Immigration

The hallmark of a great civilization is its generosity to the needy. This country was once the proud possessor of that hallmark. But that came after years of fear and selfishness, the Anglos fearing the incursions of the Irish, the Irish of the Jews, the Jews of the Italians, then all of them of the Hispanic. The only “immigrants” really welcomed to our shores were the Africans, packed into pestilent ships, enslaved to enrich. Even lately, during and after World War II, the country feared a wave of Jewish refugees who had, after all, “relatives in enemy occupied territories,” so to speak. We did make exceptions, however, for ex-Nazis with a talent for rockets.

If all of the refugees now in flight were white, blue-eyed, and tall, would we refuse them refuge on the grounds that some of their countrymen are terrorists? We fear the refugees from Syria, because some tiny percentage of them, I hear, are violent people who might shoot us or plant bombs or run amuck in schools, in cinemas, at military bases. Who would freely allow the presence of such folk? But if I were a refugee, would not other countries refuse me on the same grounds because I am an American and because Americans are probably, per capita, the most violent and murderous people on earth?? Why I am more afraid of good red-blooded American crazies than I am of Syrians. I have grown to be more afraid of our own police, our own military establishment, our own bred-in-the bone from childhood violence than I am of a people fleeing it

The True Discovery of America

Who discovered America strikes me as a less interesting and significant question than who was discovered by it.

What America really discovered was the rich potential latent in the ordinary person. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses of Europe and Asia and now of other continents bloomed once they were transplanted to fresh soil, given a chance at the sunlight, and rendered free of many of the weeds and parasites that had so weakened them and depressed their talents previously. Once they were free of kings and warlords, of prejudices that by law relegated them to a narrow field of endeavors, once they were treated as people and not as chattel, their talents and energies flourished and made this country into the envy of the world.

I don’t mean to say that the new world was not without its hindrances, its prejudices, and its desire to exploit. Each group of immigrants found resistance from those already here. The Irish were treated like animals by many, the Poles even worse, the Italians were vilified, and I don’t even want to talk about the Jews. The Chinese were treated like slaves. But look at this: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Igor Sikorsky, Mario Cuomo, Jonas Salk, Anthony Quinn, Yo-Yo Ma. The list, were I to go on, would completely outclass the list of brilliant and productive people from any other country during the last couple of centuries, and yet the ancestors of these talented people had lived, generation after generation, and for thousands of years, under conditions that would not allow their genius and productivity, once freed, to enrich and enlighten the world.

Immigrants have always appeared unsavory to many already established here. So what we see now in the Republican leadership and in our xenophobe president is nothing new. The reaction to strangeness is often negative, even in the more enlightened. But given just a little time, each wave of immigrants starts to contribute and to make life better for all of us and for the world. Now it seems to be the turn of Hispanics to be vilified and portrayed as inferior. Don’t kid yourselves by thinking that racism isn’t involved here too. It often is. (Remember how during WWII Japanese-Americans were put into camps? Ever ask what happened to German-Americans during that period?) To fear what is different is natural. To surrender to that fear is immoral.

I don’t have the knowledge to talk about some the earliest immigrants, the Africans who were wrenched from their homes, kidnapped and then sold as slaves. What they found in America was even worse than what those huddled masses were trying to escape. Nor do I have the knowledge to talk about the people who lived here before the Europeans, whose lands were seized, who trusted in promises broken again and again. Whole groups were annihilated in an new-world version of genocide. It is needless to say that these groups have repaid cruelty by their generosity in enriching the country.

Right now my topic is the discovery of America, and that discovery was little more than the realization of how equally talent is distributed among people. It was never a question of looking for the most talented people. America simply let everyone in, and probably not for the best of reasons, and was richly repaid.

So now we look at a new group of immigrants and, as in the past, some of us look at them with disdain. Just wait. You will see.