Immigration

A friend recently sympathized with my daughter’s experience, but added that she didn’t know much about the immigration issue. “Wouldn’t it be like opening our borders to terrorists to allow just anybody in?” she asked. Here is my answer to her, in three parts.

1) We are the immigrants.
Every citizen of this country, except for the Indians, came here within the last few hundred years as immigrants. After the first import of British colonials, who began the genocidal sweeping out of the native population, great waves of immigration subsequently brought Jews, Catholics, Irish, Germans, Slovaks of all kinds, Asians of all kinds, Latin Americans and a marvelous variety of other ethnicities, languages, races and religions to our shores. The African-Americans, of course, were originally forced here as slaves. I believe my friend’s background is Italian. None of us can claim “nativehood” except those who immigrated ten thousand or more years ago across the land bridge from Siberia.

Every time a new kind of immigrant came to the United States seeking freedom or financial gain, those already here complained. Sometimes, as in the case of the KKK, we complained violently. Mostly, we complained because we were afraid the newcomers would bring disease or bad religion, or would take our jobs, or would act in un-American ways. They sounded different. They looked different, and we feared difference. But in truth, the newcomers brought fresh energy, took jobs we disdained, worked hard, enriched our culture and cuisine, and integrated fully. Why, now, do we close our doors, except out of the same old fear? And who is fear-mongering now?
Love,
Lilly


My response here is, by its blogging nature, simplistic and incomplete. For more information, please check out these websites.

Immigration History offers the basics.

For the more erudite among us, try the Immigration Research Center at the University of Minnesota.

Immigration Debate Links from the Constitutional Rights Center offers this page of links at the high school reading level.

No Borders Camp. Who are the terrorists, here?

Last week, my daughter was at the No Borders Camp at Calexico, at the Mexican border. As they have at walls around the world, our kids met to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall and share their ideal world: one in which no person is illegal, in which love prevails, in which we need no walls to wall people in or out.


They threw food over the wall and kissed through the wall. They cried shame to the border police and their weapons and hate-contorted faces. They danced and banged on drums, made music and art. For most of the “action” everything was quiet, even though it was tense to be surrounded by armed police and their vehicles, and sleeping under their kleig lights. Then, at the last moment, 100 police brutally attacked a group of about 30 kids, ganging up on them, beating them with heavy sticks and shooting them at close range with their pellet weapons.

Three young men were severely beaten and arrested, and ironically, charged with attacking the heavily armed federal officers. Please go to the No Borders Camp website to see video of the attack as well as scenes from the peaceful week of action. Although the No Borders Camp has met at other locations around the world, here in the United States is the first place they were attacked by representatives of the national government.