Yesterday's CNN headline for most of the day was, "I just want America to be the old America"... this appeared to infer the person speaking wanted America not to be "invaded" by folks from South America as the accompanying article was about illegal immigrants on a bus being stopped by the citizens of a small town and told to go back where they came from. It's all over the news... border problems... immigration policy... citizenship... etc. It is a financial nightmare and a political hot topic.
I doubt the person in that quote meant it literally... the "old America" was one prior to the European invasion. It was a place where a group of Takelma Indians inhabited the local Table Rock mountain for more than 15,000 years. It was a place of teepees, buffalo, bows, arrows, and people who had lived here for thousands of years. My European English and Irish ancestors, with the help of many of your ancestors, changed that America. It was a dreamland to my very hungry Irish ancestors who fled the potato famine in Ireland... still, who could blame them for wanting a better life? Especially as they seemed more than willing to work for it in jobs few citizens of the time wanted... the first Irish immigrants were thought of as the scum of society. They were hated and paid terrible wages...
Many years later, the grand-children, great-grand-children, and so on of these immigrants have helped shape our society and history: Gene Kelly, Georgia O'Keeffe, Harrison Ford, and Kurt Cobain have given much to the arts; Henry Ford has given us innovation; film directors like Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock have taught us to laugh and scream; Kate Chopin, Tom Clancy, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Anne Rice are just a few of the Irish blooded writers who have shaped our vision; Roger Ebert,Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly have given social and political voice to opinion and news; in fact,since Jimmy Carter was President, he and every President since have had Irish ancestry (yes,Reagan,Bush,Clinton AND Obama)... the dirty, worthless, drunken Irish immigrants have certainly made our world a richer place.
So what is it we are afraid of? Are we afraid we'll end up as bad off as the people we took this land from? That is beyond doubtful, although there are serious considerations to be made regarding job availability, government assistance, and schooling. Have we run out of room? The people of Boston sure felt that way when the Irish "invasion" occurred... there were people living in shacks on the streets... I feel so lucky that my ancestors fought the way they did... fought to make this their home... fought so that I could live the life I do...
It seems as if all of this is strangely relevant to the current immigration problem... so many threads connecting us... I don't have answers here, and I see the problems are many, but I remember being taught as a child words like: "This land is my land, this land is your land"... who was the "your" in that song? I was told America is the "land of the free and home of the brave"... so, do we exclude people in debt and cowards at our boarders?
Again... not sure where I'm going with this... the ramblings of a summer-drunk teacher with time on her hands... but I wonder what it must be like to live in a country that is so terrible you feel you must leave your family to try to make a better life... for yourself, or for your children... so terrible you are willing to send your child alone over the boarder with little other than a kiss on the forehead... these sound like brave people to me? At least as brave as the folks who boarded those large ships leaving Ireland and heading to a new world...
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