All four of my grandparents were immigrants. They left the villages (and in one case, a city) of what was then the Pale of Settlement of Russia – now, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania and Belarus – to escape the tyranny and anti-Semitism of Russia and to find new lives in the “Goldeneh Medina” of the United States.
They believed Emma Lazarus’s lines: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” (My grandmother actually taught them to me when I was a very young child – only a little older than when my grandfather taught me the Pledge of Allegiance.) So did millions of Southern and Eastern Europeans who filled the steerage of countless ships that passed Lady Liberty and landed on Ellis Island.
The only immigration lines that existed then were the lines waiting for the inspectors at Ellis Island. They were terrifying enough, since anyone who showed signs of disease was sent back – and tuberculosis was endemic in the European slums. But at least the terror was short-lived; the immigrants of the 1890s to the 1920s did not have to wonder for months or years if they would be accepted by the U.S. government.
On the whole, this wave of immigrants did pretty well. They began at the bottom of society – in my family’s case, on the Lower East Side of New York. My grandmother’s story is fairly typical: as a young woman, she worked in the garment industry, in a sweatshop, ironing “waists” 12 hours a day for pennies. She could easily have been one of the young women killed in the Triangle Fire, but by then (1911) she was married and had a child.
Shortly after that, my grandfather bought a delicatessen, also on the Lower East Side. After some success, the newly American family moved out of New York and into the “real” American heartland: Dayton, Ohio. It was there my father went to high school, and had dreams of going to dental school that were cut short by the Depression.
That path – from unskilled labor to small business; from the teeming city streets to smaller communities – was not untypical of that generation of immigrants. Or any: look at the immigration patterns of the Chinese and Japanese in the 20th century. And today you find the Italians, the Bohemians, the Poles and the Jews (and the Chinese and the Japanese) at all levels of American society, and in cities and towns across the continent.
But that easy access to the American way of life ended in 1924, when the right-wingers of the day decided that there were too many Italians, Poles and Jews in their White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant America. Congress passed the Immigrations Restriction Act, which restricted immigration to 2% of each of the ethnic groups living in the U.S. in 1890 – before the great immigration wave of the late 19th-early 20th centuries, thus preserving the WASP vision of America. Or so they thought.
That approach to immigration – making it as difficult as possible for most – has held to this day. And it is the fact that the 10 or 12 or 20 million undocumented immigrants are brown that makes the current situation a “crisis” rather than a problem to be dealt with calmly and compassionately.
The undocumented – the “illegals” – for the most part are working at the bottom of the employment ladder: the “jobs Americans don’t want.” But they are making lives for themselves and their families, and trying to ensure that their children get a good education so their lives will be better – higher on that ladder. Just like my grandparents. Remember the fuss Tom Tancredo made a few years ago when the academic-star son of undocumented immigrants, who had lived in Denver almost all his life, and done all his schooling there, wanted to attend a Colorado university at the in-State tuition rates? That young man represents the next generation of today’s immigrants.
As long as this country has a standard of living much higher than that of most of the countries in this hemisphere, the poor and desperate will come pouring in. And they will come, whether or not there is a fence, or armed guards, or unmanned aircraft with infra-red detectors. They will come for the jobs they can get, and stay for the lives their children will have. Is that so bad?
Want to stop the flood? Invest in the Mexican and Guatemalan economies rather than in guns and fences and troops. Make it possible for life there to be as good as life here. Pay a living wage for those “jobs Americans don’t want.” They’ll want them, if they can make a living working them. Strengthen our economy along with our neighbors’ and see how far that gets us.
And remember where you came from.
Lynn Hirshman is a writer who is also the Executive Director of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association. Her passion for social justice is matched only by her passion for the renewable energy that may yet save our planet.
The new Immigrants are brown: Is that what makes it a "crisi
To answer Lynn Hirshmans` question... No, That is Not what Makes this "Immigrant Crisis' a BIG Problem to be Dealt with So Essential. The Crisis is that This US of A. that welcomed immigrants from all over the world..can not do That any longer. This Country has been Taken advantage of..Big time. The Wording on that Statue of Liberty Should be refined right down to a Smooth Surface...Or else, Send the Statue Back to France where it came from. The more I consider that Gift from France, the more I come to view it as A way to Eventually Bring this country down to a Third world Status.. By Leveling the Contents in the Pot. For Too many Illegal Immigrants have simply Took it upon themselves to Walk over here ( Borders ? ) and Demand to be given a job, and the wherewithal to Exist on until One was Handed over, ( Legal Papers, Or not. ) These Illegals keep swarming in by the truckloads, Sneaking past the Border patrol by the hundreds every day..And NOW,there are So many Million "Brown-skinned Illegals' in this country that it isn`t even certain What the count really is ! ( Somewhwere between twelve and twenty Million is a fair bet.) NO, the color of their Skin is Not the deciding factor in Whether they can sneak in and Stay. What Is the Overwhelming factor is that This Country can no longer absorb them. It is True that they Are here.. "Job-looking. But it is Not true that "They do jobs American workers are refusing to do.' What is so Wrong is that allowing them to come in and Take these''Minimum-wage jobs at a lesser wage than minimum, is Causing a big Hardship to our own legal American Workers. What is so Wrong is that Our GUVMT> ? Is encouraging this type of Behavior out of the Employers in this country. Big Business gets away with this sort of action because Big Business contributes a lot of Money, on a regular basis.. to the political Apparatus . They save themselves a lot of money by paying the Mexican illegals a much Lesser pay than the Minimum wage by law ( Something that Our American employees would, legally, Insist on getting.) This way, Big Business Prospers..And So does the Political Party that is in Power. Fix this Problem ..By cutting off the head of the Snake. EVerytime an employer is known to Hire an illegat immigrant ( NO matter What the Color ) Fine them Enough to Make a Dent in his ever wanting to Continue breaking the Laws of this Land. This Is a Problem the President of Mexico Should Attend to.He should Work towards better Working conditions For his People Who Live there and ARE Mexican Citizens. Furnish Decent Living wage jobs within Their own Borders , and They will not be Flocking across our Border to a Nation that Must Start Taking Care of its` own Poor Folks.. before Taking on Any more of the Worlds ` Tired and Hungry,the Down-trodden and the disenfranchised from Other Countries. Be fair and far-thinking enough to Never ask this Question again,"Is it because of the Brown color of the Skin?' It should be pretty plain long before now..that This Infiltration has Got to Stop. 'No More Room at the Inn.' Yes, Mexico Must be Aided , Big time..to get on its` feet so it CAN provide for ITS` Own. In the meantime, Pres. FOX.. Get it in gear! No one should expect a free ride because of being poor. Nor should a Government expect a country that is better off than theirs is..to Take its` problems on and solve them. Think about what is Really needed here..and go about Fixing it..instead of Foisting it off on your Closest Neighbor. This is how one loses the Good-will That Should exist between Countries ! VedaGFlick
by
VGFlick (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 76 comments)
on Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 11:44:11 PM
Certain segments of the workforce are dramatically dependent on currently undocumented workers. According to the Pew Hispanic Center's study on the "unauthorized population," 29 percent of all ROOFERS, 27 percent of all BUTCHERS, 26 percent of all maintenance workers, 24 percent of all farmers and 17 percent or all food-preparation workers are undocumented.
Who's going to 'provide a roof over our head' or 'bring home the bacon' if we act upon the racist attitudes of our brilliant elected officials?Though Pew didn't single out Arkansas's contributions to " excellence in capitalism " and our beacons/paragons of Chamber-of-Commerce virtue: Tyson and Wal-Mart;I suspect undocumented workers by the thousands are hidden in their respective --wink, wink....' business expenses'
by
Roy Murtishaw (14 articles, 0 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 78 comments)
on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 8:39:26 AM
3 comments
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