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.
posted by Lilly @ 9:14 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Just thinking out loud here...Why do 'native Americans' get a free pass? It is in the nature of human beings to explore and migrate. Indeed, our survival depends on it. From the perspective of the millions of large mammals that were wiped out by the early hunting newcomers, they weren't exactly welcomed here either.
Immigration is a complex issue that I admittedly don't follow very closely. I tend to think we need to acknowledge the reality: Millions want to come here and many do, even if illegally. Many American businesses rely on their cheap labor. (I think many businesses want to keep them all illegal so they can better manipulate the poor, vulnerable migrants. Read or watch "Fast Food Nation.") Perhaps we need a more open worker permit system so these poor people can work honestly in a system that protects them from abuse.
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