A Nation of Migrants

Diversity is the heart of America

   Much has been ranted recently about the danger of migrants to the U.S. But consider this: Where would America be without migrants?
   A brief glance at history reveals this: America would not exist had it not been for migrants.
   From its earliest days, newcomers to North America came from dozens of other countries and cultures, each contributing to the diversity that Americans have long considered part of the national experience.
   This is not to say there haven't been problems, resentment and controversy, as there are today.
   But it is a reminder that America was founded and grew through the work of newcomers, from the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus and his Spanish crew to the Spanish settlers throughout the West and in Florida, to the French in New Orleans and the area that was the Louisiana Purchase, to the Swedes in New Jersey and the Dutch in New York, to the Norwegians in the Midwest, to the English in New England, to the Germans who served the British Army during the War of Independence and then stayed, as well as those who settled in Pennsylvania, to the Italians in the 19th and 20th Centuries, as well as Jewish newcomers from Eastern Europe, plus those from China who helped build the railroad across the continent, in addition to those from Japan and other Far East countries, and the many Africans who were brought to America as slaves, and those from Middle Eastern nations and those from the Indian subcontinent who came in search of opportunity.
   And we mustn't forget the Irish and the Scots. After all what kind of a parade or funeral would it be without bagpipes?   
   
   So the question becomes, which of these many groups of people has the right to call themselves the only "true Americans," and can relegate all the others to a class of "undesirables"? Perhaps the answer is that the only "true Americans" are the members of the native tribes whose ancestors were already here for many hundreds of years before the European invasion.
   It is an accident of history that the most common language in America is English. It could as easily have been Spanish, since they were here first. Or Dutch or Swedish, since they were close behind. Or Norse, since Vikings explored North American shores long before Columbus. Or even Gaelic, since Brendan the Navigator was here even before the Vikings.

   Periodically in America, there have been waves of resentment against newcomers who did not sound like or look like the self-appointed "real Americans" who by chance happened to be here first. At various times, these "America Firsters" wanted to close the Golden Door of opportunity and snuff out the lamp of freedom held up by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
   We're seeing that attitude again. The attitude that says, "You can come to America only if you look like me, talk like me and believe like me. Otherwise, stay away or I'll build a wall to keep you out."
   Maybe a wall should have been built a long time ago to keep them out. But that would have been un-American.