I have been an immigrant, an emigrant, an expatriate. My husband is now an immigrant, an emigrant, an expatriate. My children, although born American overseas, (as I am their American-born mother, on American soil), are technically immigrants in that they first set foot on U.S. soil as young children, elementary school age. Yet, we are Americans.
Unless we can claim origins from Native American ancestry, there are no pure, real Americans. Who are we to denigrate immigrants? We all trace our origins from immigrants; we are all mutts. We all descend from immigrant parents, grandparents, or great grandparents, or as far back as the first Pilgrims. We have extraordinary ancestral histories of escapes from persecution, from war, of teenage pluck and fortitude seeking a better life in this unknown land, of survival in the most implausible situations, of forced slavery and bondage—right here in this homeland. They settled here, they assimilated, they became Americans, they fought for their rights. From them, we came. It's the American history, our history, our famous melting pot.
We intermarried, and procreated among whites, blacks, Asians, Europeans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Pacific Islanders, Indonesians, and more. Now we are a cobbled mixed breed of halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths and beyond! We have different family holiday traditions for Christmas, Easter, Hanukah and others depending on our ancestral family traditions. Some decorate a Christmas tree with candles; some craft traditional Swedish cookies, German, Italian, French, or Mexican fare for the holidays; or celebrate their version of Halloween, and New Year's, and even on different dates.
My own town has changed remarkably in the last 25, even 10 years, due to our new hi-tech and wine country economy and those immigrants who populate those industries. It's a town that was founded in the 1800s by Italian, Portuguese, and Russian and Polish Jewish farming immigrants, and now we have Iranians, Indians, French, Mexicans, Spanish, and so much more. We have new festivals, new ethnic restaurants, new languages and foods in the supermarkets and corner stores.
Who do we think we are? Who are we to be NIMBYs (Not In My Backyard)? Who are we to pick and choose that descendants of German-Swedish-WASP origins are Americans and not those of Hispanic, Indian, Arabic and others? This land's indigenous ancestors—the legitimate originals—should have thrown the Pilgrims out.
In the Same Boat
At one point in my life, I was in the same boat. I emigrated from the U.S. to another county. I was an immigrant. It is disconcerting to arrive in a country and not speak the language, not understand the slang, not understand store and street signs, not understand the jokes, not understand the news, not understand the food, not understand the daily dictates of their cultural timetable. You lose your bearings, your pride, your source of judgement. You learn a lot about yourself, and your own history. It's an experience through which one can try and understand how, and what, an immigrant feels when they arrive here in the U.S. It is humbling.
It's hard as an adult to only be able to speak like a 2 year-old for the better part of the first six months, and it's a long road to become assimilated. There are cultural nuances to understand, there are paper chase hurdles to overcome. And then suddenly one day, you dream in your newly acquired language. You watch TV, or a movie, or listen to the car radio (or a podcast), or read a newspaper and magazine, and you get the references, you get the joke, you get the routine. Then you finally earn the golden ticket—the right to vote. And then suddenly, you belong to two countries. Your heart has two homes. Now a product of two cultures, you have dual allegiances: sometimes you can vote in two countries, sometimes you are caught between a rock and a hard place.
A New Today
As we in the United States today, experience this newest wave of immigration of this 21st Century, induced as much by economic need and circumstances as by worldwide conflicts, a new first generation of descendants are now born daily here. For some, notably the "old white men" (who seem to have forgotten their ancestral history), it's upsetting the apple cart, fostering xenophobic fear. Shame on them, shame on us.
It is all for the better. Immigrants make us all better. They bring us new foods, new restaurants, new fast foods, new words, new languages, new perspectives, new holidays, new festivals, new clothes. They educate us about their worlds; they expand our neighborhoods, and our view of the world. No, we can't go backwards, we can't go back to the '50s. It wasn't better then. The "good ole' days" were never that good, nor that perfect. They were too "white bread": too prejudiced, too hypocritical. Those days were just a cog in the wheel, a preface to now, a building block for today. Yet today is still just a moment in passing before tomorrow. We need to savor it. Our immigrants will build on it.
