My favorite national holiday is the Fourth of July. I enjoy all our national holidays, but I think my next favorite national holiday would become one we don't have yet.
Our national holidays commemorate the birth of our nation, and honor our veterans, presidents, and great civilian leaders such as Martin Luther King. We honor with a holiday those who served our country and those who died in military service.
But there isn't a holiday to honor those who actually built America, our immigrants.
My four grandparents were immigrants to the United States. They came here legally about a hundred years ago. They came not to seek prosperity, just to get by, but they found prosperity anyway. This country is so generous. Grandpa's brother couldn't come here legally, so he immigrated to Argentina instead. His family had to settle for less; they missed the golden prize.
I admire my grandparents for transplanting their lives and moving to a strange land where they didn't know anyone, didn't know the language, and didn't know what would become of them. It must have been frightening, stressful and yet exhilarating.
You had ancestors who came to America. Did your relatives arrive 150 years ago? Were they on the Mayflower 400 years ago? I have a friend whose family arrived on the seventh ship after the Mayflower. Did your ancestors voyage here chained to sinful slave ships? Perhaps they were the very first immigrants, the so-called "native Americans," who came from Asia, across the frozen Bering Sea, down through Alaska 11,000 years ago, to find a lonely, lush land. Unselfishly, the continent welcomed everyone.
Maybe you came more recently. Near my wife's parents lives a fine family who came from Bosnia a few years ago.
Yes, your people came here as did mine. People still come, mostly for the same reasons. Make a living. Raise a family. Political freedom. Religious freedom. Prosperity? Well, to have those is prosperity.
So I have great respect for those who came to America and great compassion for those who want to come here now. They want to come for the same reasons we're proud to be Americans.
But people should come to America legally. We are a compassionate people, but respectful of laws.
The U.S. Border Patrol estimated 4 million people crossed our borders illegally in 2002, the last year official statistics were made public. The number is rising yearly. Although the law forbids it, many employers eagerly hire illegal immigrants so they can pay lower wages the workers are desperate to accept. Selfishly ignoring the law, whether to come here illegally or to hire those who do, dishonors America and her immigrants.
A national holiday in tribute to America's immigrants should be in January. January symbolizes a new start. Our immigrant ancestors started a new life by coming here and built a strong new nation, which we lovingly preserve. Every American is an immigrant or descended from them. A nation indebted to immigrants should commemorate them every year with a holiday in their honor.
http://theviewfrommycouch.blogspot.com/
Lawrence Fiarman is a freelance writer and former columnist for the local newspaper in his midwestern hometown.
See kstone's comments. Mr Fiarman's idea for an Immigrant Day holiday are the epitome of racism, divivsive in the extreme, & something W & co will endorse. The holiday does nothing for the so called illegal immigrants who come here for jobs. Scrub the Immigrant Day holiday. Work for the rights of so called illegal immigrants so these workers may become naturalized American citizens.
It's implicit in the celebration of the 4th of July that we celebrate the contributions of all Americans to our nation. Isn't that still taught in grade school?
Providing equal economic opportunities for all Americans is more important than honoring all immigrants including those who stole this nation's more fertile & useful lands including the early immigrants who started stealing land from Native Americans & those of us who continued & perfected the art of the land grab with a holiday.
Bad idea, Mr Fiarman, very bad idea. Keep your ancestor worship to yourself.
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larry278 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 47 comments)
on Sunday, January 14, 2007 at 10:11:15 PM
I'm sorry, but it is just incorrect to call enslaved Africans "immigrants." My African ancestors did not come for a better life -- at least, not for their OWN life to be better. And yet THEY built a lot of this country, at the end of a whip. You consider that a minor detail? You figure generations back are all of the "immigrant" category, save the little footnote that some of those immigrants believed it was their Manifest Destiny to ENSLAVE one group of "immigrants" and to "TAME OR KILL" yet another?
It is also incorrect to call Native Americans, past or present, "immigrants." To say my Tuscarora and Wampanoag ancestors simply immigrated here is to deny their sovereignity, and the historical contributions of all native people pre-America. I guess you don't really believe in the name "Native American" -- perhaps you'd rather say "Bering-Straight-Americans." To go that route, there are no Europeans or Asians either -- no Bosnians, Chinese, French, Thai, Italians, Russians. Just Africans. Yet I doubt I'll be reading your proposal for an African Day national holiday anytime soon.
Here's a better idea. Instead of drumming up color-blind support for a "Melting Pot" holiday (with its clear undertone of "Legal Immigrants, Good. Undocumented Immigrants, Bad!") how about we honor freedom and those who fight for it? How about honoring Diversity, instead of denying that national oppression is part of what MAKES us different? How about forgetting about holidays and getting out in the streets -- honoring all of our ancestors who DID fight for freedoms -- before it's too late to resist at all?
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Mars Caulton (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 83 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 1:13:40 AM
I use the word immigrant in a wider sense than some may be accustomed to. I include all the people who came to America before our Constitution was adopted. That includes George Washington and everyone who came here before him. Science tells us that Native Americans arrived in America between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago from the Pacific – coming through Alaska from the north, and from the coast of Chile from the south; and from Europe in a small number of isolated incidents around 5,000 years ago. Science considers North America a land without human habitation prior to these immigrants and those on the Mayflower. I think we should honor all American immigrants whether they arrived before or after this nation was formed.
We know that many did not choose to come, even some who did not come from Africa. We know some came as slaves, indentured servants, escaped prisoners both rightly and wrongly accused, deserters from armies of czars, kings and tyrants. But they all came here from somewhere else -- the definition of immigrant -- and all contributed to what we are today.
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Lawrence Fiarman (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 3 comments)
on Monday, January 15, 2007 at 11:00:15 AM
4 comments
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