One habit I don't plan to relinquish is surfing. The chain of blogs, especially, takes me ever deeper into intriguing subjects. A topic I have been summoning courage to write about is US Immigration policies, because they are so volatile and people feel so passionate about them. It's as incendiary, these days, as abortion. I don't like to tick people off, because I'm so good at making nice. But immigration on my mind right now because I just finished the annual two-step with Mexican bureaucracy, which turned out to be a piece of cake considering all I had imagined could go wrong.
Ellis Island, as it appeared to my great-great-great grandparents arriving from England and Ireland (History.com)I can just imagine how he'd react to Donna Poisl, a gringa living in Tucson who wrote a book for Mexican immigrants on how to survive and prosper in the states. Here's what she says in her "Immigrants In USA Blog":
This country was built by immigrants, it will continue to attract and need immigrants. Some people think there are enough people here now and we don't need more. There have been people saying that since the 1700s and it is still not true. We need immigrants here and we need them to be successful in order to make this country safe and strong and a world leader. We also must help them to become Americans and not just people who live here and think of themselves as visitors.......or criminals? My mother's family came from England (one of the more approved sources of immigrants) and Ireland (one of the least-approved, at one point in our history). Most of them were here before Ellis Island and all it came to represent: the barrier that told the people of the world not all of them were welcome. Probably none of them ever had to stow away like a rat in a ship's bilge to get to the States, or spend months mired in paperwork for citizenship. My dad's family came from Holland in 1906, and though they had to run the gauntlet at Ellis Island their fair skin and blue eyes no doubt moved them ahead in the line. I've wondered about the hardships my ancestors faced that drove them to cross the ocean and come to the New World; economics probably played a bigger role than freedom of religion. But now economics as motivation is frowned upon, and even oppression is recognized as a valid reason only if the oppressors are currently out of favor with the government.
It's all a matter of timing, isn't it? Three hundred years ago, Spanish was the language spoken in most of the Southwest. Now, when you cross the border into Errorzona, your car is stopped while fully-armed official profilers get a good look at you. If you're blue-eyed and fair-skinned you're waved on. But what if you're not?
Here's the poem Emma Lazarus wrote for the Statue of Liberty. This was only her opinion, back in the latter half of the 19th century. Imagine how she would be reviled today for these sentiments.
The New Colossus
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-toss't to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"