Immigration Hoopla – Part Two

Federal immigration reform is needed and fast! It’s needed to keep folks from doing really bad things to those among us who just want what the US promises for a better life. It seems many have either forgotten US history—even the flawed version many of us Boomers learned—or are choosing to be ignorant of the process of immigration and blind to how we selectively favor some groups over others.

Let me say first, I assume with the exception of people who were known miscreants in their homelands, that the majority of people who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century were good people. They wanted to avail themselves to all the advantages our democracy had to offer. That said, I’m curious about a big WHAT IF question. Let me explain. One of the most popular observations from close-the-borders proponents is the proud proclamation that their families “came to this country the right way.” WHAT IF their ancestors hadn’t had an ocean between them and the U.S.?

Take, for example, the Irish. What if Ireland, instead of Mexico, was our southern neighbor during the great potato famine? During that period in Ireland’s history, the US was building an economy on the backs of tens of thousands of involuntary immigrants and the country was growing. If they could have fled the famine by walking across the border from the south into the US, does anyone think Irish people wouldn’t have done that? While there isn’t a famine per se in Mexico, there is extreme poverty and an economy that isn’t exactly flourishing. Is there any wonder that Mexicans want to flee to the US?

It seems we have these hissy fits every time a group of people of color start flooding into the country or, I should say, try to. There were some who thought the world was going to end when Vietnamese came after the fall of Saigon. It didn’t. Floridians balked when Cubans fled to the sunshine state during the revolution. The sun still shines in Florida. I guess it’s just that we’re so far removed from the period when there was a crush of foreign-born new people streaming onto Ellis Island that we’ve forgotten what it was like. Then again, perhaps the more homogenous looking immigrants were more palatable. But wait! Those that “talked funny” weren’t too popular, either, even though they looked more similar. What happens to people once they assimilate that makes them forget who they were beforehand? Ah! Assimilation…That’s another blog. It’s all very curious.

I don’t know if teachers are still teaching the great melting pot theory or not. I certainly hope not. It wasn’t true when the expression was coined and it isn’t true today. Anti-immigration proponents long for the good old days when fewer of “those people” were here. News flash! Those days are gone, over, kaput! Can’t we all just get along?