Immigrants and this Idea Called America

My ancestors were immigrants. They came the long journey to this country to escape war, poverty, and religious persecution. Like many, they were not able to come here directly, but lived for a time as refugees in a country whose language and customs were different from their own. They came here crammed into the holds of ships with little more than the clothes on their backs, and the will, and the hope to make a better life for themselves and their families. When they arrived in their new country, everything was different. The climate, the people, their language, and their culture were unfamiliar and at times felt threatening to them. Like many immigrants, they did not understand “the way things were done” here. They made lots of mistakes and kept mostly to themselves. Their skin was a different color, they wore odd clothing, spoke a foreign language, and had strange customs. They followed a strict interpretation of their religion, observed all of the holy days, and prayed on their knees at the prescribed times. The men had absolute authority over the women, whose job it was to tend to the home, raise the children, and to obey.

And they were not welcomed by everyone. Many of those already living here saw them as a threat: selfish foreigners with a reputation for violence, intruders who came uninvited, took what wasn’t theirs, and insisted on following their own laws and customs. Even though they worked hard, they still needed assistance and training to get on their feet and to simply learn how to survive here. In time, they were able to become self-sufficient; but, they were the unwelcomed immigrants and undocumented aliens of their day. Of course, that was four hundred years ago, and now my immigrant ancestors are remembered each Thanksgiving Day as the Pilgrims. 

We are America. “We the people…” are America. But, we began as “We the immigrants…we the hungry… we the homeless and afraid.” And, we became who we are by opening our doors to other immigrants, the cast off and disadvantaged, from other nations who came that same long journey to a promise of refuge and hope. Many still make that journey out of war, and poverty and displacement. Others, already here, still struggle to make the journey out of the second-class invisibility, in which the fear and prejudice of others, have too long sought to restrain them. And, there are some who have yet to begin their own journeys out of the dark ghettos of their own hate and bigotry in which they have long been too willing to live.

Neither my ancestors, nor anyone, past or present who have helped to create this country, have always been right in what they have done. The treatment of indigenous peoples, the wrongs of slavery, segregation, and our shared history of intolerance of others should never be forgotten. Yet, in our own ways, good or bad, each has contributed to making this country a place in which we teach our children not to judge people simply by where they came from, nor to hold them morally convicted for the actions of others. As a people, we aspire to the ideal that all men are created equal, that government of the people and by the people, and for the people should not be allowed to perish, and that the rights to life and to liberty and to strive for whatever seems good and right in one’s heart, are held sacred by all of us, so that they might be preserved for each of us. And, we hold as immutable truth that no authority, however conceived or established, with powers real or imagined, may molest those rights, nor deprive us of them.

Donald Trump is the legitimately elected President of the United States. To say otherwise is to disregard the Constitution; and, to act otherwise is to embrace the very wrongs against democracy of which the President himself has been accused. Yet, many are concerned about Mr. Trump’s policies towards immigrants and those who fall outside the comfortable “normal” of America. As President, Mr. Trump may, and should, act to protect us from threats to our safety according to the obligations and within the constraints required of him by the Constitution. Likewise, the legality of his policies will be determined by those whose Constitutional duty it is to do so.

This country is not created by the power of the government, nor the financial pursuits of business, but in the aspirations of immigrants and in the lessons we teach our children. The cradle of the American character has always been the immigrant hope for a better life, shaped by the struggle against ignorance and prejudice. While the threat of terrorism against random innocents is real, and should not be blindly ignored, the actual incidents of terrorism and of Muslim immigrants perpetrating violent terrorist acts in this country, is much lower than many believe, and often portrayed in the media (Kurzman, 2017). Yet, the President’s policies threaten to replace that hope, and the belief in justice and simple kindness, with a dark retreat into fear and bigotry. And, neither the President, nor anyone else can protect this country, by closing our airports and our hearts to compassion and acceptance, nor by seeking to build a wall of fear and ignorance along our borders.

Immigrants do not threaten America. Immigrants are America. 

Reference:

Kurzman, C. (2017, January 17). Muslim-American Involvement with Violent Extremism, 2016. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University: https://sites.duke.edu/tcths/2017/01/26/muslim-american-involvement-with-violent-extremism-2016/