“Chain
migration” is exactly how my family ended up in this country. And I’ll lay odds
it’s how your family got here too. Our great-grandparents came over to join
their cousins, then they brought over their siblings, then THEY brought over
their parents, till the whole family was here.
And yes, our
families DID come legally. But that’s only because back then, the laws were
much looser (or, before the Civil War, non-existent). Immigration law when my
ancestors arrived was basically “Get off the boat, sign this paper. I can’t
spell your name right so this is how your name is spelled now. Oh, you see your
Uncle Pietro here? Good, go to him and get outta here, there’s a line behind
you. NEXT!” There was no “merit-based”. Your ancestors and mine weren’t doctors
and lawyers in the old country. If they’d had the skills and “merit” to be well-off
in the old country, they wouldn’t have had to leave for a better life here.
And then, as
now, the people who were already here - whose own families had immigrated here
just a few generations back - resented the newcomers for “taking our jobs”,
threw ethnic slurs at them, said they didn’t want people from these shithole
countries, pushed for laws to try and keep them out. My family were welcomed to
the States with signs saying “No Irish need apply”, with people calling them
Wops and Polacks and Micks and Krauts, sometimes getting violent, and telling
them to go back to their own country.
But they
couldn’t. Because THIS was now their own country.
So they
stayed, and they worked their asses off doing shitty menial jobs for shitty pay
or starting small businesses, and they made a life for themselves and their
families, and they brought their extended family over to join them.
Years later, their
kids and grandkids fought for our country in two World Wars. Grandpa Risi even
exchanged gunfire with Italian troops whose ranks included his first and second
cousins. His loyalty was solidly with America, even before his own family.
And you know
what? America didn’t stop being American because the new people weren’t “real
Americans”.[i]
The people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower didn’t stop speaking
English. But they did start eating pizza and bagels. They didn’t stop singing
their favorite hymns. But they did start listening to jazz and rock (the offspring
of blending African, Latin, and Jewish musical ideas). And I promise you, no
one will have to stop watching the Super Bowl[ii],
or baking apple pies[iii],
or drinking Budweiser[iv],
or setting off fireworks[v]
on the Fourth of July, or going to the church of their choice[vi],
because of today’s immigrants. But I bet we will start eating more pupusas,
listening to more Ethiopian music, encountering lots of cool new cultural ideas
and weaving them into our own lives and putting our own unique spin on them.
And a
generation from now, those new things will be a treasured part of American
culture. Which, no doubt, people will want to defend from the pernicious ways
of whatever group is trying to enter the country next. And those people will be
wrong too.
Because
immigrants and their families aren’t what stand in the way of making America
great.
They – we – ARE what make America great.
© John M. Munzer
[ii] The climactic game of a sport based on British rugby –
which is a game based on the original football, which only Americans insist on
calling “soccer” – which in turn is a game that was first played 2,000 years
ago in China.
[v] Invented in China.
[vi] To listen to the teachings of a brown-skinned Middle
Eastern Jewish rabbi, who spent the first few years of his life as a refugee in
Egypt, and is famous for being brutally killed by Italian soldiers.
