And Ben Franklin and the author might like to know that the largest ethnic group in Pennsylvania is German.
5
The great American writer Henry Thoreau said there was no point in trying to get the Irish out of poverty, because the Irish bring their poverty with them, wherever they go. At least a dozen Irish workmen died building the Brooklyn Bridge, for example, but no one bothered to count. Irish lives did not matter.
As far as most 19th century respectable Wasps were concerned, the Irish were ignorant, dirty drunkards, with 13 children each, who voted the way their priests told them--and their mass arrival on our shores meant the end of our American democracy. A standard English argument against granting the Irish their national independence was the corrupt governance of yes, New York City--run by solidly Irish Tammany Hall . . .
Not only their pale complexions but their knowing how to speak English and their familiarity with Anglo legal & political systems enabled Irish politicians to act as the broker or manager between the Wasp elite, on the one hand, and other ethnic & immigrant groups, on the other & ensure for many years, Irish American dominance of urban political machines & police departments.
6
You cannot have both a strong social safety net and porous borders.
When all of our citizens are taken care of, then let's talk about helping trespassers.
6
great article. America need more people like you who don't forget how they arrived in the United States. I just wonder where our values have went. I'm proud you grew up in the SF bay area.
17
great article, the United States need many more people/families like you. Its hard in present political climate to stand up for what is right and not simply label people that don't look/speak/live like oneself as "undesirable". All people have potential if given opportunity. This is how our country was built.
19
Cool story. Tell me more about the millions of low/no-skill jobs in the New York garment district we need to duplicate 19th century mass immigration for.
Here’s another brain-teaser: I hear from the left constantly that our jobs will all be automated next week. But THIS week, we should fill up with even more people who will shortly become jobless. Bit of a contradiction.
12
And where did your ancestors come from? Because unless you're Native American, it wasn't from here.
14
"Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]."
Abraham Lincoln wrote these words in 1855, long before his presidential race was on the horizon. Depressingly, perhaps prophetically, they are as true now as they were then. If Trump and his people even pretended to know about American greatness, really wanted to hearken us back to better times, his administration would remember the words and actions of those before us who tried to elevate us to higher ground--beyond not only the "base alloy" of our historical hypocrisy, but its evil twin: historical amnesia. We forget our history to our great peril, but ignorance is no excuse for cruelty. No matter how many times "fake news" is invoked by our President, many, many of us will not soon forget his administration's hurtful rhetoric--replaying it in our minds as we continue to claw and weep our way through this era. Those that cannot look back should look ahead ask themselves: What will your grandchildren and great grandchildren say?
23
Mr. Kelly just doesn't get it. My Mother came to America from Italy when she was 3 years old. Most of the people I have known who came to America from Italy had a limited education. My Grandmother after living inthe U.S. for more than 50 years when she died was never able to to but together a full sentence in english. I guess the difference is those that came from Europe were White . I'm sorry Mr. Kelly but your statement leaves me the impression that is behind your statement. Mr. Kelly talk about these people not able to assimilate. Well My family never had Thankgiving Dinner without Lasagna with the Turkey. I guess we never Assimilated.
18
The Law of American Assimilation: A formerly despised new-to-America group becomes accepted when it can despise a newer-to-America group.
12
In a September 4, 2013 piece in the Albuquerque Journal, "Study: N.M. families can get up to $30, 435 annually in welfare." The figures are base on a single mother, and two children. This piece said that the amount is more than a job, so it adds to the disincentive to work. The population of New Mexico is about 2.2 million, and over half are Hispanic or Latino, with large numbers of undocumented(illegal). Almost 1 million of the people in that state are enrolled in Medicaid and Chip. What we are dealing with is poverty because of those who have lots of children. If we only allowed adults with no families in, who would have to work, we wouldn't have the ballooning financial costs associated with it. Overeducated non profits like to say, that what these people provide to economy outweighs all the welfare, etc.( food debits cards, Medicaid, housing vouchers, welfare checks, child care costs, etc., but it doesn't, as that is the way the whole country is going. Yes, it starts at the top with corporate welfare, a 74,000 page IRS tax code that gives everyone, every business, etc. deductions, and credits to the point, that few are paying much of anything into the Treasury. There are subsidies(welfare) for farmers who farm corn, soybeans, and wheat. Then there are the deductions for those who own real estate(do we know anyone who was elected President, who has used that one?) Yes, we do, and it is him, and the American taxpayer, and all of their deductions, and credits.
10
Like all who serve this loathsome President, it was only a matter of time before General Kelly would disgrace himself and all he formerly stood for. And in spectacular fashion, he misses the point. It’s not what an immigrant is upon arrival, but what that immigrant, given the chance that is America, may become.
22
At last someone who recognizes and challenges John Kelly's misogynistic attitude about refugees.
9
In White Australia, the first racist battles were between the English and the Irish - the ruling English looking down on the rebel troublemaker Irish like Ned Kelly a famous bushranger shot by the police.
From WWII we had the Jews who went to poor suburbs now considered expensive 70 years later, Greeks who brought us milk bars and better hamburgers, Italians who brought us coffee and olive oil, Lebanese who brought us zucchini, Vietnamese who brought us lots of new green veggies, Chinese who brought us the variety of their regional cuisines, Arabs who brought us some more good food, and Sudanese who are still settling in.
Storming, Norming and Performing - the stages of forming a team - at first friction with the strangeness and some battles, eventually they are considered normal (we now see women walking around with full-face covering - city folk don't bat an eyelid anymore), and then we can all work together well as part of the same society.
Like my first introduction to a Lebanese neighbour in our small country town around 1960 - I didn't know anything about where they came from, but man the food she gave us was amazing - OMG moah pleeze !!!
10
Really so funny in a sad way: Trump's mother was an illegal immigrant! Hypocrisy in full bloom in this sad administration ....
11
Thank you for writing this.
3
Thank you for this. America hangs her head in shame.
5
John Kelly made it four decades in the Marines with his honor and lost it in four months with Trump. Trump is toxic (duh.)
20
Discrimination can be explained with one word: ignorance.
5
There's no question that John F. Kelly's ancestors would have found no welcome in the United States. Kelly is not just Catholic, but of Irish and Italian descent. A major plank of the KKK was its virulent anti-Catholicism because Catholic Americans were considered a primary threat to White Supremacy. The hatred of the KKK towards Catholics boiled over starting in the 1920s, as the Klan was making inroads not just in the South, but throughout the US. In the 1920s, Klan membership exploded with an estimated membership of 5 million. At the time the entire population of U.S., including every man, woman, and child, was just over 100 million. Once Catholics, Jews, and African-Americans, the groups most despised by the KKK, were subtracted from that total, the Klan’s membership would have been equal to 15 percent of the voting eligible population. (That percentage was actually higher once Americans of Asian and South American decent were subtracted). David Stephenson, second in command of the KKK, stated that just one Klansman had successfully traveled "all over the United States burning Catholic churches." In 1923 in Louisiana the Klan used terrorist attacks on Catholic civilians. The KKK called this "selling out," and it meant that one Klansman was to kill as many Catholics as possible before any Catholics managed to kill him. Simply put, the KKK initiated a program of suicide attacks in which each Klansman would die knowing that he alone had killed as many Catholics as possible.
10
A really well written piece. Amnesia seems to be one of our most distinctive traits. In some ways, it served Americans well when it meant always living with an eye toward the future. But in recent decades, amnesia has erupted in disturbing ways, from the way a president not even in office wad blamed for the economic collapse that preceded him, to renewed confidence in solving our problems with regime change in Iran or North Korea.
4
Trumps "animal" comment was directed in response to a question on the criminal gang MS-13. The fact that mainstream media seemed to not report this fairly is the reason that Trump will get re-elected. Thanks guys. You continue to embarrass yourself more every day.....
5
Most American-born Americans (excepting those who have served in the military) were born on third base believing they hit a triple.
Inheritors of the one of the greatest economic advantages in human history, namely an undamaged country after the cataclysm of WWII which could match the economic output of the rest of the world - we have slowly frittered away the last vestiges of our humongous head start. The election of Donald Trump is confirmation we have become, in large part, a nation of entitled idiots.
The ONLY reason we have remained competitive is that we have had the decency and common sense to welcome people from around the world who wanted to live here and work hard. That we are now turning on these same people who have done so much to provide for our nation is proof of our increasing stupidity.
Thank you Mr. Nguyen for a very fine article. It is unfortunate that so many Americans wouldn't understand it if they read it.
13
I just can’t hate the poor unskilled people who want to come here. They remind me of my Italian grandparents, mere peasants with little education but enough grit to get here and work hard.
10
I am honored to have your mother as my sister.
3
Everything Kelly said was true. Dems, liberals and leftists refuse to acknowledge the truth that not all illegal immigrants to this country assimilate and succeed, but instead are a burden on American middle class tax payers. The immigrants who came here legally in the 1800's and the first half of the 1900's made it on their own without welfare (illegals use stolen social security numbers to get it and their American born kids receive it legally), Section 8 housing, food stamps, free health care and free education for their kids... Today's immigrants should be able to do the same, but they don't and some cannot do so because many of the low wage jobs in manufacturing and those in the building of our infrastructure have disappeared. Which means we have no place and no need for them here in our country. The laws are the laws.
3
I don't know where John Kelly's ancestors came from, possibly Irish Catholics, which was a double negative in the nineteenth century for the white establishment that was already here.
3
Kelly's heartless and inane comments suggest that he himself has not assimilated enough to learn true American values. But then I lost all respect for him long ago when he picked up Trump's habit of lying as often as breathing.
7
Well said. Intelligent.
1
Isn't it American trait not to assimilate? Leave us alone and we want to have our our space..
So what's all this clamor about immigrants not assimilating?
Stop this nonsense!
Your Mother sounds like a perfect immigrant. She was given the chance to succeed, and DID. Imagine that.
2
German Americans being relieved of discrimination during either World War I or II,is not accurate.
As a descendant of near Germans, I know that the German Americans were very torn about what their former country was doing and did during World Wars. After the WWII was over, they learned of the horrors of the Nazis. They felt deep shame about their heritage.
My family was a flag waving American family of German descent who loved America.
My grandmother attended a prairie school in Illinois in the early 1900s which conducted classes in German. The students sang "DEUTCHLAND deutchland uberalis" at the beginning of the class.
DEUTCHLAND deutchland ah uberalis signified the efforts of the many German speaking countries, like Belgium and Luxemborg, to unify with what Germany was at that time. My family originated from Northern France but spoke German and French. Hitler twisted that phrase to mean Germany conquers all.
When asked to speak English, my great immigrant grandparents and the schools did not hesitate. At some point the schools which had been established by the German speaking immigrants had to convert to English language.
Though John Kelley's statements regarding persons who speak Spanish seem bigoted, you must admit that though our state was founded and made strong by the Spanish speaking people, our current Spanish speaking residents have not embraced the English language as my relatives. And I as Californian, will never forget my lineage.
2
Successful immigration storys doesn't the justify chaos on the border. Especially if illegal crossings are a money maker for gangs..who also have the ability to easily flood our communities with fentanyl and such. That can't be rationalized with sympathy for illegals and disdain citizens.
4
Let's face it everyone in the United States is an immigrant unless you are a Native American.
2
The problem with immigrants is not that they're the wrong kind of people. It's that they are any kind of people.
There are too many people in this world. That single fact drives poverty, war, and environmental degradation. Increasingly countries like the US will be pockets of relative stability in an otherwise horrific world.
Unless of course we are stupid enough to open our doors wide open, in which case we become part of the horror, too.
The United States has too many people already. Send the aliens back.
3
Well said Mr. Nguyen. People who trash new or potenital immigrant groups are in reality hiding a deeper self trait - it is called racism.
2
Actually, some Germans were harassed and interned and during WWI, both here and in Canada.
And by the way, I’d love to know when attorney Aaron Schlossberg’s family learned English.
3
A mishmash of maybe-was and could-have-been's
Was your mother a legal immigrant?
That is the starting point of all of this discourse.
3
Oh, wow, imagine that - we've finally got him! He's a hypocrite! Proven! In plain English!
...when are we going to stop taking these people at their word? John Kelly knows perfectly well that he's being an outright hypocrite.
He knows perfectly well, just as any GOPer or GOP operative knows, that racial dogwhistling transcends such things as facts and personal hypocrisy when it comes to their voters.
And he also knows perfectly well that certain suckers in the mainstream press will play right along. Nice job, Mr. Thanh Nguyen, you've pointed out exactly what Gen. Kelly expected to be pointed out, and it won't make a lick bit of difference with the GOP voters who SHOULD care about such hypocrisy.
1
My father was the son of Irish immigrants. He was too late for the discrimination; in fact he had every opportunity made available to him in Fiorello LaGuardias (remember him? great Mayor, we need more like him) New York, including a completely free college degree from.City College which he used to advance himself into the executive ranks of the corporate world.
You know what else he did as soon as he got his free college degree that was his ticket to social mobility? He became a rock-ribbed, slam-the-door, cut taxes to the bone, 24/7 Fox-watching Conservative Republican who of course is full-on #MAGA
His hypocrisy and complete lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. I am actually quite ashamed that the man is my father. To use one of our President's favorite characterizations: "It's disgusting."
10
When the first white people suddenly appeared in the America's I'm sure the various tribes of indigenous people said they didn't fit it. Why can't they hunt and be more nomadic? Why don't they learn languages like Iroquois or Penobscot? Why are they killing those women in Salem? Then the white people started killing off the native Americans and they really didn't fit in.
4
Mr. Nguyen sticks to the standard propaganda lines about "immigration". The USA has not encouraged actual "welcome to america"-"I wanna abandon the old world and become american" - "g-d bless america" immigration since WW2. What the USA has engaged in since WW2 is altruistic, guilt-complex, selfless "safe-haven" "refugee status" "we're sorry for destroying you homeland" "we're cruel people for not being more tolerant of old world intolerance" immigration.
Mr. Nguyen himself is too young to be an "immigrant from war-torn vietnam".....perhaps his mother is, which he uses as a prop to support the rest of his smarmy opinion piece.
Americans, with the best, most selfless intentions have transformed America from being a New World, free from the shackles of "culture" "tribal rivalries" into a safe-haven in which to cultivate and grow the very restraints and resentments that created the miseries back in the Old World.........we americans have lost faith in ourselves and are FAILING the rest of the world by not insisting that they catch up with us.......Instead we are descending back into the very abyss from which our "ancestors" escaped.
2
bottom line... unless you are a direct unmixed descendant of a native american tribe, YOU are a product of immigration to this land.
In most, almost all, cases our ancestors had to fight against those already here, those from last month's boat to make a place for their family. Had the gates been shut behind the first "true" Americans (which are who? who counts here?), this would just be a big empty backwater country. The John Kelly's of the world would be touting why Germany or Ireland or ?? should not accept the low class rural uneducated into their European Lands of Plenty.
My Kingdom for some Integrity out of the haters!!
1
I knew that my Irish ancestors were not considered "white people" by the English for centuries and were not considered "white people" by Americans until around the time the Italians and Poles showed up. Understanding how all that worked helped me crack the racist codes used towards black people in America at the time.
But whoa Nelly -- Ben Franklin excluding Germans, of all people, from the "white people" category -- that's just amazing.
Who was it who said "White people are crazy"? Maybe I am beginning to agree.
3
I am a jewish-hungarian immigrant who grew up mainly in England and speak better English than most of the U.S born descendants of immigrants.In N.Y.C I suffered shameless bigotry from among the following tribes;Anglos;Irish;Italian;Polish;Jewish;Korean;Black;Rumanian and ....actual immigrants!
The learned attitude of drowning "fellow americans", is to reenact prejeudices suffered,over-compensate for it,or act out the insecurities and instability of this society!!.There is no country-wide communal spirit in this charming 'democracy' of ours with its 'liberties',it's 'freedom of religion'and it's 'melting potty'.Mostly, there are segregated alienated sub-cultures that cause terrible social deformaties.
Don't feel offended. Look what they did to Native Americans. Treated way worse than immigrants. Wounded Knee? Sand Creek? Trail of Tears. Like My Lai. Why treat any people of color any better? It is truly the American way.
When will all these immigrants from Europe and elsewhere understand they can never be natives to the Americas. Let's build a wall in the Atlantic to keep Europeans and other refugees out of all the Americas. Mexicans are natives to the Americas. Just know the history how USA was made. Long live the people with native blood.
1
I am not proud to be "white". I am ashamed.
I am not proud of our forefathers, driving out those unlike them. I am ashamed.
I am not envious of wealth. I am ashamed.
I am not comfortable in my land. I am ashamed.
I am not pleased of my President. I am ashamed.
I am not proud to be American in these times of killing. I am ashamed.
I am not proud. I am ashamed.
4
My great grandparents emigrated to Brooklyn NY from Ellis Island. My wife’s as well. Immigrants are the life-blood of America and anyone against it or not a promoter of it is a fool.
Sorry but most Americans are well descended from immigrants. The founding fathers were mostly British decent. Wee Doonie (Mr Trump), as he is known in his mothers native land, is half Hebridean Scots, from Lewis, and half German, and thats why as we Brits would say a bit of a prickly character. Even good old Barry O Barnpots mums side is from my home town of St Helens. (Richard Eltonhead)
The only true Americans, are the chaps you robbed the land off. You know the natives.
Oh and before you get grumpy, My Gran is a Immigrant too, from Palisades Park New Jersey. She did it in reverse!
3
That was then. This is NOW!
3
Yeah, Kelley, Ryan, Hannity, O'Reilly... the list of right-wingers of Irish descent is endless. Most of their ancestors were refugees from the Great Famine and were hated, harassed and physically attacked by the right wing nationalists of that time. Why are they right-wingers today? History is full of such irony.
1
I am really confused.
So more refugees the better. More poor immigrants the better. More "illegal" immigrants the better. Economic refugees welcome ....
Now I can show you that there are millions of each group who would love to come to the US. India for instance has over 10 million starving children on the verge of death. Millions of Christmas are under death threats in Indonesia, Egypt and the middle East. Over 100 million are starving due to famine, drought, disease in Africa.
Now if we apply the liberal rules I mentioned above we should let ALL of them in. Why only those who game the system by paying people smugglers or lie in their visa application and overstay ? Or jump the fence, have anchor babies and live below the radar? Are you liberals advocating the poor and need to turn to criminal elements to get to the US ? Or force them to make perilious journeys across oceans and deserts in foot? Is there any common sense in this.
And if you don't want open borders then even if you take in 10 million this year you still are discriminating against the other 100 million and condemning them to death.
Isn't it a much better idea to help them where they are ? Send your warplanes to establish safe camps and then use diplomacy to change governments into humane democracies so that the displaced can return? Why is transplanting millions the only solution ?
Or is it just vote bank / identity politics ?
5
As a 4th generation American of Italian ancestry, I can only say, "Here! Here!"
1
to some, Americans are Christians (Protestants) and white, with origins in northwest Europe... exclusively.
the rest of the world is a kind of hole, according to the President, and its peoples are what you'd expect to find in that type of hole.
that's not my America, and I don't see why the rest of us let this small minded, fearful, and ignorant minority set the agenda for the country.
or as my Williamsburg-born father used to say, "Give 'em back to the Indians."
Nice column, Mr. Nguyen! And General Kelly, lest we forget, these shores have always been a haven for the downtrodden and the oppressed. Rural overcrowding (e.g. 19th century Ireland, Southern Italy and Eastern Europe) especially brought floods of refugees.
So did the desire to escape German conscription (the draft), a reason which brought Donald Trump's German grandfather (Friedr. Trumpf) to these shores. Supposedly he made a bundle of money running a brothel during the Alaskan gold rush. Then his son joined the KKK to keep Italians out of the country! And now his nativist grandson wants to exclude Muslims and Mexicans from our country. And so it goes!
How soon we forget, but a column such as yours drives home the struggles (and sometimes crimes) of poor immigrants!
Keep pricking memories, Sir, because Kelly, Trump and many other Americans really need reminding!
The past is a conveneint myth. Its purpose is to justify the present.
Thinking about John Kelly is a waste of time. Just like thinking about Donald J. Trump is really a time waster. Liars and excellent role models of how not to behave.
3
How is it that people in the fake 45 administration have no knowledge of history? Perhaps that is why they are in this administration. It would be easy to say Kelly's comments are racist. They are actually worse because they show absolutely no knowledge about immigration in this country. We're strong and resilient because of immigration not in spite of it. Once a military hero now another trump clown.
2
When you think that you are better than others, you are doomed.
1
Pull-up-the-ladderism is a hallowed American tradition.
I am a hard-working stable genius, everyone else is a lazy stupid parasite. But I'm too entitled to pick lettuce and too uneducated to design satellites, so let some in. But not too many.
So it goes.
Just like many American worry about Muslim immigrants and Sharia law spreading through America, Americans of the early 1800s worried about Irish Catholics who would come to "our" country and make it subservient to the Pope in Rome. (We even burned a few churches and convents for good measure.)
1
Why the last act of assimilation has to be closing of the door? Words like compassion, respect, righteousness are easy to throw around, but in reality how many really know their meaning.
Thanks Mr. Nguyen for writing this column.
2
If we were to look back in time, beyond what we've read in the history books (sd written by the victors), we would probably see a "There goes the neighborhood" from every established group when they perceive the new-comers, including Native Americans tribes against other Native Americans tribes, before the Vikings, the English and the Spanish landed on these shores. This tribalism seems to be part of the DNA, not only of humans but of other species of animals that are deeply territorial. But if cats can learn to tolerate each other, and if cats and dogs, who are natural predators, can learn to live together as friends, then why not human beings?
1
Congratulations on an exceptional article. I commend you on not forgetting your past, and history in general. I pity those who were welcomed in the new world and in lands across the globe and once on the inside want to maintain the the status quo ante.
1
We should always keep in mind that the idea of keeping aliens out of the US started with the Chinese back before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. I understand what the author is saying and agree with most of it. But the tortures we put the Chinese through until 1943 when the Exclusion Act was finally lifted are incomparable in my mind. Or 1965 when we finally accepted more than 105 people per year. A friend's father had to go to Canada to marry the white woman he was in love with because the laws here forbid it. Every immigrant needs our compassion and respect!
1
The point of this OpEd being?
What is wrong with being clear and deliberate that we want good immigrants - that is those that are hard working, law abiding, respectful of the American way and willing to assimilate? In other words, people like the author's mother.
What we don't want are welfare cheats, lay abouts and the criminal types. That means a lot of these Russian scammers you see here in Brooklyn (yes, I went there; now let's see if this comment gets censored) or members of violent Hispanic gangs liken M-13 (went there again).
This OpEd is exactly the kind of fuzzy, let's not offend anyone type of PC nonsense that a lot of people are sick of reading and hearing about. Most Americans agree that immigrants are not bad. Allowing bad immigrants in and then to stay is what people take issue with.
Because DJT was willing to call it as it is on immigration, that is exactly how he got elected. Unless the Democrats start doing the same, they're heading for another election beat down.
21
And all Trump cares about is using illegal immigration to try to get re-elected--he doesn't actually want to solve the problem. He blew up fruitful negotiations after staging a photo op with congressional leaders, in which he claimed he wanted to make a deal and would take the heat. Just like his staged photo op about gun control when he said he wasn't afraid to take on the NRA, and then completely buckled.
The majority of immigrants entering the U.S. right now are entering through airports, not the southern border. Without comprehensive immigration reform that won't change. Yet Trump harps on MS13 (a gang that actually originated in the U.S.) to whip up a very specific kind of anti-immigrant sentiment against those coming from south of the border, just as we saw this week in that anti-Hispanic rant by that unhinged NY lawyer.
9
And, this is the NYT's pick? A perfect example of how conservatives intentionally mischaracterize liberal positions while denigrating liberals. Trump is grossly and intentionally lying about immigrants, no matter their documentary status. Could YOU please point to a liberal in public official who has EVER said we shouldn't enforce immigration laws or shouldn’t have sensible, just and judicious immigration laws? Why aren't liberals considered "average everyday Americans” who have the best interests of our country in mind when setting immigration policies. Why do we need to be cruel, capricious and ineffective in our enforcement of immigration laws? Why do conservatives refuse to craft sane and workable immigration policies? Could it be to use immigration policy as a cudgel to whip up fear of “those people” and “liberals?” I’m sure that there are the purest of motives for this continued behavior.
Conservatives don’t care about the high cost in both dollars and dignity to actual living people of their failed and expensive public policies crafted not to solve problems, but rather to harm those whom they deem "the undeserving other." You are demanding both the right to lie about liberal positions AND to say we aren't Americans.
This narrative that conservatives are the "average everyday American" and that liberals are seeking to harm them by throwing open the borders denies both reality and truth.
14
In reply to the above, I lived in Brooklyn for many years. I did not see this. I came to New York from Ireland in January 1990 having won a green card in the first visa lottery. What I loved about NYC was its diversity. So many interesting people and great food. I especially loved talking to the driver when I took a taxi. You can learn so much. I was 24 when I arrived. As I got older I guess I started taking the diversity of this country as just natural. I think without it, the US would be just like any other country. Not as dynamic and somewhat boring. With regards to Russian immigration, we would not have google. Elon Musk is South African other pay pal founders were German etc. a lot of Europeans look at Americans as loud and ignorant. Some are. Most at not. Generalizations about race are redicolus. Far fewer immigrants have a criminal record than native born and have a far better work ethic.
10
Our historical amnesia is malice disguised in ignorance. Neither is forgivable. A civilized society remembers, reflects, and grows. And the world will not soon forget both what we said--and did--here, at this moment in time. Oh, how I long for that city upon a hill we imagine ourselves to be...
2
There are at least, probably more than 62 million Hispanic and Latino people living in this country. In the Washington Post, on July 8, 2015, "California is now the second state in which Hispanics outnumber Whites." It is California, New Mexico, and they say Texas which is almost there. Both California and Texas have 70 million people together, so you see the trend. These people work hard, will be doing the majority of work in the agriculture, (picking fruits and vegetables) childcare, construction(roofing), hospitality, landscaping, meatpacking, etc. We need them, but we need them to come in legally, an in orderly way, and not children by themselves that presents a whole other government bureaucracy, to deal with them, as they have to be supervised, aren't old enough to legally work, should be in school, etc. This is not rocket science, it is reality both for business, the costs to society, more schools, more social services, more debt to pay for it, most by counties and states, but the federal government reimbursing the states with borrowed money.
4
General John Kelly's ancestors fit in perfectly at the time they came in when the call to nations around the world “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” ........Emma Lazarus
Lately though the call of many nations like Canada and Australia that welcome skilled immigrants is Give me your rich, your physically fit and skilled masses that will make America great again. Every nation of immigrants is looking to place their nation first, competitive in every field and economically vibrant. The USA has had immigration policies for decades that vetted and selects the best. In addition, USA also has a generous immigration policies for refugees and asylum seekers and General Kelly has not changed that. This bringing up General Kelly's ancestor in an insulting manner was uncalled for so close to memorial day when the general will be reminded of the unjustified wars such as the Vietnam war and the regime change wars in which several Americans sacrificed their lives. Thank you general Kelly for your distinguished service to our nation and that of your son who made the ultimate sacrifice. Thank you also for your ancestors who made a brave decision to come to the USA.
3
Once again Mr. Nguyen comes up with incredible understanding of immigrant dilemma. I came to this country with advanced degree and English under my belt. I empathize with the new immigrants being granted a pathway to citizenship. Mr Kelly even though he states that the new immigrants have difficulty assimilating he does support giving citizenship pathway to the people who were granted asylum. I enjoy reading Mr. Nguyen’s opinions and books. Keep them coming sir.
Vikram Jayanty. M.D.
415 Strey Lane,
Houston, TX, 77024
I was born here but my father entered the country illegally in the late 1920’s. According to Trump and Sessions, the Constitution notwithstanding, I shouldn’t be a citizen. So, I became an Italian citizen, just in case. As an Italian, I was unhappy to learn that Mr. Kelly has Italian ancestry. Everything he said about present day immigrants was said about Italian immigrants of an earlier time. Mr. Kelly should know that Italians, especially in the South, were discriminated against and even lynched. Psychologists “proved” that Italians would never assimilate or learn English. To this day I hear disparaging remarks about Italians. (We’re all in the mafia, you know.) Kelly’s ignorance is as American as apple pie. God help us if these are the best brains we can find to serve in government.
1
These types of articles (and sentiments) are really getting tiresome. First, the argument that we SHOULD allow basically unfettered immigration is very different from the notion that we have no moral right, as a sovereign nation, to decide who we allow to enter. Second, the Irish in the 1850s were from a culture that was far more similar to the majority American culture than the cultures of Guatemalans or Somalis are to the majority American culture today. Third, we once had an economy with a large need for unskilled labor. We don’t today. Fourth, prior to the Great Society reforms, we didn’t have a robust welfare state. The argument that similar arguments were made about the Irish and Jews in the past and were wrong then means that any argument against mass immigration today is also wrong is illogical, intellectually dishonest and manipulative.
8
It is sad that a former Marine officer has so disgrace his uniform and the Corps after drinking the Trump Kool-Aid. He is no longer (and maybe never was) the adult in the room. General Mattis, God bless him, has maintained his bearing and character and I am proud to have been in the same Marine Corps as he.
2
Kelly is someone that denys his roots and wants to pull up the ladder behind him. The hypocricy is staggering.
I believe that because of his "military pedigree" we give Mr. Kelly too wide of a berth. This man has shown us a penchant for mimicking the racist, regressive, odious policies of his boss.
We need to get over the fear of ever criticizing military people, ever.
That Kelly would work for this accidental president is enough to convince me that no moral standards worthy of respect.
A racist is a racist - ever non-native American has roots somewhere other than here yet a large % of us still resist "outsiders" -
Why? Right now it is because people like The Donald and his enablers allow it. Kelly is just another enabler.
47
There is nothing odious about wanting our laws obeyed and enforced, our borders protected and guarded. Travel much? You cannot "sneak" into any nation in Europe or South America. They protect their people and their sovreignity
John Kelly, ignorance and hypocrisy personified and he's a liar. No wonder he claims to admire and like Trump. They are just alike. Two peas in a pod.
1
Excellent piece, pointing out the NIMBYism that is America.
1
Kelly brings up a reasonable consideration of our immigration policies, and next comes the predictable outrage where everyone shouts "we're all immigrants!" and quotes the Statue of Liberty inscription. Yes, we know. But it's still apples and oranges. Kelly is absolutely right. In the mass immigration of the mid-19th century, the U.S. was still mostly rural and uneducated. And U.S. industry was at a stage where there were jobs for factory workers, laborers, and farmers. The country could more readily absorb these immigrants. Even if it makes us feel bad, the world has changed over the past 150 years.
7
Partly true except for the fact that washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning people's homes, mowing lawns and a host of other jobs that most Americans will not do are often done by those immigrants. And they will work 7 days a week, save money, start their own business, save for their children's education, and those children will go to college and become more American than non-immigrant Americans. It's happened over and over again.
7
We've still got plenty of room, so far as I can see.
This column conflates legal immigration with the illegal variety. We can argue about what was/is legal vs what is actually fair vs unfair, but the fact is that people want to come to this country because of its strong legal framework. Let’s make it easier for more people to enter this country legally rather than argue we should look the other way when it comes to illegal entrants.
7
When my great grandparents came from a Sweden in 1887, they brought 5 children and settled in a small town in Oregon. My great grandfather went to work for his father-in-law who had arrived 14 years earlier. Tragically he was killed in a logging accident in 1892. My great grandmother, all 4 foot 10 of her, moved her children into the basement of the recently built family house and began taking in roomers to survive. She raised 4 sons and 2 daughters, all of whom became substantial citizens with large families of their own. When she died in the 1930s she still couldn't speak a word of English. Her story wasn't unique. Many immigrants of the first generation never spoke English. But their children did and their grandchildren usually refused to learn the language of their forebears. This is conveniently forgotten by many of those whose ancestors came in the 19th or early 20th century. We are all the descendants of immigrants.
4
Hypocrisy at just about everything is as American as apple pie.
9
''But the laws are the laws...” What laws exactly are the people you speak of, breaking ? None.
Every single person to North America is an immigrant or descendant of one, other than of course, Native American. Why are WE not learning THEIR culture and THEIR ways and of course, THEIR language ? Riiiiiight.
If you back far enough, we are all brothers and sisters, so let's tap down the talk of assimilation at all costs and realize that the differences between us actually make us all stronger.
Slainte.
5
Mr Kelly doesn’t remember, or perhaps never learned about the time when Help Wanted signs and ads read “Irish Need Not Apply”.
6
My grandparents came from Europe with a fourth grade education. They had kids in America. Those kids became a teacher, nurse, doctor, policeman and psychiatrist. Assimilate indeed.
10
The media as well as politicians, perpetuates racial and ethnic intolerance. Bi-racial identity is consistently ignored. Similarly, the national identity of black and Central/South American immigrants is diluted into the categories of “African-Americans” and “Hispanics.”
3
My father's parents immigrated to this country from Italy, so, one strike against them as they got off the boat-southern European.
Second strike was the inability to speak English.
So, as many other Europeans, they sought out those they could identify with and settled in their own enclaves.
As my grandparents came west to this state, the only place they were welcome to settle was in a part of the town with the rest of the European immigrants.
Assimilation was not an issue. Why assimilate when the white "native" population never allowed any comingling.
As the author states, we do have amnesia when it comes to immigration, and we do practice blatant racist nativism.
One comment published in this forum alludes the the racist nativism when it comes to those people without some type of higher education. What would these nativists say about their ancestors today if they could meet them.
As long as their is poverty in this world there will be immigration, economic immigrants as my grandparents were.
There will be asylum seekers from those same countries with a genuine fear of violence.
Many will state we have enough immigrants and state we need to cut it off. Perhaps that is true, or, just another Trump dog whistle and Fox "News" gaslighting.
No, we need to be compassionate and put our racism aside. Fat chance at the racism issue when our "president" is a racist.
So, what it boils down to is only northern Europeans, preferably white and blonde, with graduate degrees need apply.
4
For the sake of argument, let's assume that President Trump was telling the truth when he said that his reference to immigrants as animals was confined to an explicit labeling of MS-13 gang members.
I don't believe this for a moment because the president has repeatedly proven himself to be a bigot to his core. Even giving the president the benefit of the doubt, however, all collectives of human beings whether classified by race, national origin, skin color, religion or political belief, house criminals within those communities.
Native-born white Americans have more than their share of criminals among their ranks. So, if we foreclose all immigration because of criminality within their communities, then we foreclose immigration period, narrowing our collective gene pool and condemning ourselves in perpetuity to morbid national stasis.
it would have been a great idea to bar Albert Einstein from ever entering the United States.
5
Well said Mr. Nguyen!
Give my regards to your mother!
4
Trump can write a similar story about his grandfather. Except his grandfather wanted to return to his homeland- Germany. The German government had a law that required a year of mandatory service, which Grandpa Trumpf (correct spelling) did not fulfill. He was not allowed to return “home.” But you will not hear this from the Trump grandson. It’s a fact his select shared memory can’t be bothered with. He has one goal and history illustrates the methods other dictators used.
7
My late mother was a member of the DAR so I can trace that side of my families participation to the Revolutionary War. On the other hand my fathers family came here from Ireland in 1840, settled in Iowa and did not speak english. Between the 2 families I have direct relatives who participated in every major war, including myself (Vietnam) and later generations have served in Afghanistan and Iraq....so what? Every time Trump, Kelly, and that little twerp from California whose only qualification is he hates immigrants talk about immigrants my blood pressure goes up 50 points--these folks are terribly anathema to the America i and my relatives fought for and believed in
11
Other than Native Americans, I’m about as “American” as one can be. Mother’s family from England to Salem, Massachusetts in 1635. Father’s family from England to Canada to Vermont right before the American Revolution. What I say is, “Thank goodness everybody else in American isn’t like me!” What a boring and unimaginative and white country this would be without people who have come here from all around the world, bringing energy and imagination and color to our country.
9
I am guessing John Kelly's ancestors might be like mine, Irish, probably Catholic and from rural potato growing poor families, with essentially no skills. Feared as papists taking orders from the pope, they were demonized and patronized. Strange that Mr. Kelly cannot look back a few generations to see he is using the same backward thinking and simplified rhetoric that stung his foremothers and forefathers so deeply. If this administration would just read some history we might be saved from such inane and inaccurate perceptions of our past and present.
7
Brought tears to my eyes.
We should never forget the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
4
so I can pay them lousy wages and pit them against the rest of the working class.
2
All of us have one thing in common, our forefathers were not the cream of society when they got here. Someone helped them, someone helped their children. It is out turn to do the same. That is what makes American great, it doesn’t matter where your family came from, you can become an American. If you disagree, look up what Ronal Reagan said at the 100th celebration of the Statue of Liberty. If you still disagree, you are not a true American.
7
John Kelly made a mistake accepting the position of Chief of Staff for Trump. Had he simply remained a retired general he could have had a career as a military expert and made a fortune. Instead he came into the Trump orbit and has been exposed for the bigot he is. He tarnished a lifetime of service in barely a year and history will not be kind to him.
6
The Statue of Liberty is a shining beacon of welcome to needy immigrants and refugees. This symbol of the real America will endure long after the Donald and his sycophantic gang of enablers are simply a bad memory.
3
Neither my Irish nor my Polish ancestors were welcomed by the primarily WASP population voting at the time of their arrival. But they have all contributed the DNA to a lawyers and professors and businessmen, and as it happens, very few crooks.
When Kelly devalued whole classes of people as rural and uneducated and therefore useless, did he think about the voting base he is addressing? From big empty red states, with an animosity towards higher education, and paying for education in general?
Odd that we don't want more hard working people who are like the base that Kelly is appealing to, except in color.
5
When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, they did not obtain a valid Visa stamp from the Pautuxet Nation. This makes every European here illegal. John Kelly, what part of "your ancestors were illegal" do you not understand?
6
I can definitely confirm that we children of poor, uneducated Mexicans can’t assimilate. My father had a 6th grade education in rural Mexico and my mom never got past the third grade. They lived in poverty in Mexico. My father was an illegal immigrant (his Spanish term: “mojadito”) for years as a young man. Eventually, they had children in Mexico and then the US (anchor babies!). My parents never learned English well and had horrendous accents and grammar (that darn double negative of Spanish was impossible to shake). I was their youngest and did not learn English until I started elementary school. Sadly and predictably, it went downhill from there.
My oldest brother voluntarily went into the US army from 1961-67 and then opened up his own successful business. After being audited by the IRS, he became an IRS enrolled agent and decided to help others targeted by the tax authorities. My oldest sisters went into nursing and education. My youngest sister worked as a seller of industrial chemicals in a male-dominated industry and then retired to run a successful business with her sons. My dad eventually came to worship Ronald Reagan’s politics. I was the worst: I went to the Ivy League and became a lawyer, defending cops for a living and complaining about the Alternative Minimum Tax and college tuition (for my kids’ private schools) to anyone who will listen. We sons and daughters of poor, rural, uneducated Mexicans are lousy folks who just won’t assimilate!
8
Armas, have you read UCLA’s longitudinal study of Mexican immigrants? Sociologists who interviewed Mexican immigrants, in the mid 1060’s, found that the first generation of children who were able to attend school here had spent more years going to school than their parents had back in Mexico. Years later, the sociologists Telles and Ortiz had their graduate students locate and re-interview a high percentage of these families. They were dashed in their hope of finding that succeeding generations had attended school for an increasing number of years. In fact, they found that a significant number of third and fourth generation Mexican-Americans had gone to school for fewer years than that first generation who could attend school here.
I congratulate your and other families who place great importance on education despite the fact that most people from rural Mexico do not appear to do so.
2
I am sure John Kelly knows that his Irish ancestors were probably uneducated rural people. But in a generation or two, his family were just White Americans.
I am also sure that he doesn't believe this level of assimilation is possible for any people of color.
In other words, he is just a bigot.
Thank you for writing on behalf of the millions of our ancestors who are not white Anglo Saxon Protestants. Three of my four grandparents and my dad were all born in Italy. Mr Kelly is conveniently clueless who was rural and poor that came from Ireland. He is shameful. I can now see why he and Pres. Obama did not get along. He is disgusting, just like his boss.
6
My grandparents were immigrants. So were my husband's. Immigrants built the United States. They built Canada and Australia and New Zealand, too. I am pro-immigration. I just have one question that my fellow posters seem to want to avoid: where do you draw the line? There are 7 billion people in the world. At least half of these live in Third World, miserably poor, often violent countries. Many would love to come to the United States, Canada, Australia, or Western Europe, and a fair number of them are actively trying. New Zealand has gotten a pass because it is just so far from everywhere else.
Let's put sentimentality aside. Do you believe, or do you not, in open borders? If you do, well, then at least you have the courage of your convictions. But if you don't, start being honest, with yourselves, and with your fellow First Worlders. Stop hiding behind mawkish appeals to family history. Stop having the vapors at internments and deportations. Stop using euphemisms like "undocumented" when you mean "illegal" and "diversity" when you mean inability to assimilate. Start figuring out a decent way of dealing with the fact that we are a lifeboat in a dangerous sea, and we can only take so many onboard.
5
If they really wanted to stop illegal immigration they would go after the EMPLOYERS!!!! Setting aside true political refugees, most of the people who come here do so because they know there is work for them. They are not stupid, they wouldn't come if there was no chance for them to work.
2
Very well put.
With that type of logic, John Kelly is gonna have "some 'spnain' to do" when he meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. After all, John Kelly doesn't speak Aramaic,he comes from an "advanced" civilization, doesn't have Mediterranean features, and is white. Clearly, St. Peter would be right to think that John wouldn't be able to assimilate in that Land known as Heaven (where presumably only animals live).
2
The product of schools teaching Creationism would have to be included in Kelly’s definition of unschooled.
6
Can anyone explain to me how more immigration
whether documented or un-documented helps the
Poor of America.
4
Well, John Brown allow me to help you out there. I’ll make it simple. The birth rate of Americans is declining. If that trend continues, we will have the same problems Europeans have. A diminishing work force and fewer tax payers to help pay me my monthly Social Security or pay for our fabulous military might.
1
The two groups: 1. The poor 2. The immigrants; do not directly influence each other’s employment status.
This is an argument since the beginning of time.
Whether a country allows people in or keeps them out, there will always be poor people. There are many reasons people end up poor. Employers look for ready willing and able workers. There are some jobs that only new immigrants are hungry to do: they will work odd hours, relocate, perform physically strenuous work in uncomfortable conditions, adjust tasks as necessary. Then there are employees with special skills that the USA does not have enough of.
Is the fertility rate perhaps in decline because people have been unable to find jobs that pay enough to support a family, cannot afford to pay off student loans, are unsure about the future or all of the above? I suspect illegal immigration that drives down wages and places a cost burden on social services might not be of benefit to Americans in those positions.
1
Of course, there is that memorable book title: "How the Irish Became White." Jews and Italians went through the same acculturation, racial transformation, assimilation. James Baldwin identified the American Tragedy early on: Once you achieve whiteness there's someone you can feel superior to and your own life doesn't seem as miserable as it really is.
36
The Vietnamese arrived before large numbers of our unskilled and low skilled jobs were outsourced to countries with cheap labor, and before many others were automated. When the Vietnamese arrived our country still had a great many jobs for anyone who wanted one. And, most paid decent salaries. Consequently, the Vietnamese did not displace American citizens from the workforce, or drive down wages.
Since then, our economy has dramatically changed. We do not have enough decent-paying jobs for our own citizens. Tens of thousands of Americans are in their prime working years, but have become too discouraged to continue looking for work. They are not counted in the official unemployment figure. Illegal migrants have driven down wages and displaced our own citizens.
Havard economist George Borjas has found that the rate of Black employment decreases as the number of undocumented workers increases. His research also shows how the undocumented are depressing the wages paid to our lowest paid citizens by 8%.
Timing is everything. The illegal migrants have arrived too late to be successfully absorbed into our economy, without displacing American citizens of all races.
4
Outstanding. Compassionate. Insightful.
5
My personal take on this issue.
I would like to convey my experiences with several immigrants I have encountered during my 35+ years of life in the US.
Americans – the immigrants themselves – in many cases want to forget their background -----because they came either from very poor, persecuted, or other problematic/conflict ridden backgrounds ----- -----------------and simply want to forget what they came. I am basing this opinion on a variety of people that I have encountered over may years.
Also I have met – luckily immigrants from upper middle class backgrounds who in some instance sthey married US citizens (and most cases the military) and who are worse off here than they were in their birth countries---and just happens that these particular individuals – generally prefer the life in their birth country than their life in the US. It includes people of European stock on whom I am giving this opinion.
My life in the US has been socially and economically “”most likely””” worse than it would have been my life in my birth country. I had an upper middle class background and live in an upscale area--in the US I have had a lower middle class life. I have lived in the ghetto, etc. etc. And I am also “displeased.” with my choice in life. I realize, however, that it is my choice.
I'm don't know just she Mr. Kelly's ancestors arrived here, but mine did around 1850.
Coming from famine wracked Ireland and being Catholic they arrived when help wanted signs in many places included the phrase 'Irish Catholics need not apply'.
Papists and Paddys were anathema then and yes some were gangsters, and revolutionaries (read terrorists to their British rulers).
Perhaps he, like his leader, is ignorant of history, or maybe birds of a feather hate together also.
4
I am a first generation American. My mother was an immigrant, she waited until she could enter this country legally. (Okay, it wasn't that hard to do.)
I can't stand our president, but he is referring to illegal aliens, who have no right to be here. They are driving down wages, for the folks at the bottom. And yes, someone will pick your tomatoes, if you pay them enough. You may also have to improve working conditions for your workers.
Meatpacking wages have declined by half in the past 20 years. Many of those workers are now illegal. Meatpacking used to get your foot in the door to being middle class, not anymore.
Lets stop pretending that legal immigrants are the same as illegal immigrants, they are not.
I love your writing! The Sympathizer was awesome.
6
Then why can't we get a work permit visa system implemented here? We can't because of the inherent bias of the immigration debate in this country. There is a myth that all these pretty Irish, white Europeans came over and waited till their paperwork was in place - not so. It was just easier to avoid detection 70 years ago.
Also, your economic analysis is flawed. Many of the illegal immigrants here today are working and paying taxes - albeit under a false ss#, so they will never receive any of the proposed benefits to paying into social security. Very often, they do pay payroll taxes. That fact is never included in economic studies because it is so hard to estimate.
Meatpacking as a means to middle class? Of course that does not exist any longer - not because of illegal immigrants but because technology has rendered these jobs nearly obsolete. Is that where you think we should be investing our efforts? America has to invest in education and innovation - the very things that have saved her in the past. By trying to shore up wages for these type of low skilled jobs we are hindering our ability to foster the very tools needed to be competitive in a global market. Forget meatpacking as a middle class job - educate your children out of that rung if you hope to move up, because that is exactly what those hardworking, illegal immigrants on the slaughterhouse floor are hoping to do with their children.
The great conservative economist Thomas Sowell wrote an essay that points out that Scotch Irish are impulsive, violent, improvident, and boorish. Clearly bad immigrants who should never have been allowed in. And let's not forget the Irish who fled their famine. They were not the best -- they were the dregs. But let's not stop there: as Bret Stephens pointed out a year ago, soooo many native born Americans are trashy and should be expelled.
John Kelly is an icon of American racism. He comes from a time and place where 90% of the people were first and second generation, from Irish and Italian heritage, with a few Eastern European Jews sprinkled in. The least empathic group of people imaginable.
2
Yet another illustration of Santayana's pithy aphorism:"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", which also applies to the war the writer's family fled from, and all the wars since.
1
These sloppy, reckless immigration articles are disappointing. The issue is mass illegal immigration and the right of any sovereign to decide who comes here, for whatever reason.
The notion that we have 11-13 million illegals (and we don'tg even know how many), and that we went from 5% hispanic to 28% hispanic in less than 40 years, is astounding. Americans had no say in it.
The needs of our current economy are radically different than when the Irish came here in large numbers in the 19th century. Mr. Nguyen seems to have little knowledge of our history with immigration, the differing problems of assimilation, and the economic circumstanes that prevailed at the time of each group's arrival.
9
Too many Americans also suffer from short term memory, choosing to forget the lies (over 3000 now, and counting) the president tells us daily.
4
If the solution isn't to take all comers - a non-policy that would quickly overwhelm our social welfare systems and public and commercial infrastructures - then we need to control the borders and come up with a sustainable, humane, and strategic immegration policy. (It's possible many unskilled workers would have an advantage - our agriculture sector depends on them - but We absolutely have a right, even an obligation to establish strategic criteria and quotas.) We were close to a reasonable and impenetrable policy during the Wm Clinton and early W years. Trump is a pandering and ignorant hater but here at the Times and in the Democratic party we seem to have adopted a take-all-comers (especially if theirs is a compelling emotional story well suited to NPR vignettes) policy. That is nearly as foolish as Trumps "the Mexicans will build us a wall" nonsense. No one can argue for increasing investments in social welfare, education, and healthcare and then vote to allow those to become swamped by uncontrolled open immigration.
9
The "animals" comment was a reference to members of ms-13. At the time I thought only wildlife took the hit. The distortion and out of context baiting is unappreciated but at this point not surprising.
3
Just vote your principles, on this issue and others, this election and every election! Take back our nation!
2
When my husband, who was a quadriplegic, was alive, I had help from three caregivers. All women, one from Haiti, one from Africa and one a nursing student. Two of these women were immigrants. I don’t know where I and he would have been without the awesome care and support from these women. From the doctors and nurses and aides at Shepherd Center in Atlanta to the Home help we had, I have nothing but admiration for people who leave their birth countries in search of a better life for themselves and their children.
Many, many years ago, my ancestors came to America, and I am sure most Americans can tell the same story including those in our current administration.
For people at the highest levels of our government to call immigrants “animals” or suggest that they have the lowest forms of intelligence and cannot assimilate is disgusting and insulting. I’m ashamed that these people represent me as an American. It is not who I am.
5
Great article. But as one reader wrote, slaves are not immigrants. Most African Americans---not all---did not immigrate. We were desired by white and wealthy freed blacks---to be here precisely to do jobs and allow the ruling whites to avoid paying white laborers. This makes these descendents the American conundrum.
1
how many of the framers would have been considered honorable
1
Immigrants find it hard to assimilate because we make it hard. I can't fathom becoming desperate enough to leave my home only to find "you're not welcome here" signs at every turn. Sure, everyone has a responsibility to contribute whether born here or not. But we sure make it harder than it needs to be.
6
We most certainly do not make it hard to assimilate. Ever hear "press 1 for English"? Or see an ATM offering multiple language choices? Every job and school application these days has boxes to be checked for race and gender so they can fill their diversity quotas.
2
Everything is translated into Spanish. Jobs often list preference for English/Spanish speakers. My Polish and Italian ancestors didn't have that luxury.
This is a very touching article, and a reminder that the moral measure of people cannot be 'read off' their social standing. My paternal grandfather used to tell me that we were descended from a long line of horse thieves in Ireland. And he said that w/pride! I wouldn't trade that lineage for anything.
2
While the author has chosen to focus on his mother, he did mention, in passing, that his father arrived here with a high school education. As a group, the Vietnamese refugees had more education than illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The former also took it upon themselves to learn English as a faster rate than the latter. (See the National Academy of Sciences report on immigration.) Education does make a difference!
4
The current state of public education today was planned. The Republican party has been cutting education budgets for decades. It is easier to fool and control the less than intelligent. Create a voting block of tragically under-educated, economically challenged, toss in religion and you hit the trifecta. The result is a political base that willingly votes for the likes of trump and Roy Moore.
3
As someone who has no interest to identify myself according to race, religion, ethnicity for the purpose of making a point, but as someone who grew up in a multi-cultural, multi-racial environment, who served in the military, and who has worked all over the world, who has lived, who has experienced life, who has observed people, who has read, who has made a lot of friends, it strikes me as odd that someone like John Kelly, who holds such a powerful position in our country, would be allowed to get away with such a ridiculous, untruthful, contrary-to-fact, contrary-to experience, unkind, unfair, false, statement as the one he has just made (and not that it's the first time).
People, if anything, are full of surprises, and anyone who tries to define a person by superficial of cultural connections, is a fool with an evil agenda trying to rally other fools with their own evil agenda.
5
I have to laugh at Kelly's charge that too many of the current wave of immigrants are unfit to live in the U.S. because they are from rural areas and primarily farmers. Of course the same was said of the many of the Irish who came to the US who did adapt. But the laughable part is that there is a need for farm laborers all over the U.S., as the Trump family knows since they've applied for H-2 visas to import workers at their Virginia vineyard.
6
As a 2nd generation Italian American, I was alive when we were not considered white. The change over occurred in most areas of this country (although there is still residual prejudice and typecasting). It is unfortunate that many persons do not remember the past. The perceived lack of documentation was used as a slur for Italian Americans. I don't forget it and make sure my descendants don't either.
9
Mr. Nguyen is right: there is a long and regrettable history of one group pointing at others, disparagingly, often with a lack of understanding, and many times with the intent of benefitting another group. But we don't HAVE TO be like that, and the name United States of America, and many other often-invoked themes of strength through diversity give us a powerful goal to aim for each and every day.
We are more powerful when we have an accurate and full account of history. It is true that Americans of German ancestry were not detained "en masse," but about one percent were. About 11,000 German-Americans were forced into U.S. internment camps during WWII - a small number compared to the roughly 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were forced into camps, in worse conditions than the German-Americans. About 1,800 Italian immigrants were also detained. It's all on Wikipedia, which is a good thing, since these events are rarely discussed in the classroom and there is little to no public awareness of this blot on our history.
5
My neighborhood and its surrounding area of Albuquerque, NM is replete with Vietnamese neighbors, including my pharmacist. They are generally incredibly polite, hard-working, and generous. I'd guess that their education levels vary widely, as it does for those of other ethnicities in the city. Regardless, I couldn't ask for better neighbors.
10
It seems that the further folks are from their immigrant ancestors the easier it is to forget (or ignore) where they came from. As the daughter of a Polish immigrant and the granddaughter of an Italian one, I heard stories as a child about Poland and the ship passage to America so it would be hard to ignore where I "came" from. It's sad that people like John Kelly have to be reminded.
6
The first of my immigrant grandparents arrived in the USA in 1863 from Arzberg in Germany. Happily, I acquired German as a little boy and now, in the 4th generation still speak it fluently. That would be my personal form of the ideal country. It would be a country that honors, respects and celebrates its origins. Here in South Florida we would not only have signs in Spanish, Kreyol, and English but also in Seminole. We would continually reap the waters of our own wells of different cultures and use them to irrigate a common culture growing on a fertile land of diversity, with a plethora of varied crops for the table of our united meals. I lnow some would say I’m a dreamer and so I am. For without a dream there is no future.
12
Such important reminders would not be needed if we schooled our society in the critical importance of learning and applying the lessons of history.
9
The German immigrants were here before the United States existed. They began arriving in the 1600s. The people we call the Pennsylvania Dutch were German, not Dutch. They comprised more than 50 percent of Pennsylvania’s population in 1776. They fought in the Revolutionary War and helped create the United States. Almost all were staunchly anti-slavery and fought for the Union during the Civil War. These German Americans did not come to America from Germany. Germany did not exist until 1870. They came to America from small nation-states that were later absorbed into Germany. By World War II, German Americans were America largest ethnic group.
The United States interned German nationals residing in the United States during World War II, along with their German American children, but German Americans weren’t interned during World War II because by 1940 few German Americans felt any allegiance to Germany. However, Japanese patriotic organizations were flourishing among Japanese and Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast, and American strategists feared a Japanese invasion. (Japan did invade Alaska.) So the United States ordered Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans residing on the West Coast to move away from the coast. Some did relocate to other parts of the United States, but most went to internment camps for the war’s duration.
7
German was not an elective in school. It was a required class.
1
Most Japanese “went” to internment camps? Like some people would say kidnapped Africans “came” to America. Perhaps it’s best to hear the story from those peoples.
This retelling neglects to mention the thousands of second generation Japanese american soldiers who fought for their country even while their friends and family were sitting in concentration camps. I’ll also dispute the idea that being aware and appreciative of your birth culture marks you as a potential traitor. You can be proud of where your family came from and be a loyal American. These are not mutually exclusive ideals. Finally, considering the times, including the racist propaganda/posters/cartoons used during the war effort, we’d be foolish to not acknowledge race as one of the driving factors that lead to the internment of one group of citizens vs another.
one of the main reason for the Irish out migration in the last half of the 19th century was land reforms forcing the elimination of small farms that and farm labor jobs. The displacement was heaviest in the rural West counties were many still spoke Irish and had little education.
4
Thank you for sharing your story. The people of this country need constant reminders of our shared history. We are all from immigrant families.
25
Cultures are merely a set of ideas. Not ideals, but ideas. Some are good ideas, some are bad ideas.
If one of the central tenets of a particular culture (e.g. - the killing of infidels, or the killing of women who "deserve" an honor killing, or the elimination of gays) consist of bad ideas, there is little point in encouraging or accepting people from that particular culture. Bad idea.
10
That's the point. Once people have these "outsiders" as neighbors, you come to realize that your caricurized perceptions of them are not aligned with reality.
4
Seriously? Christianity wasn't spread across the globe with an olive branch. It was spread with the sword. Ask the indigenous populations of South America. Convert or die. The Crusades were not a happy hippie caravan spreading love and peace.
3
Chris - Comparing Islam today to Christianity 500 years ago is not helping your point.
The narrative of the Irish in America has gone so far away from its origins as to be unrecognizable. My grandfather fled Ireland after being branded a traitor by the IRA (for serving in the British Army). He worked as a janitor, barely scraping by in this country. The Irish Mafia hounded him in America, but he stayed because he could not go home and he was grateful to be able to do so. My father, his son, has an 8 grade education, but managed to do better than his father. I have a master's degree from a top school and all the other credentials. I am keenly aware that this country afforded my family this opportunity and that my obligation in having made it is to help the next one in line. Perhaps, the Irish that came from the famine have forgotten that their families left a violent, poverty stricken country and their ancestors were uneducated and desperate. This country took them in when no other would have them. How dare the Irish Americans now try to undo that very scared pact that afforded them refuge.
32
Thank you for an honest and accurate perspective. Martin Scorsese directed the movie about this: “Gangs of New York,” with Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo DeCaprio.
Until I saw it I was not aware of the level of hatred and violence visited upon my Irish ancestors arriving in New York City around the time of the American Revolution. They were assigned to the slums, allowed only the filthiest jobs, exploited by law enforcement and elected officials — in other words, treated much like our non-white fellow citizens and immigrants today.
No race is immune from this type of amnesia: John Kelly and Trump, for example. Clarence Thomas pulled up the ladder behind him after he got onto the Supreme Court. And we have examples among some women, Jews, Asians, LGBTQs and every other minority.
It’s really important to remember that none of us has a superior right to be here. Everyone who wants to join the team and who is willing to respect his or her fellow citizens, and the American project, is welcome. And anyone who opposes that (Mr. Kelly) is actually behaving in a most unAmerican manner.
23
Are societal norms/values concerning immigration changing, or is it the media narrative forcing change upon us? Explain the immigrants true crime against society. Mass school killings are tolerated, but not immigrants. Media exaggerates differences. The reality: in some local high schools high level scientific research is being conducted by girls wearing head scarves, recent immigrants. Criminal? John Kelly's words have purpose and his intention is clearly implied. We too easily forget our countries of origin. The media will report anything, as Kelly Anne knows.
3
First, second and maybe even third generation immigrants are hungry. Their hungriness is transmitted to them through their families. They've come to a better place often willing to risk being social outcasts and more for a couple generations. Yet within several generations many begin to wrap themselves in the flag and politics completely ignoring the reality their own family history.
Often these early generation people are the loudest, most hostile, self-rightous among us.
5
Kelly is the poster boy for why we should not ask former military leaders to serve in civil government positions.
14
Careful about that broad brush. Gens. George Marshall and Douglas MacArthur did outstanding work as government functionaries—Marshall rebuilt Europe; MacArthur rebuilt Japan.
Well written and valid points noted. The piece omits mention of the screening and documentation criteria mostly in force for regulating immigration in the 19th and 20th century. The Irish coming after the Famine were interviewed and quarantined at Ellis Island. Checked for parasites and disease. And often for verification of a job offer or other sponsorship. If not in good health, they were turned away and many died on coffin ships in the harbor.
In our times, the U.S. stands alone in its generous and unwise visa system, which entails an illogical "lottery", easily scammed and unending family unification "chain" admissions, yet has barriers to talented and educated young foreigners who graduate from our universities wanting to remain but prohibited from doing so. Even Canada, with its moralizing finger wagging is hypocritical: Immigrants must have money, skills, specific connections, to be admitted. Asylum seekers are strictly limited by quota and other limitations.
7
interesting that the writer seems to imply that only the Irish were filtered through ellis island, and the previous writer who did nit realize that all members of the axis powers had populations in U.S. concentration camps. should we thank the NYS regents for de-emphasizing the teaching of history in this state?
2
When an Indian Nobel laureate C.V. Raman in the 1960s was asked what he thought of the brain drain of Indian scientists, doctors and engineers to the USA. Dr. Raman said it is our "drained brain" meaning our excess brain that is not indispensable to India and guess what he was right. Indian scientists and engineer were skilled immigrants who could reach their potential and soar in their chosen field for the benefit of the entire USA too and assimilate more easily because of their English education and a culture of tolerance, appreciation of democratic values and nonviolence.
So this is the John Kelly model and nothing wrong with it even today, as long as those seeking coming to America without education in English and without skills and without an ability to assimilate all around the country and not just in pockets of megacities forming their own exclusive communities.
US has been a country of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers and it has worked well , but how long can the USA sustain such increasing over population of mega cities and the settling of refugees and what does it do to the countries that do not have a large population of its own people like India has when a few million including skilled people migrate out.
A case in point is Syria, the cradle of civilization which has lost a large percent of their population from all walks of life because their homes were bombed out by the proxy wars of other countries. Crippling shortages of essential services.
8
John Kelly's words about assimilation could apply to a significant number of American underclass. John should worry less about the immigrants and more about our own underclass. Our modern society is very unevenly spread. My sister's life in this America somehow went astray and I see her two children struggling to get beyond dead end jobs. And the four grandchildren face serious issues in coping with school. What distinguishes the immigrants from Latin America etc. is the hope, dreams and ambition they bring to help carry them through the struggle ahead. My family knows only frustration and defeat. Were there another America on our borders, I wonder if they up and leave?
11
Kelly's comments are unfair to not just refugees but anyone, locals included, who is at that station in life, being rural, illiterate.
His views and those of Trump's and GOP's do reflect a few realities. In the bygone era, people rely on hardworking and the faith that even though their own generation might struggle, their next generations can and will afford a better life with education. That formula, by and large, has stopped working. These days, you can work 2-3 jobs and still can't scrape by, kids borrow to the kilt for a college education but there's no job to be had that pay well enough to bring down the student debt, never mind improving one's station. Mind you, these are locals, not refugees, and don't even need to assimilate. What chances would the new comers be, refugees or otherwise, to make it?
Such reality is a result of anemic investment in public education and reluctance of corporates to commit to local communities. Refugees or not, those who are poor or don't have the skill or education to adapt, are largely expect to fend for their own. Much like corporates, governments do not want to invest anymore, that's why they want new migrants to be "ready made", they need to come with money and skills necessary to jump-start, rather than wait for their younger generations to pull the weight.
Our history has always been one of migrants. Our economic reality has changed. Public discourse should be laid blame on bigotry or on the refugees.
7
My family immigrated to U.S. when I was a child. Parents came from rural areas, education cut short by WWII, didn’t speak English. Yet their two children got college degrees, far more than the children of most our American born neighbors. Nor did they ever take welfare, govt assistance, commit crimes, also unlike some of our American born neighbors. This story is repeated often in American history, for differing ethnic groups - catholic, polish, chinese, irish, etc. Amazing how the immigrants change yet the accusations remain the same.
8
Mr. Nguyen's comments are right on. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents migrated here in the 1880's from Italy. They were not welcome with open arms. If there were laws in place similar to what Trump and other republicans want to have in place today, they would not have been allowed into this country.
That it why I find it hypocritical that Italian -American politicians such as Guiliano and Steve Scalise and other republican politicians support the Trump agenda. To not give others the same opportunity that their grandparents and great-parents had is shameful.
What short memories these mean spirited people with little minds have.
11
Outstanding essay. Thanks.
4
America is not a "place." It is a state of mind. Our sovereignty is determined by our will. Not lines. Nor complexion. General Kelly forget several leadership skills when he shed his uniform. Amnesia indeed. The longer we remain wedded to the notion of a zero sum game, rather than embrace the exponential potential in adding still more "immigrants" of every origin to this nation, the more likely we kill the dream.
7
My grandparents, all born in rural Ireland in the 1870s, wouldn't have fit into John Kelly's vision of America either, thank God! They fit very nicely into mine.
7
Dont bring your anecdote to a data fight.
Sometimes facts are not on our side.
John Kelly is right.
3rd Generation Mexican-Americans Face Tough Times
There are now more Hispanic children of immigrants in the U.S. than actual immigrants. That should translate into more progress — educationally and economically. But Steve Trejo, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin, tells Renee Montagne that while the second generation does better than the first, the third generation doesn't fare as well.
Dominicans look similar.
The one group that stands out as being different among Hispanic groups it's Cubans. And a lot of that has to do with the selectivity of their migration flow. A lot of the immigrants who initially came from Cuba in the 1960s were professionals; doctors, lawyers, highly-educated people who were fleeing Castro and the changes that were occurring in Cuba. And so, that was a very skilled group and they got lots of help from the U.S. government when they arrived.
And their children are doing great. You know, second and third generation Cuban-Americans have higher education levels than the average white American. But Cubans are kind of the exception among the Latino groups.
https://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141259490/economic-progress-lags-for-u-s-...
5
You've skipped over an important point here. Hispanics outside Texas and California are moving up as would be expected. Trejo, perhaps rightly, attributes the difference to continuing to live in Hispanic enclaves in areas of high Hispanic concentration, but does not mention *why* Hispanics might continue to live in enclaves.
When I went from Massachusetts to Texas for some months for work-related reasons back in the '80s, and managed a facility near Houston, I was astonished at the existence and degree of prejudice against Hispanics, since I thought that existed only for blacks in this country. And we continue to read about stop-and-frisk, police harassment, etc. against Hispanics in states along the border, so it's institutionalized and getting worse. Do you think that might have anything to do with it?
7
Living in “enclaves” is a detriment to assimilation and self improvement? What would you call the square miles upon square miles of white suburban sprawl found everywhere in the US? Enclaves, safe zones as far away as possible from all those uneducated, rural, non-English speaking Black and Brown people. In fact white people have gone, and continue to go, to great lengths to keep their enclaves exclusive. Having grown up in one of those enclaves, I can say unreservedly that lawyers, doctors, and priests are the exception among the white groups. Education be damned, whiteness is all that’s needed to succeed.
1
I didn't know John Kelly had Italian ancestry. As an Italian-American myself it drives me crazy when my baby boomer contemporaries display hostility toward immigrants who are not "white." Race is a social construct. Society decides who's white and who isn't. Italians weren't considered white by the US Bureau of Immigration until 1922, along with Greeks and Albanians. If an Italian-American's father or grandfather was born prior to that date doesn't that mean he's black instead of Caucasian? If your father was black or your grandfather was black, aren't you also black?
7
Interesting thesis if life and the world had remained static for the past 100 years. Back when the so-called dregs of Europe were emigrating to the U.S., you could earn a living with the sweat of your brow and there was no expansive welfare system paid for by the sweat of someone else's brow if you couldn’t. Fast forward from 1918 to 2018 and we find that native-born Americans who fall below the mean of intelligence and education are having a hard time staying in the middle class because their formerly high-paying, blue-collar jobs have migrated to China and Mexico. Consider also a Medicaid system that is growing much faster than GDP because the middle class has been hollowed out and discouraged middle-aged white males are increasing disabled and Opioid-addicted. Add to that a Social Security and Medicare system that will face a genuine fiscal crisis in 15 years or so because the Baby Boomers are retiring in droves. Given these realities, the only immigrants we should welcome today are those who will make an immediate contribution to the general welfare. That means those who speak English fluently and have economic skills that will enable them to pay more in taxes than they and their families receive in benefits from day one.
6
Excellent piece - the fallacy of this great country is not individual Kelly or a Vietnamese Mayor, is the culture of hate and Violance. The root of this culture is very wide spread from Washington to Texas, from Florida to Indiana. The Churches and Synagogues are now teaching this to our families - hate others, Violance is OK if the other party is your political enemy, morality and decency in life are not important, corruption at high office is accepted if the person belongs to our side. It is shameful situation - we are becoming a third world culture in the first world economy. The American consciousness is gradually going to a deep slumber - God knows when it will wake up, what type of country it will find. History has many examples of this situation and all of them are disastrous.
3
I have to take issue with the author including slaves as those who were thought unable to integrate into society. There was never a desire to integrate slaves into society. In fact, there was all out effort to keep them out of “our society.”. There were actual laws in place to which none of the other groups you mention were subject. If they were, it as much more heavily enforced on former slaves. I don’t recall stories of hanging or literal castration of Vietnamese for the mere glance at a white woman.
Otherwise, I agree with your point....
2
The slave culture depended heavily on the belief that blacks were sub-human, and lacked the intelligence and initiative to compete on equal terms with whites. As one (honest) South Carolina senator said during the Civil War, (paraphrasing from memory). "If Negroes in fact make good soldiers, then we'll have to rethink some basic assumptions."
1
Not only John Kelly should read this. I would add: Kelly Ann Conway, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, etc. etc. etc. And I would add that America would be better off if their ancestors had not relocated to the US.
9
The Native Americans weren't thrilled with either my slave-owning, disease spreading, English ancestors who came here to avoid some legal troubles, or with my disease spreading French ancestors who snuck over the Canadian border in search of "unclaimed" land in America. We are a country by, for, and of, the people whose ancestors didn't fit in. People get pretty snooty about their families having been here a few generations. I can only guess what that looks like to the Native Americans.
11
~“They’re overwhelmingly rural people. In the countries they come from, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm."~
That describes donald trumps mother. She came over from Scotland as a domestic worker. One could argue that donald was an anchor baby.
9
On some days it seems that’s Donald Trump as well.
We've had more than enough of the immigrant-bashing attitudes and national selfishness, the result of forgetting where most of us came from.
When I was a kid, the son of Irish immigrants and growing up in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, I often heard "Remember where you came from," as a reminder, not as an insult.
Mr. Nguyen clearly remembers where he came from. His last sentence mentions compassion and respect. I would add: open arms, open hearts, and open minds.
7
as with many things jnife it comes down to selfishness (and a good bit of not fully understanding exactly how you got to where you are), the "now that I've made it, I will try my best to block others from making it as well"
from neighborhoods, to wealth, to food stamps (remember certain congressmen who are now looking to cur food stamps who would not have been able to get anywhere in life it it wasn't for the food stamps (and other govt assistance) they received when they were growing up?
it's a never ending cycle. most people want to believe that they and they alone are solely responsible for what they've achieved in life, as if getting to where they started was "nothing to speak about" really. this goes for recognizing the opportunities one has had on this country.... which should be about giving back to it... with a progressive tax system to say the least, but I digress...
4
I came to the US shortly before I was 18. I was a first immigrant.
When I was 33, I brought my parents to the US following a revolution in the Middle East.
They eventually became US citizens and spent the final years of their lives in Boca Raton, Florida.
My parents were poorly educated and spoke broken English. But they were my parents. And I was always cognoscente of my responsibilities. My parents were never a burden to the US. We made sure of that.
It has often been said that immigrants take on jobs that no one else wants. Even though I am educated, I share the same values with those who pick fruit, or immigrants who mow lawns and clean homes. In my case, I have been investing and launching businesses – many are technology companies. I have made 10 investments for far. Not many are willing to make the sacrifice and take the risks that I face with startups.
Generally Kelly and others believe that the US can welcome those who contribute, and deny entry to family members who are “undesirable”, it is important to realize that we are a package deal.
General Kelly and his family were also a “package deal”.
2
The inexcusable sin of John Kelly is not simply his refusal to admit his prejudice against immigrants who do not read or speak English well. His sin is not merely his selective memory about the humble origins of his own immigrant ancestors.
Kelly's sin is not inexcusable just because he resents immigrants who don’t look like him due to their skin color. His similar view about native-born people of color is, of course, equally offensive.
John Kelly’s totally unforgiveable sin is his willingness, even eagerness, to use his powerful office to recite a lie about immigrants and people of color, as if it were fact.
85
Should we be surprised? Kelly's despicable outright lie about an African-American Congresswoman was disproven with video, yet he has yet had the decency to apologize.
How must the parents of immigrant servicemen and women feel, to learn that such a man can conceal his base prejudices enough to fly up through the ranks and become a general charged with their children's safety and futures?
8
You’re right, Joanna Stasia. Never admitting a mistake or apologizing to anyone is one of the requirements for serving successfully under Donald Trump.
On top of everything, when John Kelly gave his recent lecture about how a majority of immigrants and refugees cannot assimilate, he postured as a kindly soul who only wanted to spare applicants from the disappointment of failure.
Baloney...………….this man served our nation and his son died for it...……..he is tough, but fair.
We are the Red One, the White One, the Yellow, the Black and the Brown; and all of us - in this present moment - are the current edge to a flow of history originating from someone who fled a situation in pursuit of hope and a dream. A dream that is America. We are all struggling to create that dream, both for ourselves and for everyone else, too.
It is a struggle not only with ourselves and between each other, but with generational amnesia as well, as this author so eloquently attests. If we can but take our focus away from Me; and concentrate on We while recalling the past, then that dream can continue to elaborate and manifest into a glorious future. All aided by the tremendous energy infused into us by new dreamers. We only need to remember that we are all Americans, brought together not by dint of birth, racial or religious affiliation, but by the desire and allure the dream represents.
John~
American Net'Zen
1
Beautiful column.
The 'whiteness' of German Americans was undoubtedly the main reason they weren't subjected to the same treatment as the Japanese, but it wasn't the only criterion: in WWI there was the same amount of hysteria and hate against all things German - Beethoven and Goethe were banned, and German nationals were automatically considered enemy aliens.
Rounding up the Japanese in WWII wasn't an overwhelming assignment: most were on the west coast, totalling roughly 115,000. Mass internment would have been much more daunting with the German-American population: in 1940, immigrants born in Germany - let alone their extended families and descendants - totalled over a million.
3
Some German and Italian immigrants were interned in the US during WWII. They were treated better than the Japanese who were interned.
A familiar story of the struggles of our parents to many of us first and second generation Americans, no matter our origin.
So much so, I wept (out of pride) for your mother and mine.
4
once more discussion is impeded by conflation of "refugee" and "immigrant," law abiding "immigrant" and "undocumented immigrant," i.e. "criminal trespasser."
however, what emerges that is worth serious, uncluttered, attention is that many immigrants and refugees (both of our families it seems) would not qualify for entry based on "merit," or marketable skills, as the president and like-minded others are seeking.
most immigrants leave countries whose governments, economic conditions and/or social structures threatened their safety and/or freedom to pursue their destiny (including education)...they come here to exercise those freedoms, guaranteed by the constitution and the (respected) laws of the united states.
many, despite discrimination and regard as "inferiors," make successes in businesses or trades and send their first generation kids to college and to places of prominence in the professions, politics, industry, education, etc...vetting ought to aim at the admission of those who are committed to taking advantage of opportunities offered under the protection of freedoms denied in the repressive states they're fleeing, (and most certainly not those who simply want to take advantage).
a grandmother reads her native language haltingly, the daughter she brought with her becomes an avid reader in english, her american-born kids build homes, manage banks, do surgery on open hearts.
let vetting be character-based and "merit" will accrue as it always has.
3
My great grandfather worked digging ditches to save money so he could bring his wife and children to the United States from Italy. He never learned to speak English; he was not able to read and write in Italian, either. His son, my grandfather, became a foreman at American Motors. My father became a successful real estate developer. After he retired, he told me that the U.S. should make immigrants learn English before granting them citizenship. I pointed out that such a policy would have barred our family from settling in this country. He shook his head. "Things were different then." It's easy to forget.
8
The author writes well. He presents the argument for accepting immigrants on a level of compassion, respect and a sense of fairness. Franklin himself was a product of immigration.
Is it the bigotry built into our DNA that makes us hate and fear the "others"? Or is it just greed? Is our view that there are only so many opportunities to prosper and we shouldn't let "foreigners" in to share a zero sum total? Time to dispell the myth. Our history demonstrates that immigrants work hard and add to society. It is a fact that they hustle with ambition and appreciation for the opportunities this country affords them. While our teenagers worry about carpel tunnel syndrome of the thumbs and live in their rooms with their devices, we vote to keep out the people who are willing to do the work they are too coddled to consider.
Other articles point to the economic need for us to embrace immigrants. Small businesses - farms and construction companies in particular are suffering because of a lack of workers. What is wrong with us? We don't want to do the work, but we don't want to welcome and encourage those who do? Dysfunction defined.
9
I am the grandson of someone who managed to avoid Ellis Island when he arrived in the US early in the 20th century, and someone who can look at the family tree and find dirt poor and unwanted immigrant forebears (Italian, German, Irish, Jewish, Catholic) a mere 3-4 generations earlier, as I imagine so many of us can. They include moonshiners, brewers, machinists and common laborers. I have no idea what some of them were employed in during Prohibition, but somehow they stayed in the US and out of jail (mostly). Did they contribute to the US? I think so, since for most folks, their contributions were at the local and personal level; families raised, communities supported.
I am appalled at the vitriol heaped on current immigrants, legal or illegal. I am equally repelled by the legalistic arguments that are used to justify a total lack of empathy for the plight of the less fortunate who find their way to our country. The USA is a country created (at the expense of Native Americans) and borne on the backs of the unwashed and unwanted, burning with a dream of freedom and opportunity.
To honor those who came before us, we owe a debt to each other, and to whosoever wishes to join us, to collectively continue to make the dream a reality for everyone. And to those who say we cannot afford to support new immigrants, I say we can afford whatever we choose to afford, we can accomplish whatever we decide to do.
11
I could have written this article myself. My family originally came here as refugees from Cuba fifty years ago this month. Though we didn't come from a rural background, my parents had at most a high school education. My father had a smattering of English as he had worked at an American firm in Havana. We landed in Miami with the clothes on our backs and a hunger to succeed.
Fast forward fifty years and my parents succeeded beyond their wildest imagination through their incessant efforts. Their children (including myself) are now indistinguishable from the general American population. I should point out that we did have the advantage of being white. I suppose we would now be considered upper middle class. Many other refugees in our situation chose a different path, as anybody who has seen the movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino (an Italian American) knows.
For all these reason, as pointed out in the article, I am frankly disgusted when these same Cubans conveniently forget their very recent history, never mind the not too distant memories of Irish Americans or Italian Americans, or any other hyphenated Americans. I always wonder how it would have been different for Cubans if our island had been joined physically to the American mainland? I submit we would have had a lot in common with the desperate Mexican and South American immigrants currently in Trump's crosshairs. Less generously, maybe it's because of our shared whiteness. I hope not.
6
My families presence extends back into at least the early 1800's on both sides. My mother's family fought for the Union and my fathers for the Confederacy. What I have to say to you Mr. Nguyen is your mom can read out loud to me any day of the week. Thank you for column and I welcome your family, belatedly, as I would welcome people in need from the nation of Syria.
9
We are a country in need of immigrants. Our population is growing older. It has become necessary for people to work longer because there isn't enough work force to support the retired. We import much of what we need not because it can be made cheaper but because we don't have the work force to produce it ourselves. We don't have the workforce that technology requires. We have a shortage of Doctors, engineers, repair persons, caregivers, construction workers. welders etc.
Let's be honest, the reason for the immigration issue. is cultural and racist. And for almost 100 years has been driven by the Republican party for political division.
6
It isn't immigration that's the problem, it's ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION that exists so busniess people can get around our labor laws, like overtime pay, workers compensation coverage, lunch breaks, etc. The illegal worker can't report these because he/she will be deported. Increase the number of legal immagrants from all our borders and enforce the current worker id law and the problem will fade.
3
Illegal immigration is a BUSINESS ISSUE, without it employers can't get away with refusing to pay workers and cover the medical costs when the illegal worker is injured on the job.
2
I am reminded of a story, perhaps apocryphal: Supreme Court Justices Holmes and Brandeis were taking a stroll along the National Mall when a young man known to Holmes asked to speak with him. Brandeis watched as the young man spoke with Holmes in an animated fashion. When the Justices resumed their stroll, Brandeis asked what the young man was going on about. Holmes replied that the man had finally, on his third attempt, passed the bar, and, now, as a young lawyer, was actively urging that we must raise our standards.
Perhaps it is human nature that finds so many, having achieved some perch in life or status, turn to attitudes and actions that involve raising the drawbridge. Like many other aspects of our nature, it is an attitude that must be opposed. Sadly, many, like Kelly or Trump, are too weak in spirit, soul or intellect to resist that urge.
4
Mr. Nguyen's comment about Germans not being lumped in with 'white' people centuries ago reminded me of something my class was taught decades ago when I was a child. We were told there were three divisions of humanity: Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid. Three only, sorted by their outward characteristics. Even as a kid this puzzled me, as the one family from India we knew and the Native Canadians who lived near my grandparents' farm didn't fit in.
I reached the conclusion at an early age that categorizing humans is impossible.
6
As an immigrant and naturalized citizen, I can relate to what the author says.
Those who know enough about history realize that Native Americans did not have embassies and consulates in Europe to issue visas to the Europeans who came to America with "no papers," i.e. undocumented. https://www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-illegal-immigration
Those Europeans then established laws that made it difficult, if not impossible, for people of a certain background or color (Catholic, Jewish, Chinese, brown, black, etc.) to enter the United States.
Many of the modern immigrants came to this country from far away places and had to wait to get a visa and take a flight before landing in the US, which, in my case, was through the airport named after President John F. Kennedy, who faced anti-Catholic prejudice during his run for the presidency and had to declare, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act...."
John Kelly may have forgotten the words of JFK or the difficulties faced by Irish immigrants in the past, but that does not change history.
6
Trump has lowered the bar on public discourse so that people who hold prejudicial attitudes are free to speak them without concern about for political correctness. In some ways this is good because those of us who do not hold those opinions now know who we are dealing with. In election years this information will be helpful for strategic planning for campaigns.
There is a danger to this loss of PC speech control and that is the actions that can come with the speech. If is ok to say racist things it can become ok to do racist things. The generation of children today have more dangerous role models and this does not bode well for individuals and the country. When a political figure, such as Kelly makes prejudicial and incorrect statements such have been mentioned in this article, those statements can become part of the social fabric. There are so many Trump appointees making news by saying such falsehoods that the media is always in a catch up mode in finding true facts to counter whatever is being said. I fear the social and cultural fabric is quickly fraying.
5
This essay brings up an important point. Any person from a foreign country can assimilate into the U.S. The author's personal story shows this. Many commenters who expressed their immigrant stories below show it too.
Newcomers just need a little time to get oriented in their new environment. There are charities and community centers that provide support and assistance to immigrants and refugees to help them find a new start. A potential employer who understands the person's background and welcomes him or her would contribute to creating a solid path forward.
There is no need to be fearful of anyone -- especially those fleeing from war or persecution. Holding steadfast to one's anxiety for another group puts up a barrier that is counter-productive. You would be isolating newcomers even more, and that's the last thing you would want to do.
17
It is quite understandable that many here point to the examples of children of immigrants being success stories because of having a well-paying job, a PhD, and other accomplishments. Of course there is a lot to be applauded in those examples, but there certainly is nothing wrong with the example of those who work hard, who are honest and help others in any way without attaining those accomplishments. The proof does not have to be that the daughter or grandchild went on to Harvard.
My grandfather was an illegal alien. He was a working sailor on a cargo ship who took his chance to come to America by jumping ship in Galveston and hid out on top of a roof until he was certain the other sailors (who now had to do the extra work for one missing) had left to return to Göteborg. He had an eighth-grade education, did not speak English and had no particular skills or abilities beyond his strong body and willingness to work.
Although many in my family, myself included, can point to some impressive accomplishments, I also know that I have been very fortunate and have gotten many breaks. My family falls largely among those who work hard, are honest and try to help others in small ways. I'm lucky my grandfather wasn't immediately seen as a criminal, as someone who didn't possess any marketable skills, someone who should be regarded with suspicion because he only spoke Swedish and sent back.
28
Uneducated immigrants from rural parts of Mexico--or any part of the world for that matter-- may not thrive right away in the Uned States, but if they work hard and stay within the bounds of the law as most of them are wont to, their children and grandchildren may thrive, making the sacrifice of the parents a hundred times worthwhile. John Kelly's statement reflects a myopic view of the immigration machine that has fueled the American dream for centuries. To keep America great, we need to not only acknowledge the contribution of immigrants, but also encourage it by broadening opportunities for legal immigration and regularizing those who have been here for years. Congress so far has failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Our elected representatives are the ones failing us, not the immigrants who, through their sacrifice, make the American dream possible.
21
I recently did some more study of my family tree and find that two of my ancestors arrived on the Anne in 1623. Most came later. Most, but not all, were English. They were from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, and Holland. Maybe a few other countries. We accept immigrants because we know that they renew our country, regardless of where they are from and how much they are educated. We accept refugees because we have compassion for those who are threatened and at risk. The people we took in - including my ancestors - have been invaluable to our country. Let us continue to be an enlightened and compassionate people.
18
Educate yourselves about Kelly's past before getting to defensive about Mr Nguyen's essay. His immigrant predecessors were poster children for "the ones who don't fit in." See today's NPR story:
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/18/612034689/what-heyjohnkelly-reveals-about...
9
I believe that the truths that are trying to be conveyed about the immigration issue are very poorly communicated, with some of those people actually have their own prejudices, racism, etc. mixed into the equation. We have had an illegal immigration problem for over 4 decades. President Reagan granted amnesty to 3-4 million, failed to address the issue, it continued. Since then, between 1-2 million people each year have come over the southern border, so it is between 30-60 million people, and there is dishonesty in admitting the numbers. The agricultural industry in California, especially, has willingly employed at least half of all their workers, who they know are illegal, and they just look the other way, because they need workers. Congress, in all these 4 decades, has not made a good, Visa system, with simplified paperwork for industries that need workers. There are over 1 million each year who receive tourist Visas from all over the world: Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe which does include Russia, the middle east, Mexico, Central and South America, etc. who intentionally overstay them. Congress has no system to track them, and send them home. Those are the issues. The media has refused to keep those front and center, and instead dwells on the language, and the people communicating that language. That is both deliberate at times, and stupid, as we are $21 trillion in debt, trillions more in entitlements than we can pay, and we need to face reality.
12
Do you have sources for all these numbers? They seem much higher than any I have previously seen reported?
How much of our debt is money that has gone to fund wars or prop up despots or sell arms in parts of the world that many refugees are trying to escape?
We are not $21 trillion in debt due to immigration. And stopping everyone of them and sending them back to their country of origin will not fix that. If all the problems our country has today immigration is not one that comes to the top 20.
1
Having lived in San Francisco and raised my kids there, many of their friends were second generation from Southeast Asia. We understood how much they overcame given that their parents either spoke little or poor English and worked hard so they could get ahead. My kids friends are now contributing to this country and making it better.
Similarly when my great grandparents come over from Eastern Europe to Pennsylvania they were tradesmen and Jews to boot. Their decedents are lawyers, scientists, doctors etc. if all of these people were to try to emigrate today in this climate, we would all fit John Kelly’s description.
There is no compassion in this administration and it is really sad.
17
I don't know what the author's mother, a woman who was surely granted refugee status before entering the US legally, has to do with people entering the country illegally.
7
Mr Nguyen's excellent column reflects on amnesia about our own heritage. And on Kelly's comments about people from rural environments and without education, that in his view will not integrate.
1
Because the piece is largely about Kelly's assertions about these people's lack of ability to assimilate.
Sam, everyone has a mom.
Thanks for a great article.
5
Anybody who feels that the poor and the uneducated are not welcomed in the U.S. should realize that, for the most part, the rich and the educated have no desire to come to America.
People come to America because they want to make something of themselves here. The rich and the educated do not have that desire anymore.
14
Great insight!
Well said. Xenophobia seems well entrenched, even in immigrants of recent vintage, once established in the new country, trying to block new entrants. Is this being tribal? Hypocritical? Or just a primitive call for survival, competing for the best spot, while we can? Solidarity means being able to put ourselves in the shoes of others, especially those less fortunate than ourselves, and recognizing we are all in this adventure together. And that we'll never be stronger than the weakest among us. No compassion needed; a sense of justice instead.
2
And to think we are led to believe Kelly is the adult in the room. What an incredibly low bar.
17
Americans need to travel more, learn more history and foreign languages, and overall try to learn to assimilate to foreign societies more. If you haven't been there yourself, you don't know what it feels like to be immigrant. Trust me, these folks are not dying to leave their home countries and come to the U.S. Most are hopeless and terrified, and that's why they're coming to the U.S. and other countries. Probably everyone of us would do the same in their shoes.
13
I doubt it - most of us wouldn't have the gumption. Desperation isn't enough. You have to have initiative, commitment, and the willingness to risk the unknown, qualities not exactly thick on the ground in America (the land of the free and the cowardly) these days, where vague fears of terrorism, crime, or simply change is causing us to willingly jettison the principles the nation was founded on.
1
None of my multicolored multiethnic ancestors were immigrants to the United States of America. There was no America when they came or they were enslaved or natives. My ancestors came to North America before yours, John Kelly, Mike Pence and Donald Trump.
My earliest known white European ancestor was born in London in 1613, married in Lancaster County the Virginia colony in 1640 where he died in 1670.
My earliest known free -person of color ancestors were living in South Carolina and Virginia from before the American Revolution.
My earliest known enslaved black African ancestors were living in Georgia in 1830/35 where they were owned by and bred with my white ancestors.
My earliest known brown Native American ancestors were living in Georgia and South Carolina in 1830/35.
In America that makes me all and only black African American. And I invite and welcome all to come to my America seeking a better life without regard to color, ethncity, national origin or faith.
18
Kelly's ancestors were legal immigrants. Quite deceptive to equate them with those that are illegal. Why not employ a bit of integrity; i.e. why not simply advocate " open borders " and let the voters devide?
7
Take Irish immigrants as a whole. Many were allowed in to work the Erie Canal; they were dispised, left a trail of crime and prostitutes behind. Read historical accounts about the Irish, in the U.S. or England. Even in recent decades, 1990’s they took often overstayed their tourist visas to work in Boston especially a,ong IRA supporters (an old NYT article highlighted the ignored illegal immigrant problems with Irish and Russians)
1
Until the 1924 Immigration Act, there *was* no such thing as "illegal" immigration, except for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successor a decade later, The Asiatic Barred Zone Act (which expanded immigration limits to include other Asian countries besides China). So when Kelly's Italian great-grandfather came in the late 1800s, illiterate, uneducated, and speaking no English, it *was* to all intents and purposes "open borders". They just had to be healthy.
1
Hence Ms Ellie K. ... the remedy is " open borders "?
@Soxarered: General Kelly reminds me of my first impressions of Boston, when those of Irish ancestry violently resisted busing in the 1970s.
P.S.: Brighton isn't a Boston suburb, as it was annexed by Boston in 1874.
3
A tangential point in this excellent piece is the attitude toward Vietnamese refugees following the US defeat in the war: "...only 36 percent of Americans wanted to accept Vietnamese refugees in 1975."
This was a shameful coda to a shameful war. Millions of Vietnamese had stood alongside the US in its inevitably doomed land war in Asia. Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon had urged them over and over to resist the NLF: We're behind you!
When the US lost, helicopters carried Americans to safety on offshore ships. The people famously falling from the helicopter skids to the roof of the doomed Embassy, and worse, were Vietnamese. Their abandonment reflected the betrayal of the millions who had trusted the Americans.
For the victorious NLF, they were traitors. They knew that oppression and possibly hideous captivity awaited them, should they remain in Vietnam.
We had caused these people to stand with us, and they did so. That is, it was the fault of the US that defeat exposed them far more than it did Americans: to the victors, we were imperialists, but they were traitors.
However, their impending doom was not a major concern of those who had enticed so many Vietnamese to be our allies. Memorably, much, perhaps most, of the gung-ho Labor Establishment started bellowing about the stealing of American jobs.
We had told the now-endangered Vietnamese that we were behind them. And we were.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind them.
6
Any America citizen attacking immigrants for not speaking English or that they don't belong here or that they have higher crime rates should realize that someone in their own family tree has been an immigrant, legal or otherwise and likely faced the same types of attacks.
This is America, we're all descendants of immigrants, legal or otherwise.
3
Thank you for your powerful and truthful essay. I am with you.
3
My father used to say, "The genes of intelligence occur irrespective of race, religion, wealth social status or nationality."
4
I'm the great-grand child of immigrants who came to this country as refugees at turn of the 20th century. It took about one generation for my family to assimilate because we had the privilege of being white. I'm second generation college educated, and first generation graduate school educated.
I would need tremendous hubris to believe that the immigration door should be shut to other refugees.
5
Where is it written that a four- star Marine General can't also be a racist? Kelly showed his true colors with his treatment of the Congress person of color from Florida.Kelly is no better than the person he serves as he is no worse. There are sports players of color who refuse to play in the town Kelly was raised in because of its atitude to people of color. We were led to believe Kelly was going to be the grownup in the Trump/Kelly relationship I guess we were wrong.Kelly's service to the country has clouded our opinion of who he truly is.
10
John Kelly is Clarence Thomas redux. I'm a self made man and owe nothing to my ancestors for my success. How they sleep at night much less look themselves in the mirror is beyond me. Well done, I'm sure your parents are immensely proud.
9
People have no idea. Immigrants success rate is on par with their socio-economic non immigrants groups. It’s been that way since the1840s.
3
And that my friend is the problem. People at the bottom of the socio-economic are no longer climbing their way out of poverty. Our economy is very different from when Mr. Kelly family come to the US and immigration policies need to reflect that new reality.
1
First, the economy isn't all that different; Kelly's great-grandfather came during the era of the robber barons, when a centerpiece at dinner in Newport could include a bowl of sand and a silver spoon, with which guests could excavate for diamonds, and the rich controlled the banks, the economy, and the government.
Second - why "fix" immigration? Why not fix the economy instead? Henry Ford was the first of his peers to realize that he would quickly run out of customers unless he expanded the potential market by paying his workers enough so that they could buy cars, too. That philosophy, and the labor unions, were the genesis of the middle class.
It came to fruition when the US government, sitting on the only intact industrial economy after WW II, realized that only domestic consumption could fill the gap, and launched the propaganda campaign to create the "consumer economy". And while Adam Smith pointed out that capitalism only works if the workers get a living wage, the *consumer* economy only works if the workers get a sufficient *surplus* wage.
But ever since Reagan and Milton Friedman, "greed is good" has replaced "filthy rich", and the buying power of the middle class, on which the economy depends, has eroded, even as the 1% has gotten vastly richer, and corporate profits have hit record highs and kept going. There's an obvious solution to that, but Republicans prefer to reward rich donors and blame our economic woes on anything but the real cause.
On one side of their mouth, this administration is saying immigrants coming over the border "have no skills" and can't assimilate, and on the other, that they're "stealing our jobs." So which is it? The answer is whichever lie plays to the base.
14
Nguyen writes that John Kelly is of Italian ancestry, partially, I guess, since John Kelly certainly doesn't sound like an Italian name. If he is, then he's a disgrace to his ancestors. They are no doubt rolling over in their graves.
His quote about Mexican immigrants is jaw dropping in its similarity to what our elected officials, scholars, social workers, and others said about Italian immigrants circa 1910---rural, uneducated, unassimilable, constantly speaking their native tongue, incapable of functioning in a democracy, inherently criminal, eating the wrong foods, worshipping the wrong gods, too dark, too dirty, etc. And, let's not forget, not of the quality of those northern Europeans who came before them, that wonderful sturdy, pioneering stock.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly's quote comes verbatim from the 1911 Dillingham Commission Report, and just replaces Italian with Mexican. My goodness. The ignorance. I suspect Nguyen doesn't know enough of this history because he could've skewed him, easily. I certainly would have. This op-ed treats him with kid gloves. At the end of the day, though, Kelly's comment just points to the great bottomless pit that is American ignorance about immigration history.
5
"Bad Immigrants" an interesting choice of words. By "Bad" we are really talking about those associated with the illegal drug trade. We Americans advertise to the rest of the world that we are spending in excess of $10Billion annually on illegal drugs. Nobody is forcing us to take them, we just want them and since they are illegal only criminals supply them. Hence we have "Bad People" crossing our borders to supply the drugs we Americans demand.
Shall we start deporting illegal drug users to the country that their ancestors came from? Until we end the demand or decriminalize the drugs we will continue to have bad people coming here to satisfy our drug habits.
3
It’s clear that many Americans want to pull the ladder up once *they* are safe and sound. Go ahead and try. If you keep ignoring climate change, massive regional conflicts and increasing inequality, they will keep coming. They will arrive on our shores nearly drowned or dying of thirst in a border desert. A caravan of people WALKED, with blistered feet, from Honduras to our border. Maybe that is what frightens Mr. Kelly so much: the ghosts of his starved Irish ancestors marching across our border.
5
Germany sent mercenaries to fight for the British during the Revolutionary war. That's how my family arrived here. After Britain's defeat, the German soldiers were put into POW camps, mainly in Pennsylvania.
After a year the "Colonial Congress" allowed their release, and further allowed them to stay in the US and bring their wives and children over to the US. Chain Migration!
Germans are the most prolific immigrant group out of Europe, across the world. There are, if my facts are straight, more Germans in Australia than Brits. Germany was the last country in Western Europe to industrialize and promote individual rights and education. Not exactly "desirables".
I am very mindful as a descendant of German-Americans of my "dual origins". In WWI and WWII one group tried to kill the other and it is a reminder of the complexity of the structure of the human race.
To be an American requires one thing. A belief in it's ideas and it's founding principles. To follow and sacrifice for them. Do that and you are welcome here.
4
The issue is not whether John Kelly’s ancestors would have fit in. Rather, it is that from Trump on down, too many Republican leaders know that their base is totally xenophobic. Those that pander to this anti-immigrant base win and those, like Eric Cantor or John McCain lose. So,if you want to win Republican primaries there really is no choice.
1
Lady Liberty's message is dead to Kelly, the entire Trump administration, and others. Separatism has never ended well for any civilization.
1
And yet, mind-bogglingly, people still denigrate immigrants. I don't understand this. Well, okay I do. I grew up in a very rural, very white, very religious fundamentalist part of the country (Northern New York State). When I was in middle and high school I said and strongly felt very racist and ethnocentric things. I espoused these things because everybody around me did. Saying them made me fit in. It had nothing to do with reality (I had no conception of that) and everything to do with being part of a group. I totally don't hold those views now and am ashamed I ever did.
4
absolutely superb article and written in such a low key. Easily understood and beyond challenge by anyone with some morals.
These pathetic responses about misquoting the 'greatest US president' are so sad to see. Mr Viet quotes Trump accurately. He did voice the 'animals' epithet. But as we should all know Trump uses this sort of language for a reason. It is used as his other language is used to label and to demonise whole groups and not just about referring to MS 13. Trumps many well known Mexican epithets were not aimed at a small group but to label all.
1
Congratulations to Mr. Nguyen. He is effective in conveying his anger and frustration for being a non-white immigrant who has apparently thrived in the US.
This theme has come out time and time again in OP-ED articles written by non-whites who are immigrants or the children of immigrants. And since all the stories about the US being settled in the name of freedom and religious liberty have been exposed as fairy tales, maybe they feel a bit angry because they made the efforts to emigrate to the US, find success and as a result feed at the trough provided by the United States with help from Ben Franklin, Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt, to name a few.
Enjoy it, but no amount of "standing in solidarity" with illegal immigrants will change that fact.
1
Thank you for these wise words of compassion. Your mom sounds like an amazing person. This country is made great by people like her - and you.
Excellent and important observations. Since John Kelly apparently has forgotten, or maybe never heard any stories from his ancestors, he needs to read Noel Ignateiv's book How the Irish Became White.
3
Mr. Nguyen's essay could have been written by many first American born sons and daughters of immigrants. The people who make it into this country are, by far, the hardest working most entrepreneurial people on earth. America is great because of them.
I'd like to comment specifically on the notion of whiteness in America. To be white in America has long meant that your claim to being American is never questioned. In the America I was born into in 1957, only White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs) were considered fully white and fully American. As a 2nd generation American grandson of Polish and Russian Jews I didn't qualify. I didn't feel truly able to embrace American history as my own, until the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President.
President Obama was manifestly not white, but he was (and is) 100% American. That is seriously cool and the current train wreck in the Oval Office doesn't change that fact.
6
Choosing to emigrate usually requires and demonstrates ambition, fortitude, and intelligence. These qualities are what made America successful, if not always great.
4
It's a complete fallacy to state that because immigrants of the past caused problems too, you have to allow immigrants in now even when they cause a lot of problems. It's basically saying that because you made a mistake in the past, you have a moral obligation to keep making the same mistake in the future.
That aside, something can have been right in the past but is not the best thing to do today. When you are a kid, you better grow and become an adult. Does that mean you should keep growing until you are 100 feet tall? Probably not. A society can come at any time to the majority consensus that while it may have been a nation of immigrants in the past, it does not wish to be that now, and stop any and all immigration. Absolutely nothing wrong with that if it's the will of the majority.
25
"Absolutely nothing wrong with that if it's the will of the majority."
There is plenty wrong with that. You need to step back and consider how desperately our country still needs the contributions of immigrants, from farm workers to small business owners to scientists.
5
No there isn't "plenty wrong with that". It's about controlled legal immigration, which we need, not unfettered illegal border-crossing, a crime.
Donald trumps mother came over from Scotland as an immigrant/alien.
She did not mean to cause "problems", but look what happened.
By the way, last time I counted, 11 Million more people did not vote for trump than did. You are the minority.
5
Research about immigration has shown that most immigrants are more literate, more ambitious, and more motivated, than those who do not seek to leave their home countries. They have aspirations for upward mobility that they believe cannot be fulfilled unless they make the decision to emigrate. Assimilation, as Mr. Nguyen shows, generally occurs across generations as immigrant parents sacrifice so that their children can do better. This has been the American way for 200 years or more. Kelly's remarks are simply not informed by the facts.
7
I’m not sure that this isn’t the real reason for so many people’s fear of immigrants—not that they will be criminals or lazy, but that they will work harder and be more successful.
I am astounded that, as former General who commanded many children of those so-called rural immigrants from south of the border who are supposedly, unable to assimilate, could make such a baseless, fatuous statement. Where did he think many of those Dos Santos, Gonzalezes and Espositos in his ranks came from? Some defenders of the administration say that the president's latests comments is distinguishing good immigrants from bad ones. But trump's opening broad comments about immigrants from Mexico made no distinction, just as Kelly's recent comment is grossly inaccurate and demeaning. Never mind he seems to forget how intractably unassimilable his Irish immigrant forefathers were deemed a century ago or the honorable service of the many of sons and daughters of the rural, under-educated immigrants that came from south of the border. This whole administration is loathesome.
136
Mr. Nguyen tells a terrible story. A true story, but terrible.
My grandparents and some great grandparents came here before 1900. My wife's family came on the Fortune, in 1621.
We both believe that Mr. Trump's policies, and Mr. Kelly's explanations, are not merely wrong but evil.
The explanations are simple, I'm here so pull up the gangplank. I can not comprehend this attitude, but that may be my problem.
But the Trump administration's policies also hurt his followers the most. If the undocumented immigrant cleaning up in the restaurant is deported, I can eat at home. But if the red state farmers can't replace their undocumented workers their crops will rot in the fields. If factories can't replace their undocumented workers Mr. Trump's economy will suffer.
So it is not merely a moral question, but one of self interest. But Mr. Trump chooses to cut his nose to spite his face.
But it is clearly my failing because I can not comprehend the policies Messrs. Trump and Kelly that advocate. And I certainly have no understanding of their morality.
21
Thank you for such a thoughtful piece.All of my great grandparents arrived here from rural Ireland.All the men worked as laborers,all the women as domestics.I heard all the stories of "Irish need not apply".This prejudice currently enjoying such a come back in our country is disheartening.
16
From Kelly's remarks I gather his Irish/Italian ancestors arrived in America with college degrees, spoke polished English, had work experience much in demand, played baseball and baked apple pies.
Kelly, is that how it was? Your ancestors easily assimilated, so they were warmly welcomed in America. They were more American than those who had been here generations earlier. Especially black-slaves. Right?
This is why Kelly can be so self righteously judgemental of others. Today's immigrants just aren't made like they used to be. Especially in qualities of color and country of origin.
In Kelly's defense, today's America no longer has thriving coal mines or canal digs demanding Irish, Italian and other immigrant suicide labor.
American canals, railroad tunnels in need of sacrificial immigrants is way down. Without these job opportunities immigrants are not welcome...unless, like Kelly's ancestors they speak the King's English, can throw a curve, hit a fastball, bake a pie and be easily mistaken for white Protestant American.
My humble immigrant ancestors didn't enjoy the advantages of Kelly's. Mine were European. Caucasian was to their advantage, but they didn't arrive with advanced degrees, didn't know baseball from eyeball, sold apples instead of baking them in pies.
And yet their decedents went on to serve in the War of 1812, the Civil War (both sides) and 2 world wars. They became lawyers, doctors, educators and to Kelly's horror, Liberals, Democrats, Progressives.
14
Though being a modern day migrant still has its challenges, I think that being an immigrant to America in the 18th or 19th century would have been so much more difficult and a different experience than it is now that they can't really be compared. Modern day migrants to America usually travel on an airliner, get medical care and public assistance when they arrive, etc.
5
The ‘whiteness’ of Germans isn’t what saved them from internment during WWII....their sheer numbers is what saved them. There were so many people of German ancestry that the government legitimately feared what would happen if they tried to round them up and detain a critical mass of them (detainment and censorship was considered in different forms in both world wars). The fact that Germany did not sneak attack the US also helped.
Race played a part (obviously), but it did not play the only, and perhaps not even the biggest, part. You have to remember that ‘race’ then did not mean what ‘race’ means today. Northern and southern French people were considered different races, with vestiges of this thinking lasting into the 1960s! Anthony Clayton’s book on Verdun, for example, attributes the conduct of southern French soldiers to their temperament as one of the ‘firey southern races’.
5
Vietnamese-American here from San Jose.
"I can testify that there were plenty of bad refugees among us. Welfare cheating. Insurance scams. Cash under the table. Gang violence, with home invasions being a Vietnamese specialty."
True, but I don't have any problem deporting Vietnamese who committed serious crimes either even though they came to the U.S. legally. I think that it's a great idea that they can be deported back to Vietnam so the Vietnamese community here has less crime and has better reputation. Thus I don't have any problem deporting the MS-13 gang members that President Trump referred to as "animals."
I find Mr. Viet Thanh Nguyen's support for the illegal immigrants who violate American laws and committed serious crimes tiring.
2
Thank you, Mr. Nguyen. Like your parents, you are an awesome example of the extraodinary contributions immigrants/refugees make to our country.
4
Thank you for this eloquent and powerful essay. Sadly, the United States has a long and sordid history of dehumanizing "aliens," and entreaties to following the law are often a smokescreen for racism. The story of you and your family's path to the U.S. and your assimilation, despite many hardships, is a witness to the humanity of persons from other countries that many would seek to deny.
6
A man by the name of “Aaron Schlossberg” would do well to read your words. Not too long ago people with his background were regularly discriminated against. Alas, now that he is part of Club America, he has taken it upon himself to try to keep others out.
7
And this is why we didnt win in 2016.
we blame the Repblicans for whataboutisms but we practice the same.
I'm a legal immigrant, waiting in line for a Green card for 14 years. Since I most like wont get my Green card in time, I'm going to call out and say the Emperor has no clothes. Ask any healthcare provider (MD,RN,Social worker etc) about the dynamics of a new (illegal) immigrant in the healthcare system. Thousands of those in the system any given day. These are costing the American taxpayers many millions of dollars. Do you know how these people think? Once they get to know at the hospital is obliged to treat them in perspective off The cost, the insist on every possible therapy including keeping terminal patients on ventilators. I know this is a very narrow sliver of opinion, but I have seen enough uneducated immigrants using the system to their advantage, teenage pregnancy which is considered normal, children that have no exposure to formal education and blind faith in religion. John Kelly is right. It is very hard for someone who has no education moving To move into a country like America and assimilate. If we lose the the next round of elections, the Democrats have to blame only themselves.
5
I am confused. What legal status would allow you to wait 14 years for a green card? Can you vote?
Many laws are broken in this country, every day. Not all are the focus of vigorous enforcement or harsh punishment. It begs the question of why immigration is such a passionate concern for Trumpists and not, say, dangerous traffic violations, or illegal forms of pollution, or spousal abuse? I suspect the answers lie in motives that are now, thankfully, too dark and taboo to publicly advocate in the United States. A few decades ago, however, Trump and many of his cronies would have gladly wrapped themselves in white robes as gleeful participants in the worst of our history.
8
I was graduated from high school in 1969. We had a lot of people from Europe, all of whom had English names -- when possible. Antonio and Antonia became Tony and Toni. If there was no English cognate, Savarino became Savvy, and later Reno -- both totally American sounding.
Oddly, in that year, a fellow named Mike, originally from Belgium, said he wanted to be addressed as Michel. That surprised me, but I didn't consider it portentous -- not then.
But now, even people from Puerto Rico want to be addressed as Miguel, and assuming that Mike or Michael is automatically okay is considered crass or racist.
I don't know about you, but a person whose parents called him Avram or Ibrahim, but says "call me Abe", endears himself to me, tacitly saying "I like the way you Americans do things -- that's why I'm here." Isn't that nice?
Alas, that doesn't seem to be the trajectory. It would be unsuitable to make a law that says people must assimilate in a certain way, but if we can't find a way of encouraging such a mindset, then we'd might as well stop calling the country a nation, and use a more accurate term -- passport issuing authority. That makes me sad.
4
Mr. Nguyen should also read carefully the history of the other World War, when German-Americans were indeed interned in camps. When the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act were passed to justify jailing and abuse of German-Americans and the Alien Enemy Act was revived for the same purpose. This didn't have to do with their lack of whiteness, there are more prejudices extant in the world than just race, and it's offensive to shoehorn every problem into the Procrustean bed of race. They were distrusted because they exercised their right to conscientious objection, and did not support the war effort. Nevertheless, some were court-martialed and jailed, some tarred and feathered, at least one was lynched, and 17 were sentenced to death.
This is my second correction to the fact base on which this opinion was written. If Mr. Nguyen is indeed an "academic" then he should know these things before he attempts to build his case.
Completely without any opinion on the statements and behavior of John Kelly, this article needs a serious upgrade.
3
I am sympathetic to immigrants but I have questions:
Is there a limit to how many poor immigrants America can absorb?
If there is no limit, please explain why.
If there is a limit, then explain how to define and enforce that limit?
9
Low US birth rate and an aging population would suggest that immigration is critical. The number should depend on needs and not race. Illegal immigration is a serious problem.
Those who came here on the Mayflower did not have documents signed by those already here, giving permission to immigrate.
7
I agree, the soft focus, rose colored amnesia of many in this country is disheartening - especially by more recent immigrants. "Pulling up the ladder" comes to mind with some opinions floating about these days. Thanks for speaking truth to power.
1
Our current situation is very different from the past this article describes. Now many of our citizens are underemployed and unemployed. Ageism is everywhere. Citizens lose their jobs before they retire. Not just the inexperienced young, but immigrants as well are favored over citizens for skilled jobs as a way to lower costs. Although this country is presently without leadership, the reason why individuals without ethics, integrity, and character are in charge is because our citizens are desperate suffering from results of increasing illegal immigration that continue to cheat on our resources, as this article admits was the practice of his fellow immigrants. And it is not only the unskilled and uneducated that are currently cheating our system, it is also the skilled who displace our educated citizens from jobs in the prime of their lives without the benefit of procuring a safe retirement. Those who fail to acknowledge the increasing poverty in this country are completely ignorant, and even though with a college degree. This is a very uninformed idealistic article.
2
My Grandfather came from Scotland to avoid a life that had no avenue of escape from the collieries of Blantyre. He was looking for a chance to do better. My Grandmother came over at age six and grew up in a Pennsylvania coal mining town. We are (almost) all the children of people who came seeking safety, security and opportunity. The fact that we would deprive others of that chance is just another American Shame.
3
Great message. Please keep telling your story.
1
I love how we Americans take absolutely no responsibility for our actions! Having traveled the world I certainly don’t blame illegal immigrants for coming here. If I lived in some of those places I would try too! However at the end of the day it’s who gave them a job? Those fellow Americans are the folks that we really need to have law enforcement go after. I thought we rid ourselves of serfdom long ago but evidently not. My family has a small business we pay a good wage, offer healthcare and retirement. Yet, I have to complete with other businesses that hire illegals and reap all the rewards for themselves, so my anger is directed at those folks. And we know it is not just small businesses undertaking this practice large corps as well ( And it sure as isn’t just farmers hiring). In addition, many of my neighbors find it perfectly fine to run down to 7/11 day labor site full of illegals and hire them for the day and then have the turn around and scream about illegals. Go figure. Blame the illegals and take know responsibility! Do you think these businesses are willing to give the folks that work for them a living wage just cause their Americans?
2
There have always been problems with what America is, but the country has been, over the course of the last generation, trending away from its roots. There were always pockets of the hateful who feared immigrants and pockets of immigrants who could not have been more despised, but most of us were proud of our tradition of making room for the huddled masses. On the other hand, I suppose that one can be proudly defiant of inclusion, just as one can look back on ancestors and rather than venerate them, blame them, which seems to be a theme of the millennials. It seems that today's America is filled with all kinds of right answers and all kinds of definitions for what is wrong and yet there is so little evidence that we are evolving into something better than we have ever been no matter how loudly we seek to distance ourselves from a past that had more than a few things worth venerating.
1
This man is my hero. He speaks the truth to power. Gives me hope. Everyone in this country has been an immigrant one time or other. I am immigrant myself. Have lived in this country for over 40 years. I would not want to live any where else. Raised a beautiful family and they are fully American. What more one can one ask? Bigotry arises when a group fill threatened. These are not good times for many immigrants in this country who look different from the majority; but as they say arc of history bends toward justice and I am hopeful.
1
Not only is the US mostly empty: CALIFORNIA is mostly empty.
By changing our zoning laws so that multi-unit buildings are favored *everywhere*, rather than excluded almost everywhere, by building a modern rail system that integrates regional cities from Yreka to Tijuana into our vibrant, cosmopolitan state; by maintainingbCA's leadership in the post-carbon energy revolution: through these and other choices, we here in CA would be more than ready to welcome a whole 'nother 30 million folks over the next few decades.
It's not just the flyover country that's got room for new people.
In truth, California *will* add another 10, 20, probably 30 million residents by the early 2040s - planned or not, documented or undocumented, etc. For the state's economy to grow, its population must grow too. Welcoming immigrants who might feel less at home in other regions can only benefit our state, by attracting those who chose California far more freely than they chore to come to the US at all.
Or does my country want to become Japan? Abandoned neighborhoods, crashing real estate values, 95-year-olds on the freeway, the solitary old left to mummify unnoticed...
Actually, that last bit sounds like a popular meme. "The Walking Dead: Apocalypse Old Folks" - anyone up for that future? Lots of them old folks own guns & know how to use them. I guess that's not much like Japan after all. Elderly Americans are no more inclined to politely fade into the background than anyone else. Scary...
I agree completely with Mr. Nguyen. The Central Americans now arriving are, with their children, fleeing DEATH. Wouldn't we be doing the same, in life-threatening circumstances?
And, gee, even without armament, I am not scared of mothers and children. Let's drop the gang identification: these people are fleeing gangs. Let's greet them with open arms, since this country needs an infusion of youth.
And the Germans in Pennsylvania and elsewhere? During WWI, being Germans was not advantageous, so the "Pennsylvania Deutsch" (Germans) became the "Pennsylvania Dutch". The Amish, of whom most of us think highly, are German.
1
I am not sure "forgetting" is the right word. The most successful legal immigrants are the ones who choose to fully integrate and look forward in their new country, not back trying to recreate the "old country" in the US. I fully agree that it is important to support immigration when it is done legally and welcome these new arrivals and make sure they can do what millions before them did: find a home in the US and truly become Americans.
Illegal immigration is a problem and does an enormous disservice to legal immigrants who end up being lumped up with law breakers.
Finally, the author loses much credibility repeating the ridiculous and false accusation about President Trump's comments on MS-13 members as applying to immigrants generally. Unless, naturally, the author things gang members are worthy of defense and support.
I do not know how it is everywhere else - I imagine probably basically the same - but in this country there have always been multitudes wandering around thinking their "stuff" does not stink.
1
Perusing some of the comments herein I am dismayed with the vitriol expressed against Mr. Nguyen, DACA dreamers, and immigrants in general. Other than the Natives, who were driven from their land by the pomposity of White Supremacists, aka the Founders, and a Federal government's policy based on Manifest Destiny, the hypocrisy of America expansionism goes back before we were even colonies. Just after gaining independence, Jefferson, a small government advocate who preached limited rule, doubled the land area of the United States. Later the US followed its expansion westward promulgated by a belief in and the implementation of a policy of Manifest Destiny. From there, it never looked back. It now has the chutzpah to complain about its role as the World's policeman. Really? It has no one to blame but itself. It assumed that role at the end of WWII and has not budged in that position since. With a confederacy of dunces now operating the Executive branch and a willingly compliant Congress, this hatred of the immigrant has been blown all out of proportion. People who support Trump think he's making America great. He's doing the opposite and they don't have a clue in their thick skulls to see otherwise.
DD
Manhattan
2
Kelly commanded troops of all ethnicities during his honorable military career. He understands the importance of group cohesion and working as a team for a common goal. He's also an educated man who knows the story of our country and every ethnic group's struggle to fit into the American culture. That's why his words are especially egregious. Trump may be ignorant but Kelly is not. So he's using those words on purpose, and he knows how those words will play out in the everyday lives of Americans. Whatever he was is gone.
113
The fact that Kelly is articulate, cool about his demeanor, calculating strategist relative to Trump, makes him more dangerous to immigrants.
He is most likely more biased and inconsiderate of plights of families whose members he has gleefully detained when leading department of Homeland Security.
Media and others have been fooled by his level headed facade behind which lies a begotten white supremacist man devoid of compassion and social conscience.
4
My earliest ancestors to arrive in what is now the US came in the 1620s. The most recent ones, my mother's parents, got here in1906 and 1914. Every one of those immigrants did the same thing as today's immigrants do: took a huge chance, left behind everything they knew and loved -- or hated -- for a chance at a better life for themselves and their children. As the grateful beneficiary of those actions, how could I ever deny the same opportunity to people fleeing their home country, whether of desperation or a sense of adventure? Immigration is one of the things that has made America great. We forget that at our peril.
1
One vast difference separates Vietnamese immigrants from those Europeans who came in the 19th century. The government gave the Vietnamese who arrived here in 1975 and later massive fiscal support, forgiving income tax during their first 5 years and other significant benefits. In my job enforcing Federal code, I deal with Vietnamese and other violators. The vietnamese have a special outrage ready whenever we are serving process, because they have told themselves that whatever they have done, they are above the law, having clung to a helicopter in Saigon or endured the hellish trip from Southeast Asia in a refugee boat. Many of them--and this criticism is not restricted to Vietnamese immigrants--consider themselves above the law.
4
Thank you Viet Thanh Nguyen. This is both a timely piece and a wake up call. When we Americans turn away from the central values that shaped us, we risk losing our most important qualities - our sense of purpose, our unity, our dignity.
3
Immigrants have always, and always will, mostly threatened the most recent before them or those who remain stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder.
They enter the country, perform the worst jobs available, and grind it out.
What we conveniently dismiss, however, are some differences. The first is that immigrants did not historically walk across the border, They arrived by ship from Asia or Europe (and, tragically, Africa). There was a process by which they applied for citizenship. Their numbers were limited.
Today, we have social safety nets that were not present one hundred years ago. Each immigrant places an additional burden on the citizenry for programmatic support. They do not arrive with the same asymmetric risk in a nation that likely has better health care and social programs than what they left behind.
We ARE a nation of immigrants. But we need to have this discussion like adults, thinking about the immigrant and remembering the newly-displaced workers and perennially stuck Black whose plight seems permanent as new Hispanics, Indians, and East Asians breeze past them as they enter the country.
Our immediate focus should be wrestling with what to do with the dispossessed among us: the descendants of slaves going sideways and backward and the White laborers (all immigrants' descendants!) who are struggling to cope with our appetite for low-cost labor and tossing them aside in search of new markets to build our computers and stitch together our clothing.
4
Don't we have historically low unemployment now? This seems like the best time to accept immigrants.
1
@Robert Nesselroth
We have a historically low Labor Participation Rate, a frightening number of Black men incarcerated, large swaths displaced by offshoring, and an increased sense of hopelessness.
So, no, I think we have plenty of homework to which to attend.
The Liberal conceit that we can “immigrate” the White (and Black) populations out of relevancy is disturbing and cynical.
Mr. Nguyen does not present a fair and accurate picture of Vietnamese immigration. The first wave of immigrants had ties to the American government and were generally well-educated. The second wave included many from the countryside who were not educated. Initially, there was popular opposition but the government was quite adamant that we owed these people a debt. As a result, the Vietnamese were better supported than most immigrant communities.
Comparing the Vietnamese experience to that of the undocumented and the Irish is comparing apples to oranges to grapefruits. Not all immigrant communities are the same.
2
Some of your comments are accurate: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/vietnamese-immigrants-united-sta... . A closer look reveals more nuance.
Oranges and grapefruit don't have much to do with patterns of anti-immigrant sentiment throughout US history: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/for-educators/a-cold-reception-an... ("A Cold Reception: Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in the United States") AND https://immigrantarchiveproject.org/brief-history-anti-immigrant-propaga... .
In these contexts, Mr. Kelly's comments are just more of the same, however he personally articulates his sentiments.
General Kelly is wrong, because he forgets history. A number of people with names like Kelly came to this country in the 1850’s. They were uneducated and unskilled. They never assimilated. They are buried at Gettysburg.
My grandparents fit General Kelly’s description. Their grandchildren and great grandchildren are PhD, lawyers, special ed teachers, and successful business people.
My suggestion is that the general resign from the WH before he totally destroys his reputation as a hero and leader of men.
Came to the US legally, with a recent doctorate earned in Canada, which was more generous than the US to admit a youngster refugee years before that. Yes, laws are to be followed but the laws are made by men and women who are themselves forgetting or otherwise lack the empathy the article so well identifies as missing. Well said, Mr. Nguyen!
4
As somebody who played a role in immigration enforcement as a consular officer of the U.S., I still have to say the law is the law and should be enforced or changed. But also please remember thato immigration violations are not crimes of moral turpitude. I did not appreciate being lied to by visa applicants, but that did not make them bad people. Most were just seeking an opportunity to advance themselves. That did not mean they were going to get a visa; they had to show that they were eligible for one of the categories that the INA provided, and if they felt the need to lie that kind of meant they were not. But they were still human beings.
13
My sentiments exactly. One of my cousins whom I had helped acquire an American citizenship (not in a totally honest way) and who currently earns over $250K as a medical doctor, now thinks that "we already have too many immigrants, especially Mexicans...let them go somewhere else to seek greener pastures." How soon we forget!
16
I'm one of those one-quarter Swedish, one-quarter Norwegian, one-quarter Irish, one-eighth German, one-eighth British Americans, who will never forget that all of my ancestors came to America looking for a better life and eager to leave home behind.
I welcome each and every new immigrant to the US, documented or undocumented, as a potential fellow American.
If America means anything in today's world, it's because my country is exemplary in the world for its endorsement - however partial, contested, and unfulfilled - of the idea that the best and only true national identity is founded on choice, not on circumstance.
Black Americans descended from slaves choose, in as many ways as they are people, to see themselves as Americans. In a paradoxical sense, their choice most powerfully defines the national identity we share. Most immigrants to the US feared, doubted, and suffered hardship to come here. Many, not only enslaved Africans, were brought by force. Immigration, even as free labor rather than human livestock, is deep-dwelling.
Just as are the descendants of African slaves (and their owners), so Salvadoran, Syrian, and Somali refugees - including those with a third-grade education - are in this sense just like my Norwegian great-grandparents. Whatever drove us, whatever bore us, to these shores, we are all Americans - so long, that is, as we remember with whom we share that name.
21
Hear! Hear!
Thank you Mr. Nguyen for your article that brings back fond, loving and proud memories of my own people. None of whom would make past any merit based grading system today. What they did once they were was not heroic, not special, not even meaningful in the overall scheme of things. For many years my father served beer & shots of low end whiskey to mostly blue collar workers in a local bar, and in his sixties he was able to land a job opening doors, piloting the elevator & carrying packages for the "very very best of us" on 5th Ave. My mother stayed at home, raised us, until she too could serve as domestic help in the same zip code. Mind you they were seen as highly successful by their compatriots in the old country.
Unmitigated shame on us if we lose a sense of who we are and where we came from.
17
Something else Mr. Kelly might want to consider: most of the 3,400 workers who built the Empire State Building were immigrants from Europe. And then there were the Canadian Mohawk "Skywalkers," so skilled at keeping their balance walking on beams so high up in the air while constructing that iconic building. Most didn't move here permanently, but immigrants and Canadians outnumbered Americans in the building of that historic structure.
And someone else to consider: On July 28, 1945 a B25 bomber crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. Fourteen people died -- it was a foggy Saturday. Later that day a Russian immigrant was having dinner with his family at Grossinger's upstate. He was known to be the best ironworker in New York, and he was tracked down because they needed him to immediately return to New York to oversee the repairs to the building, if he was willing to cut short his vacation.
He said yes, and a limousine was sent to pick him up. To this day his family is so proud of him -- he had an 8th grade education, but a limousine was sent to pick him up.
For anyone who follows closely the history of ESB, you know that the building was open for business that Monday -- all repairs were carried out without having to shut the building down or disrupting any of the other tenants.
We have immigrants to thank for not only the construction of that building, but also the repair of that building. You can look it up.
25
All I can say is "wow!" I did not know of this history, and this incident. Thank you for reinforcing my beliefs in the heroism of many people.
5
My maternal grandfather and his Irish brothers and cousins migrated from Newfoundland and became iron workers on the Empire State Building and many other iconic NY buildings here in the 1920's -1940's. They all joined the Iron Workers Union, became citizens, settled in Brooklyn and worked hard to move their next generation into the middle class.
This is an emotional column, but not a practical or realistic one.
My grandma had only 8 classes and I also have a PhD, like Mr. Ngyuyen. However, in her time and place of living (eastern Europe) that was the norm for all women and the husband was the one who had to provide for her. As a matter of fact she told me numerous times that a husband would have been ashamed if his wife worked, thus signaling he can't support her. After her husband died, she found herself totally dependent on her kids and grandkids and social services.
Today the norms of society have changed. If we allow immigration, it should be comprised of people who are well-equipped for life as it is today.
11
I was reading somewhere that today in America most Ph.D. can't find work, and it's a glut of uneducated Uber drivers who makes less than the minim wage. Sure the unemployment rate touted by the current administration is small, but it conveniently forgets the 100 million people who dropped from the labor force and no longer received benefits. Rents, education, and healthcare are all super-high, driven by over-population, and a smaller and smaller share of affluent people who can support the rest with their taxes. The US immigration policy should reflect this reality, not the pink-colored ideal.
8
The United States, with its dropping birth rate, needs workers from across the economic spectrum. If President Trump gets his wish and we only take in the best and brightest, native-born US citizens will end up being pushed down economically.
(And it is ironic whenever Trump talks about illegal immigration, given that he had to pay more than $1 million in fines for hiring hundreds of undocumented workers for his projects.)
1
The d dropping birthdate is because 1) men don't want to marry because they want to pay the field and 2) raising a child is incredibly expensive, more so every year. From affording a big enough apt to sending them to college. As a society we should focus on creating conditions for higher birthrate, instead of importing millions of dirt poor uneducated people who are used to being dirt poor and won't complain!
"But the laws are the laws.”
My mother told me, many years ago, that it is "more important to be kind than to be correct." I've never forgotten that message.
I once read a commentary about interpreting laws - that the reason we have judges instead of computer algorithms is that interpretation of the law is a complex matter that can only be done by humans. And what attribute do humans presumably have that computer algorithms do not? Compassion?
The law can be used to elevate society or to drag it down. The difference is human compassion. Without it, we are a nation of Terminators, with our only mission the extermination of our targets.
20
"It's better to be kind than correct." Beautiful!
1
My grandparents were part of the Italian wave of immigrants at the beginning of the last century.
They were illiterate, unschooled, and the only skill they had was the ability to work. They never learned to speak English.
I saw their original intake paperwork at Ellis Island. They, and nearly half of their fellow travelers on board their ship, were all listed as "PEASANT" when it came to occupation.
Their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren have all become contributing members of this country. And yet, according to Mr. Kelly - and the current President - they are not deserving of being citizens.
Mr. Nguyen's article is right on target.
28
One sister-in-law's parents were born in Mexico and her father fought with valor in WWII. A brother is married to a mathematics professor who was born in China. A nephew is married to a Ph.D. born in Taiwan. A niece is married to a man whose parents are German and Philippino. As far as marriages, we're not done yet. This is the America I love and know.
27
Love it! We too have an eclectic family. Like Mr Obama’s. How much grief he got for being that, eclectic.
8
This is such a fine and admirable column. Mr Nguyen is stating the case, not so much for refugees and immigrants, but for preserving an essential aspect of this country's identity. That's something every generation of immigrants has had to do - to remind the native-born of the founding principles of their country.
25
And the point of this OpEd is?
Most Americans agree that immigration is good, especially considering that all but a very few Americans have immigrant roots.
I believe what divides us is differentiating 'good' immigrants v. all immigrants, something alluded to yet not directly addressed in Nguyen's piece.
Good immigrants constitutes those who come here with dreams, ambitions, a work ethic, a willingness to assimilate and a respect and love for what America stands for as a nation, such as Nguyen's mother.
What Americans don't want are the bad immigrants - the lazy, the get-overs, the hucksters and the criminals. This includes violent gangs such as M13 (Salvadorans - fact), Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters (Russians - fact, look it up as to how many are involved in doctor mills that are insurance rip off schemes) and chain migrants (from everywhere).
While I may be calling out certain ethnic groups for shock appeal, my point is that in our internet age, the Federal government can and should determine individuals who we want to let in, or not, based on each individual's background and that of their family, friends and acquaintances. Pretending all immigrants are equally worthy when someone's father has been convicted of fraud and his brother of assault is being naive.
DJT called out and continues to call out the truth on our broken immigration system. Unless the Democrats get on board with fixing it, they'll continue to suffer electoral defeats on this issue.
16
And who are you to say that those seeking refuge or who want to immigrate to this country don't have the very same dreams and aspirations as those who came before? And how do you know that earlier waves of immigrants were necessarily motivated, at the outset, with such noble aspirations?
The point of Mr. Nguyen's piece is that with any group of immigrants to this country, the story of the circumstances surrounding their immigration tends to become rather sanitized, revised and ennobled over time. The reality is that earlier immigrants probably weren't quite what we romanticize them to be, and that those currently seeking entry aren't the monsters many of us imagine them to be.
40
What I don't understand in the column - though I agree with all the rest - is the section about Germans. The last time I looked around, we are white. Sure, we have had some admixture for decades now, and I love that, but in essence, each of us is a combination of the various Caucasian ethnicities that make up Europe. I am German and have six or seven different ethnic groups in my own genome, and am proud of each single one.
Germans are highly adaptable, hard-working for the most part, and which group of immigrants did not, for a generation or two, cling to its own language or customs? And as to language, the more languages you know, the better. When I was a teacher, I always urged my foreign students never to forget their own language.
Mr. Nguyen, apart from this one small point, I really appreciated your column.
2
Mr. Nguyen's point about German-Americans was that even though they were Caucasian, they were still "the other" when they arrived in the United States.
By the late 1800's there were whole cities in America where german was the dominant language (Cincinnati, Milwaukee, for example). Newspapers were published in German. Shopkeepers spoke in German, Schools were taught in German (all points that current Americans despise about Spanish).
It actually took the shock of WW I to make the German-Americans rapidly assimilate (as you indicated they were white, so eliminate the language and they bend in quickly). But before that shock they were living largely separate lives, not assimilating very much.
Skin color is not the only trait used to define otherness. Religion, language, sexuality, any difference can be latched onto to isolate a group.
3
Retired, I have only one pair of dress shoes. They were given to me, lightly used, by an old American veteran of WWII. He was Japanese American and shoes are symbolic of what he and his family endured. His parents were put in an interment camp and he had to make multiple trip into and out of the camp just to fit them with shoes.
Imagine! An American soldier who suffered stomach wounds in combat - wounds that forever affected his ability to metabolize food - faced such indignity.
I am here to tell you that I have known many immigrants. Collectively, they are wonderful people. White folks who think otherwise should get out of their enclaves and see the rest of the country.
61
Mr. Thanh Nguyen's discussion of the contrast between the treatment of German Americans and Japanese Americans during WWII has some personal resonance with me.
I was in high school when I first learned of the detainment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I was shocked -- it went against everything I had been taught about what this country stood for. I wnet home from school and raised the issue with my father, a WWII veteran who served in the South Pacific. "Yes," he said, "it happened, and it was probably wrong." He continued, "But you have to understand the fear that gripped the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Unless you lived through that, it is probably impossible to understand why that decision was taken." "We were at war," he concluded, as if that were the only justification that could ever be needed.
"But Dad," I countered, "we were at war with Germany, too, but nobody hauled your German immigrant grandparents off to a camp someplace, and they didn't have their business seized." I contended that this probably had to do with the fact that their physical features allowed them to blend in with so-called "white America" in a way that Japanese Americans could not, and that this was a form of racism. Reluctantly, he admitted I probably had a point.
Nine months after my father died came the 9-11 attacks. After that, I think I did have a pretty good understanding of the fear that had gripped the country after Pearl Harbor. I still think it was wrong.
65
There were plans in the USA to intern people of German heritage, but there were too many of them. It did happen in the U.K., though, and to people who had done no harm at all, who were leading good, productive lives.
The internment of Japanese-Americans is hardly mentioned in our curriculum, but I always made it a point to devote at least 6 hours to the subject. The reaction of my teens was always the same - horror, anger, and deep compassion for the people who were treated like that just because of their heritage.
4
Yes Germans were interned in the UK during WWII, including... “German/Austrian Jews” who had been forced into exile there. Talk about a double-whammy or rather double-horror.
I personally know a lady whose elder brother ended up killing himself in his mid-twenties after such internment. I also know the daughter of a different lady who was not allowed to leave England to join her Austrian-Jewish parents in New York in 1939, because she – just like her brother – was born in Berlin and was considered an “enemy alien (child!)” by the British government. Consequently she and her brother never saw their father again, who died in 1940.
Kudos to both you and your father for talking to each other about serious issues, listening with understanding, and having the strength of mind to expand your understanding. These abilities are disappearing in our society today.
2
The 21st century will likely turn out a lot different from the 20th century.
That's why different policies are needed.
That's why just because something was done 50, 100 years ago doesn't make it right today. That's just logic.
I look at immigration like any other governmental policy. Policies are designed to achieve goals. Immigration achieves a goal -- more people living in the United States -- but is that actually a goal worth pursuing? Are we in dire need of more and more people?
I'd be content with fewer people. More open spaces. Less traffic. More social cohesion. Lower cost of living.
Quality of life is more a function of individual productivity and per capital GDP, not aggregate GDP (compare living in Switzerland to China).
17
Lower cost of living? Why? Can you offer a rational argument for your assertion which I suspect is totally incorrect?
We now have a growing cohort of retirees and this is causing serious difficulties for the financing of Social Security so increasing the working age population would be desirable.
20
"Are we in dire need of more and more people?"
Yes. Yes we are.
We are the United States of America. Our "self-interest rightly understood" is neither confined to the past nor to the physical space within our borders. Rather, our self-interest extends to the future and to the rest of the world.
Instead of espousing nationalism and protectionism, we need to open our eyes and accept the reality that we are part of a larger world that we should embrace while reveling in its complexity. If we reject it, it will reject us, and we will be the poorer for it.
"In 2016, near the end of Barack Obama's presidency, the U.S. resettled 15,479 Syrian refugees, according to State Department figures. In 2017, the country let in 3,024. So far this year [as of April 12, 2018], that number is just 11. By comparison, over the same 3 1/2-month period in 2016, the U.S. accepted 790." https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/12/602022877/the-u-s-has-...
ELEVEN Syrian refugees. Shame on us.
Immigration panic is just that: panic. Read *anything* by the demographer Douglas Massey, and be enlightened by statistics and analysis.
If you want more open space, fight to protect those spaces that are under threat from this current administration due to changes in policies from clean water to fracking to underfunding and reducing the size national parks and opening that area to private business.
We must be better and do better, or our country will fail.
31
"That's why just because something was done 50, 100 years ago doesn't make it right today. That's just logic."
Maybe if that logic were applied to the Second Amendment, 10 schoolchildren in Texas would still be alive today.
As a white American 'born here' male (all four of my grandparents came from Finland) married to a Vietnamese refugee and who taught ESL to hundreds of immigrant and refugee students, I want to say thank you for the clarity of stating the importance of understanding the immigrant experience .
Like your mother, my wife worked incredibly hard to make a future for herself and her two daughters, both of whom earned master degrees.
Bob Saari
37
Most new immigrants tend to work harder than the "natives" and contribute more to the well being of the United States. If you look at faculties at technology departments the majority of the professors are foreign born. Without them the U.S. would be a technology back water.
A personal note: I came to the U.S. as a graduate student and I was supposed to leave two years after obtaining my degree. But I was working on a project of great interest to the U.S. Air Force and I was considered essential, so the DoD intervened with the Immigration and I was granted permanent residence. By the way, at the time I had several attractive offers from Canadian Universities so I was not the one who benefited the most by immigrating to the U.S.
38
Mr. Nguyen, your mother is so brave. She travelled first far south in her country where the dialect was completely different Then she moved to the opposite side of the world. Why would she suffer such difficulties? My guess is she took the hardship path so that het children would have a more comfortable life. That is the classic immigrant story. The energy, the determination, and the fearlessness that immigrants bring is what makes America great, and new immigrants renew that vitality.
Research on creativity shows the best outcomes are achieved through a mix of old school and newcomers. California"s economic prowess is BECAUSE of its diversity, not in spite of it.
78
Some fly from NY to California & say "the country is mostly empty & there is room for many more."
Scientists say the Oglalla aquifer, which provides the fresh water for huge portions of the West and Midwest, is vastly depleted, having been drawn down at a rate far surpassing its replenishment. The Colorado River has been decimated in the last 40 years to supply fresh water to an exploding population in California. Native Americans are not receiving their legally agreed upon apportionment under the Colorado River compact. The "bread basket" of the Midwest may well follow California's Central Valley from bread basket to increasing wasteland.
Seeking to serve as the world's "escape valve" for population from high fertility regions will continue to aggravate the already under-threat ecological sustainability of the North American continent. Better to support greater voluntary birth control in these regions than seeking to bring the population density of Delhi, India to the US.
This article conflates refugees (a legal immigrant category) with all immigrants and makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. The notion that US should allow for unlimited open borders and unlimited immigration, legal and illegal, not only defies laws of US and national consensus; but the laws of science.
Let's follow Canada's example, and support merit-based immigration; strict enforcement of immigration laws; & then expanded admission of refugees.
42
Are you including Latin America in your definition of higher fertility regions? Latin America and the Caribbean are at replacement level fertility of ~2.1. That's pretty stable.
The specter of an unlikely Malthusian catastrophe supplants what should be our focus: the inequitable distribution and consumption of natural resources. That's the problem.
1
I'm always astounded by those "there's plenty of room" comments. Does it not dawn on some people that settlements were always established near a source of water? The reasons for that haven't changed.
1
An American consumes about three times more water than a European. This has nothing to do with immigration, legal or illegal, but with how Americans in general deal with their environment.
2
It is possible that John Kelly is aware that Irish immigrants were once known as 'White Gorillas' on arrival in Boston in the 19th century. Perhaps he is too busy taking care of Trump to revisit this dark chapter in American history.
A carpenter and stone mason, my great grandfather brought his family to New Haven in the mid-1860s, and his offspring were among the first Irish settlers in New England. Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, and his clan followed a decade later.
The Kellys from Ireland were ancestors of my uncle Delaney and set up a successful printing business in competition with Currier and Ives. General Kelly might wish to read of 'The Princes of Kelly', and remember that Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of The Declaration of Independence, was descended from an immigrant family from Ireland.
But that was then, and now we are in 'Modern Times' where Our State of Affairs are deteriorating and hurling abuse at newcomers because their English is wanting. Not all of us have a good handle on English, but regardless of our nationality, we are fluent 'mathematicians', and Mr. Nguyen indicates that his parent was quite capable of managing her taxes.
My French grandmother, her first husband died at Verdun, her second, an American soldier during WWI, she returned as a bride to Baltimore where he worked for Bethlehem Steel. Her English was not fluent, but she had a knack for the Crossword.
Trump & Kelly, give Us back America.
54
very nice piece. just acknowledging the humanity of these refugees is an act of compassion in today's political climate
57
Ok then take in all the 10 million starving children from India. Will you ? Or you wait for them to contact people smugglers and get trafficked ?
I'm certain that great numbers of Americans, citizens born here, descendants of those who came many generations ago, and those somewhat more recently like Mr. Nguyen's parents, have faint understanding of the risk, trauma, and isolation that accompanies moving one's family to a distant country, with dfferent cultures, and having to learn a new and difficult language. It's difficult enough for a family or individual with the means and access to legal processes. Imagine this for refugees risking sea crossings in poor vessels, arrests by border guards, and dangerous criminals preying on the vulnerable. Sometimes it's worth reminding ourselves of our own good fortune and how we judge those who want to join us.
44
Mr. Nguyen is perhaps cognizant that an undocumented person is not a refugee under U.S. law? The U.S. considers people who have fled persecution to be refugees if they attain that status before entering the U.S., and asylees if the enter here and then ask for and are granted asylum. There are more categories, but unless an undocumented person is in the process of getting asylum (and is hence an asylum seeker by virtue of having had a credible fear interview), that undocumented person is not someone protected or acknowledged under the Refugee Convention.
There are laws and conventions that define these terms, they are not open to free interpretation by "writers and academics" they are terms of art in refugee law.
17
Ondelete, you are right in some respects, wrong in others and overall you miss the point of Nguyen’s essay. The Convention does indeed prescribe who is a refugee. She is a person who is outside her country of nationality because of a well-founded fear of persecution [I summarise of course]. One can become a refugee at any point and in any place and not, as you suggest, a moment before crossing the US frontier. An asylum seeker breaks no national laws when she crosses a border without permission. An undocumented resident can be a refugee. The Convention also extends its protection to those who do not qualify as refugees but would be endangered if returned to their own country. And even Convention countries ignore their obligations to and inflict harm on those in their control they acknowledge to be refugees. And that brings me to Nguyen’s point, which is about the dearth of compassion that distorts people’s thinking about the migrant experience and leads to arbitrary cruelty and neglect. I know about that. My country Australia is one of the worst offenders. Obsessed with ‘otherness’, we a nation mostly of immigrants, have forgotten who we are and become wantonly cruel to newcomers.
Thank you for your comment - these facts are never presented by the MSM, who have assumed a mass migration advocacy role and not a role to inform, which you have done instead. In an ideal world, facts should trump emotional arguments every time.
1
I referred repeatedly to U.S. law in my comment, what is legally a refugee in Australia and in the U.S. are not the same.
Nguyen's comments are indeed accurate. Re some points brought up by other commenters:
Although Irish immigration in numbers started during the Potato Famine, it continues to this day. In 1907, the peak year for US Immigration, the largest immigrant groups were Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews. Meanwhile, the Irish had fought in the Civil War, built the railroads, staffed ships, and created and run businesses - and New York City was still paved with "No Irish Need Apply" signs.
The issue of illegal immigration is overblown by the Republicans, in a ploy to cater to the prejudices of the white supremacist base. The number of illegal immigrants has been declining since the financial collapse; they make up only 3-4% of the population, and roughly 3/4 of them have jobs (5% of the workforce overall, but 26% in farming, and 15% in construction); 2/3 or more have been in the US for more than 10 years, and many have married, bought homes, pay taxes, and raise children here, just like most citizens; the rate of felony convictions among undocumented immigrants is less than half that in the general population.
I for one don't see how that poses any threat to us; we ought to be figuring out ways for them to become citizens, not castigating, criminalizing and deporting them.
152
Fascinating litany of "hard" data, but most interesting: "3/4 of them have jobs". So, what's the official direct-count 4/4 number? How was this "3/4" data collected--W-2s for illegals? Cash-economy database?
Nonetheless, bottom line--illegal immigrants need to be sent back to their place of origin. Time to get in line like all those who come to the US legally.
1
Pew Research Center
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-im...
The total was 11.3 million in 2016 by the Pew estimate, a number which has been pretty much stable since 2009. As to employment, I presume some are aged parents, as some commenters have indicated, and I suspect some are children.
In any case, the numbers being bandied about - e.g. by Trump - are ridiculous on the face of it. 30-60 million would mean as many as 1 of 5 Americans was an illegal immigrant. Yeah, sure! And 1-2 million crossing the border every year? 2 million s the entire population of New Mexico, and 2.5% of the population of the 4 border states. By that reckoning, just since 2006 California and Texas must have become 1/3 illegal immigrants. Or else they all went home again after the harvest.
If we're going to talk about the best approach to immigration, we ought at least to start with real numbers and real data on where they come from, how they get here, and whether their record in the US should qualify them to stay.
Three-fourths of my ancestors were English colonists who came here in the mid-1600's. Another one-eighth had the same ancestry. And then there were my paternal great-grandparents on his father's side, about whom I knew nothing until just a few years ago, when my sister's research into our family heritage discovered that they were Austrian Jews who emigrated to northern Kansas, established businesses, and assimilated so thoroughly into "American" society that when my grandfather married my non-Jewish grandmother, they left Kansas for Oregon and never even told my father that he had Jewish heritage. Is this what assimilation has come to -- shame that one's genetic background isn't Anglo-Saxon, or that one's religious background isn't wholly Protestant?
I wish I had known all this when my grandparents were still alive and I was old enough to understand the questions I should ask and the answers I would get. But he died in 1943 when I was four, and she died when I was 22, long before the magic of Ancestry.com opened the door to the past for my generation. I can only imagine what it must have cost my grandparents to conceal such a significant truth for their entire lives together. I hope that we are not inflicting the same price on new immigrants who feel they must live in the shadows and deny their own personhood to avoid being sent back to countries where they can never live without fear. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's exactly what we're doing.
61
I would take refugees who are desperate for an opportunity, who will work hard without complaint, over most of rural America any day of the week.
124
Wait a minute. How do you know that "rural America" whatever is meant by that--since people of many races, ethnicities, and backgrounds live there--does not in fact work very hard?
The sobering reality, of the present and the future, is the United States is overpopulated and the degree of overpopulation will increase dramatically. Competent analysis has concluded that the human population of the U.S.A. may, as trend is not destiny, be 438 million people. The ominous reality of exponential growth of the human population is conveniently ignored by leadership in these United States, yet as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow the affects of the continual growth of the human population will greatly enlarge the problems of today, and unknown problems of the future -- dense cities; traffic congestion; rising cost for transportation, energy, food, education; and son on. Competent and aware leadership would acknowledge the future in plain sight, but such leadership is wholly lacking. For these reasons alone the United States must stop allowing immigration, legal and illegal, into the nation. The future depends on this.
20
I just flew from New York to California. From my window seat, it was clear:The country is mostly empty, and there is room for many more of us. My mother and her family came here from Ireland in 1929. Their lives were hard, but their children have made better lives not only for themselves, but for those Americans whom they serve as scientists, teachers, lawyers, doctors...
You think of immigrants as a cost for society. You haven't factored in the enormous value they have added to our nation.
64
Dear LV:
When exactly does the US reach your projection of 438 million? It has taken a half century to double our population. Recent stats show the US population growth stagnating. In fact crime is down dramatically. Our most densely populated cities, eg. NYC, have become safer. Population growth leads to increased wealth. A half century ago the Dow has not broken 1,000. Did you know that? Gerrymandering is a serious problem, as is our lack of representation. As the populace increases our representation has remained the same. Though Americans will naturally be suspicious, when they realize that their voice has been diminished they might figure out they have less power now than they did eons ago.
DD
Manhattan
Empty space for tangible reasons -- lack of arable soils, lack of sustainable water resources, desert, lands that are very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, mountains that contain unstable slopes and active earthquake faults along their boundaries, dedicated agricultural lands, salinized soil, oversubscribed watersheds that cannot meet the dedicated allotments (the Colorado River basin), increased aridity due to human-caused climate change, dedication to endangered species, existing usage for energy extraction (hydraulic fracturing for natural gas), mining, timbering, and so on. A corollary to this reality is that the United States is loosing significant amount of agricultural to expanding human development -- the American Land Trust just published a report on this situation. The numbers are startling. People have miss-perceptions about what constitute empty land. This notion is reinforced by a visual take at 35,000 feet above the land surface from a jet airplane. Knowledge in the relevant sciences quickly dispels many false notions about the place in nature for humans . At the end of analysis the superior question is -- what is of greater value to the present and future of the nation -- more people or adequate amounts of land and supporting resources to feed the nation?
See:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Report-America-is-losing-its-be...
Speaking of immigration, I work in high-tech.
We have lots of people here on H-1B visas.
At the same time we have Americans from rural America and inner cities who are uneducated and unemployed.
What is wrong with this picture.
34
1. Not everyone is fit for high tech jobs. 2. Contrary to liberal dogma, it is NOT the place of the government to match people to jobs. 3. Even if they were capable of learning the material, our culture of entitlement would lead them to demand outsized pay and benefits.
6
Hmm. The thing that is wrong should be asked of the employers.
Second, how many of those Americans have a willingness to work the hours that are required of them?
From my perspective and working for 40 plus years I have observed the work ethic of younger Americans as not desirable.
14
So, the unwillingness or inability to obtain an advanced degree is science by certain Trump followers implies that H1B immigration should be halted, just in case they feel like going to school and being useful at some later point in time? Mmmm, OK.
Everyone should know by now that Trump's animal remark was specifically directed at the vicious MS-13 gang members. To misrepresent his remarks is intellectually dishonest, and discredits this piece; everyone knows the truth.
When Mr Kelly's ancestors came over, there was no welfare to cheat. They worked hard, it was sink or swim. Also, Mr Kelly's ancestors migrated here legally.
Mr Kelly stated the obvious, that the US has enough economic migrants, we do not need any more unskilled migrants. We also have too many illegals already - nobody knows the real number but according to Yale researcher's it is probably much higher than 11M, possibly as much as 25M.
A country should be able to control its immigration policy, all countries in the world do so, including Vietnam, but quite obviously immigration advocates do not think that western countries have that right. We should and actually do have that right.
The US cannot absorb any and all who wish to come here - why not instead advocate to try to make the migrant-exporting countries more like the US, so that people in these countries can have opportunities and can help their home countries?
Finally, in the 70s and 80s, the Vietnam refugees were admitted legally into the US, because these refugees faced political persecution by the government of Vietnam. The migrants from Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala are not facing political persecution from their governments. The comparison is false.
22
When Mr. Kelly's ancestors came there was no limitation except for those who were ill. The latter were sent back. And, because it was a growing country there was work. But not all immigrants worked hard and many became criminals.
And you are wrong about Guatemala and Honduras. There is serious corruption there, and criminal cartels in Mexico producing and smuggling drugs to the American market. If Americans didn't buy, there wouldn't be such a big market for these criminals to sell to.
No, but they ARE facing persecution from gangs, just like MS-13. Many were given asylum under previous presidents--Republicans and Democrats--that Trump is rescinding. Some were even on the path to citizenship, which takes many years, and they have many hoops to jump through. I'm not saying there shouldn't be hoops to jump through, only that many had started the process, thanks to the asylum program that allowed them to stay here, work, pay taxes, be productive, etc., and now Trump wants to send them back to the gangs of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. If his "animals" comments was truly ONLY aimed at MS-13, he is essentially signing death warrants for the people he's sending back--primarily women with children. But hey, what's a few gang deaths among "animals?"
1
Pesky facts...
we democrats dont want those when they dont suit us!
This is more than an ordinary op-ed piece – it is a fascinating personal statement a family document and a tribute to Mr. Nguyen mother and, implicitly, women like her. It was good to read, and so are the comments, when so many threads in newspapers tacitly express fierce and irrational race hatred.
34
My great grandparents came from Ireland...rural, uneducated. My great-grandma changed her name from the ‘too Irish’ Brigid to Della on Ellis Island, on the advice of the person processing her. She became a maid and dedicated herself to copying her well-off employers and raising her 6 children as ‘Americans’, which to her meant you spoke English (not Irish like they spoke in County Mayo), had good teeth, clean shoes, set the table properly and educated your children.
Her descendants were legion and include many typical American success stories elevating some of us to the 1%. I personally still feel closer to my immigrant ancestors than the Establishment, though many might think I’m deeply part of it. As part of my clan are Kellys, I’m ashamed to hear John Kelly’s comments. My great grandma lived until 96...I knew her long enough to understand in my bones how terrifying and awesome it was to leave your country behind, but how compelling the opportunities to earn an honest living were. I cheer on the immigrants I see, uneducated, rural, who are cooking, cleaning, care taking, striving to create American success stories for their families.
Isn’t there a win win to be found? Economics is not a zero sum game. Immigrants can add to the equation.
47
It sounds like your great-grandmother used a nickname, as Delia was a common Irish nickname for Bridget and its variations. You can view Ellis Island passenger lists online, and the lists were made in the country that they sailed out of. It's a myth that names were changed at Ellis Island. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/ask-smithsonian-d...
In the 19th century, many post-potato famine Irish (including, probably, my own Irish ancestors) came to the US on ships docking in Canada via the St. Lawrence River. Many walked south into the USA and were "fully undocumented". the US. In 19th c., Schuylkill County, PA, northwest of Ben Franklin's home in Philadelphia, many of these Irish ended up digging hard coal and all sorts of other work to fuel the first American industrial revolution. But locally, the mostly German settler farmers (and others) in the lowlands of the county, detested these "Papists" who were considered ignorant, lazy, and immoral--imagine a funeral gathering with keening and rambunctious widespread drunkeness to celebrate the life of the dead. I'm also part German.
Like the German, the Irish, and most large-wave immigrations to the USA, the new are seen as second or third class humans. But most groups who have come here in numbers have mainly held jobs involving hard work at relatively poor wages, or tried the hard labor of farming virgin land.
I've seen many in the current wave of immigration from Mexico and Central America, Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean come to Central Florida. The work ethic of most is quintessentially "American".
Obviously the distinction between undocumented ('illegal') and documented ('legal) is important, but a charitable people might be able to be more hospitable than Kelly's statements would recommend.
31
it's clear from his comments that John Kelly is not only a xenophobe despite his immigrant background, but also a racist as he demonstrated publicly in his ill-tempered and incorrect attack on Rep. Frederica Wilson, an African-American congresswoman who was consoling a constituent who's Green Beret husband had just been killed in Niger whom he and the President also denigrated. As a first generation son of immigrants who fled the pogroms in eastern Europe, I've shared the immigrant experience complete with curses experienced as a child from my Irish Catholic neighbors who, of course, suffered a similar fate when they immigrated. It's sad that we flee from bigotry only to experience it here by those who should know better. Nevertheless, those who come here are often those with the energy and determination to succeed. And, although my parents never went beyond high school and my maternal grandmother never learned to read, they encouraged their children to achieve sending my older brother and I to Ivy League schools and on to successful professional career. This is THE American story--the one that really makes America great again and again and again. It's a shame to see Mr. Kelly embracing the President's anti-immigrant bigotry at a time when we need motivated young workers to fill jobs and keep us strong, and yes, great.
36
Sadly Boston can be very racist. It is a paradox since Boston is very cosmopolitan with an international student population but the area where John Kelly grew up, perhaps remained racist. I remember back in the 1980s when the Celtics basketball team was mostly white except for Robert Parish. And so were the Red Sox and the Patriots. Boston was slower to allow athletes of color represent it?
1
In a few months, I will be 70. When I was in the 10th grade, I participated in a summer reading program during which the teachers had selected books focusing on the immigrant experience--"My Antonia," "The Octopus," "The Rise and Fall of Silas Latham," etc. As a 10h grader who parents had both dropped out of school in the 10th grade, and as someone whose Irish ancestors had come into this country through "the back door" (i.e., illegally), I was aware of this subject. Whenever I asked my mother about our Irish history, she'd emphatically say, "WE'RE NOT IRISH! WE'RE AMERICANS!" And yet, whenever I walked down the street in South Boston, men with brogues would pinch me on the cheeks and say, "Ah, you've got the map o'Galway on your face!"
Getting back to the reading program...In the fall, when we discussed it with the teachers, several of us noted that the immigrants who were persecuted when they'd arrived often persecuted the next group that came after them. For example, when the Irish took over police and fire departments in Boston, they persecuted the Italians, Polish, and anyone who wasn't Irish. We 10th graders asked the teachers, "Why, once they'd suffered from persecution, wouldn't they know how it felt, and why would they do it to others?" The teachers (in public school, by the way), were pleased we got the point. However, the older I've gotten, the more I realize that this is how it is. Tribalism at its finest. I'm going to re-read these books now that I'm retired.
56
There's a quote from a text in one of the English textbooks we use for English courses in Germany. "The most recent immigrant always wants to keep those out who come later."
1
Selective memory -- EXTREMELY selective memory, to be exact -- is what makes the 21st-century Republican Party possible. What occurs, along with what doesn't occur, in the White House and on Capitol Hill under GOP control is the equivalent of vandalizing Independence Hall, the Lincoln Memorial and the Statue of Liberty each and every day.
28
I enjoyed reading this. I can recall 1975 when I worked at a medical facility. I walked in one day and there was a new employee, a refugee from Vietnam. They put her with me. She did not speak English. I struggled with what French I knew,did some charades, and she watched me...she caught on fast.Her whole family worked (mom,dad,I forget the number of siblings). They bought a car and off to California
they went. She had been accepted in a biochemistry program. She said she would get her PhD. I knew she would.
36
Thank you for printing Viet Thanh Nguyen's fine piece on his immigrant experience. I am a descendent of Irish immigrants who worked in cotton mills (their children stood on boxes to work whenever they weren't in school) to hear John Kelly repeatedly misrepresent the nation's past with regard to earlier generations. His panegyric about the good old days (when girls were girls and men were men, I guess) conveniently omitted the plain fact that the good old days weren't good for people of color. Now he's contaminating his own history by saying that undocumented aliens with little education cannot thrive in this country, when his own Italian ancestor was here illegally, was functionally illiterate, and did pretty well in the end. This willful contempt for immigrants betrays our country's proud past and likely future. General Kelly, go home and read up on your own family's history.
36
As they are words which are just that and little more for most of us, compassion and respect are both easily forgotten if ever elicited, if even considered, thoughts.
One has to identify with suffering in order to understand compassion and surmount difficulty to engage the thought of respect. Neither of these are rarely if ever considered by any of those who have historically led or guided our nation.
As noted by the author we have a selective amnesia if any memory exists. Our goal is not to live in harmony rather to win and leave those who finish out of the running, like the horses who "also ran" in today's Preakness, however classy, candidates for the glue factory.
At one point we may have been a people who could have incorporated inclusiveness into our psyche, but that desire, if it existed, was eliminated as it is in so many cultures by the acceptance of the dictates of a higher power, a so called spiritual power whose word remains unquestionable.
Mr Kelly is right. So called rural people, those who live simply without the bounds of competition placed on us by those who seek power and control, don't integrate well, but he is wrong they do have skills, skills which prove their humanity until that quality is driven from them by a system which elevates monetary wealth to the highest position of our economic and social ladder.
Pity and shame are the words which should be applied to those who lead us away from the values yours and all other mothers give to us.
12
@Ian
Are you sure that they "don't integrate well"? Was this a problem for the Irish, or the Italians? Was it a problem for the Pilgrims?
Thank you Viet Thanh Nguyen for this piece and the one you wrote the other day in the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ripping-children-from-parents-wi...
I thank both newspapers for publishing them as well, too often these voices are lost.
My family history says that my predecessors came to Canada relatively early in the mid 19th century from Europe and the USA. . I still have a few letters that reflect their lack of education. But... they were white.
I can only guess that they had no compunction about homesteading on land stolen from Aboriginal people.
There are no frontiers like there were then. The frontiers of the mind said 'take it all'.
"She did not speak fluent English, but she did well enough to contribute more in taxes than many Americans. She was and is heroic, but many Americans would see her only as an outsider, including the one who put a sign in a shop window near my parents’ grocery store in San Jose: “Another American driven out of business by the Vietnamese.”"
We are all immigrants, and we have left behind the Aboriginal people.
The society you live in now is sick for everyone. You seem to be using your voice for reason, a scarce commodity now. Thank you.
19
Thank you Viet Thanh Nguyen. Earlier today the Mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf, as well as yourself have told us via the NY Times 2 of the most poignant stories of why, we, the USA, should do what we used to do, what countries like Germany and Italy are doing regarding the crises in Syria, is open our borders with gratitude, rather than suspicion, to anyone from anywhere who wants to be part of the US diaspora.
13
Mr. Nguyen,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on our new immigrants. One significant aspect of many of the Europeans immigrants of the 19th Century was their lack of education but the chance of work and free public education was the way out of poverty for some of them and assuredly for many of their children. Working class imigrants and their children work harder than the older settled Americans and are major contributors to our economy.
13
Dear Mr. Nguyen, Thank you for your essay. Perhaps it is human nature that even people fleeing Vietnam reject others fleeing later catastrophes. We are all the poorer for it.
My father’s family arrived in the 1630’s. No one invited them either, so they too were illegal immigrants. An early relative was hanged as a witch in Salem, so the "new world" wasn't a success for everyone.
Generations later, I live on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, “represented” by Andy Harris, a “Freedom Caucus” member who would happily ship out everyone who doesn’t look or speak like him despite that his parents immigrated from eastern Europe.
Poor Andy. He suddenly finds himself advocating for immigrants because the Shore needs people from Mexico to pick crabs. Current laws have left us short of people willing to do that. Immigrants are apparently “bad people” until you need them.
This country was built by people with the courage to go to a new place. Most immigrants have faced discrimination by those already here. They did jobs other people wouldn't. They didn’t have many skills or speak the language. They worked hard to give their children a better life. Their kids and grand kids run businesses, teach, cure the sick. We need the contributions those strangers from other places have always made. If we close our borders now, we lose the ideas and energy those people bring with them. We do so at our peril.
39
There are foreign Masters and PhDs who received their education in the US and speak fluent English waiting in line for their legal immigration status. Hundreds of thousands of foreign students are currently studying in American universities. As much as uneducated, unskilled workers have the potential to contribute to the US, it makes no sense to prioritize them over highly skilled applicants. A merit-based system is sensible and widely adopted by other advanced nations. It is unfortunate that Mr. Nguyen resorts to emotion rather than reason in evaluating immigration policies.
5
Just who advocates "prioritizing" the unskilled over skilled or educated immigrates? No one that I know of. Maybe you are referring to the fact that we don't absolutely prevent the "unskilled" from immigrating illegally. We also don't prevent he educated from immigrating illegally, such as by overstaying visas.
It is unfortunately that you resort to a red herring, distortion, and possibly deliberate lying in evaluating immigration policies.
1
If US corporations would provide training programs, as they used to do, we'd have plenty of skilled, educated American people who could do those jobs well without importing foreign students and workers. US corporations have been unwilling to shoulder those costs to benefit American workers. Indeed, they are pushing out older, experienced, well-educated workers to favor the cheaper labor of young, foreign workers (who may have illegally overstayed their visas or have gotten "waivers" to stay on).
In addition, if the government could provide lower-cost student loans and loan-forgiveness programs, as it used to do, more American students could afford to acquire the academic credentials that some industries like to see their workers have. Universities have been happy to take foreign students' tuition money to fill seats American students cannot afford.
Where is the "merit" in the system you advocate?
To phil:
I make no accusation as to who is advocating for prioritizing the unskilled over skilled; I merely state the obvious, which is such policies would be unreasonable.
It is unfortunate that you...actually, I see no point in insulting you. Have a nice day.
Oner hundred years ago, when my two Italian grandfathers came to America and settled in Boston, one a barber, the other a plumber, all they wanted was to fit in and succeed. They named all of their 19 kids between them with American names, and bought houses and kept everyone fed and clothed. Being just two generations removed from that social trauma has always been in my mind, and even after degrees from an Ivy League school and MIT, and three CEO jobs, I often think about what they went through to secure a good life. If anyone from an immigrant background forgets their family story, and washes it away in some "white only" 1950's MAGA fantasy concocted against new immigrants of any race, they are denying the magic of the true American dream. Boston may have been balkanized by ethnic groups, but my and Kelly's grandfathers were chasing the same dream at the very same moment.
41
Thank you for this insightful and lovingly rendered reflection which warmed my (3rd generation) Irish heart tonight. Your message has a quiet power that underscores, and advocates for, the most treasured characteristics of our ancestors.
1
Mr. Nguyen,
A timely and truly excellent article. Thank you.
34
I remember my parents talking about the "No Irish Need Apply" signs but by the time I was in elementary school the most recent immigrants in my community were Italians settling in CT after World War II. Several of my classmates were not allowed to play with children from immigrant Italian families.
In high school and college the Italian families were more accepted, and the new despised immigrants were the Vietnamese. It just seems to me to be "fear of other."
This feeling of superiority to the newest arrivals and desire to close the gates so no one comes in after "us" is what Trump and Kelly represent. It is neither noble nor representative of the principles of liberty I was taught that this country represents or at least should represent.
59
There is much here to agree with. I say so as an immigrant myself. But Mr. Nguyen too quickly elides the distinction between legal immigrant and illegal immigrant. It is roughly true to say that each illegal immigrant displaces a legal immigrant -- possibly one who has been waiting patiently. The backlogs for legal immigrants range up to 24 years.
That is the real scandal.
13
Let's face it, Congress does not want to solve this issue. Both legal and long term illegal immigrants need to have their status assured. Our legislators have woven this web and we cannot find a reasonable, humane answer.
17
Please remember that slavery and Jim Crow were “laws” as well. We need to ask are we being just and judicious in our creation of our immigration policy. We have an untenable immigration system and it’s been broken for a long time. To make matters worse Trump and Kelly are changing laws not to make us safer, but rather to intentionally demonize a group of people. The right has consistently introduced laws in order to be able to call those who commit the CIVIL infraction of disobeying immigration laws CRIMINALS.
Please pay attention. ICE has substantially increased deporting people with enduring ties, US citizen spouses/children with no criminal records whom bring value to our country. People whom have been attempting to become citizens and following all the laws of our country but are summarily deported at great financial, emotional and community cost (do you think ICE raids are cheap, do you think that tearing apart communities doesn’t have other high costs?)
We need to fix our immigration system. But to do that the right would need to admit that they’ve been scapegoating and demonizing people for YEARS who aren’t actually a threat to us individually or collectively. It is the Right who is destroying access to living wage jobs, worker protections and other social benefits that help us all rise. If only their voters would recognize what is causing the harm to them and their families. It isn't refugees.
46
Legal immigrants are losing jobs to illegal immigrants? As dishwashers and construction laborers? I don't think so. The "skilled" immigrants, meanwhile, are taking tech jobs from US citizens, wholesale. The Americans being fired get offered severance packages, if they agree to train their replacements.
Then, there's the fact that Cuban refugees, fleeing a country where dissidents are imprisoned, are "good" refugees, but Haitians, fleeing a country where they were simply murdered, were "bad".
No offense to Mr. Viet Thanh Nguyen, but President Trump's remarks about "animals" were the MS 13 gang members who rape, murder, and mutilate innocent women and children. Please do criticize US immigration policy. Please do advocate for the change of laws. But stop misquoting and spreading fake news. It is not only unnecessary, it does great damage to our country, yours and mine.
25
Mr. Trump did not amend his comments with the claim that they referred only to MS 13 until quite a while after they were made.
26
Dr. Potter, you're exactly right. AFTER the uproar began among normal people who heard the remark, he did another one of his clownish denial tap dances.
I am waiting for our president to call the recent school shooter an Animal. Could it be our president called the killer in Virginia who ran the woman down in his car an Animal and we missed it in the fake news? Fale news is any news not playing to the party line. We are in dire straits if any news not playing the party line is deemed Fake News.
Mr. Nguyen has every reason to be proud of his family's success. And America should be grateful to them for helping to create a more vibrant, cosmopolitan society ready to compete in the 21st century. We are a country moving to majority minority status and I say hoorah to that.
Where I differ from Mr. Nguyen is his opinion that legal and illegal immigration are the same. Even human being in this country is eligible for a vast array of social services that new immigrants access much more frequently than other Americans. That is costly to our overstrained treasury. A massive influx of newcomers can create communities separate from the American mainstream that take a long time to assimilate. Citizens already here have every right to limit access and control our borders, whether the would be immigrants are from Scandinavia or Vietnam. Canada is a progressive country that strictly controls its borders. Why can't we?
15
Ugh. Most working immigrants pay into OUR social security system, that being at least 7.5% of their income without chance of collecting unless we open our borders to productive members of our society that are truly Making America Great Again.
14
This is a great column, but it doesn't deliver on its headline—it doesn't explain why General Kelly's ancestors wouldn't have fit in either. I assume General Kelly is at least part Irish, and that his ancestors may date back to the Irish immigration wave of the 1840s. This group had some of the same issues that General Kelly complains about, two big ones being having poor education and being from rural backgrounds but coming to big cities like New York. I think most people of Irish descent, and in fact most Americans of any background, would agree that despite these obstacles the Irish immigration turned out marvelously.
And as Mr. Nguyen argues, the recent waves of immigration have also worked well, despite some of the same kind of "fit" problems. General Kelly says new immigrants might not fit in well. Except General, these potential immigrants are no different than those who have been coming here in recent decades, and they are assimilating very well. Other than trying to create division, what's the issue?
We've strayed too far from our immigrant roots, which partly explains why we've turned into such a nation of wimps and whiners. If we were once a greater nation, it was because we were closer to those roots. Our immigrants ancestors had guts! The wimps stayed home. We continue to need more of these kind of people, like our own ancestors! I hope the issue here isn’t a hang-up that the new immigrants are coming from places like Vietnam and Mexico rather than Europe.
14
" Except General, these potential immigrants are no different than those who have been coming here in recent decades, and they are assimilating very well. "
As a resident of a city with significant Muslim and Asian populations, I would strongly disagree with this statement.
"We've strayed too far from our immigrant roots, which partly explains why we've turned into such a nation of wimps and whiners."
In fact, this country is absorbing the greatest number of immigrants in decades. Get you facts straight.
Bottom line: We are now a nation odd 300 million or so people, America is a culture over 200 years old and operating in a global economy requiring a work force with very specialized skills. A bit different than the 1840s or early 20th century when Gen Kelly's ancestors arrived.
1
Here is more on Mr. Kelly's immigrant ancestors in the US. Seems like the same story line as Mr. Nguyen's to me.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/11/how-john-kellys-famil...
When Gen Kelly's ancestors came there was no such thing as welfare...they actually had to work
I remember that there was a famous Indian mound, so named "Poverty Point", because these early settlers waited for their handouts from the government there in the early 1800's. So the government helped people of "like color" until people of "different color" started to put a drain on the government coffers. I don't want to write a paragraph as most folks do but look at how trump is treating Puerto Rico as an example of his indifference. ( Please note that these young children growing up are our future. Hopefully, they will reverse the course that our US is now taken.)
10
Mr. Nguyen should consider that John Kelly is of Donald Trump’s generation, that his attitudes about many things likely are generational, and that this generation’s power is passing – throughout a notably aged cadre of elected representatives. That generation was far more insulated culturally than those coming into their own, not having spent lives bombarded with a 24-hour global news cycle, pervasive social media and a constant drumbeat on the diversity of our nation.
Certainly, ANY individual can assimilate in America should he or she so choose.
However, having written that, we shouldn’t dismiss Kelly’s concerns over culture entirely merely because they were articulated so badly and because they may have been at least partially motivated by anachronistic ethnic assumptions.
America offers the world a distinct dominant culture that is different from other cultures. We’ve always welcomed immigrants who bring their own folkways – in much earlier times in what numbers we could get, to fill up an empty nation, and today for many reasons, including to add skills that we need. In those earlier times the onslaught of immigrants helped build that dominant culture, and today we expect lawful immigrants to assimilate and largely adopt that now-mature, dominant culture. But those entering UNlawfully and in great numbers may threaten that dominant culture because their sheer numbers, particularly when concentrated regionally, can overwhelm our ability to assimilate them.
9
The Vietnamese refugees were never so numerous as to threaten the dominant culture, and we accepted them by a national consensus, although there were naysayers even then. They were legal immigrants, by the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, passed on May 23, 1975, under President Gerald Ford – the popular willingness to accept them may have been low, but they were accepted by our law regardless. What we’re talking about today are in part legitimate refugees fleeing the violence of failed and failing societies to our south, but largely those seeking better economic prospects – and doing it illegally and WITHOUT a national consensus to allow them immigrant status in unlimited numbers, while legal immigrants from all parts of the world, all faiths and all races and ethnicities, wait on line for years to become Americans.
And we have the same right to protect our dominant culture that any other society on Earth has. There are many ways of “stand[ing] with immigrants and refugees, with the poor and the unwanted” that don’t require that we give up that culture to an assault of an immense and illegal wave of people who were acculturated very differently from how we were, and who appear on our border in unassimilable numbers.
17
Thank goodness! I was afraid Richard Luettgen was on vacation and we would not have a voice of reason from Hoboken or wherever. Please do not worry, New Jersey will not give up its culture, so ably represented by Chris Christie and "Jersey Shore", to unassimilable numbers pouring in from New York City. I live and work among people from all over the world, some of whom will insist on eating pizza with a fork until their dying day. Perhaps it would be worth thinking about mutual accommodation rather than expecting assimilation. Give up soccer for golf? Richard, I do not care if your friends play golf but why should mine forego the World Cup? Gorge on cheeseburgers if you wish while we will opt for paella and birria. There is a very legitimate concern about the entry of large numbers of people in ways that stress resources and environmental considerations but those have little to do with "culture". Wealthy people with a sense of entitlement tend to consume more per capita than recent immigrants, with or without papers, but I do not hear calls to curtail the number of wealthy out of a desire to protect the environment.
Above all the law is a social construction; we could eliminate much illegal entry simply by rolling immigration standards and processes back to what they were 2 centuries ago. Not a good idea but it would address the law. In the 1960s, with a porous southern border, 90 percent of people entering left on their own. More restrictions creates more unwanted settlers.
3
The United States, in its quest for dominance in the Cold War, provided weaponry and supported dictators throughout the world. When the Cold War ended, the U.S. dumped those countries like a bad date, leaving weaponry and a rightfully resentful citizenry behind. The exploitation, by Europe and the U.S., has seeded the ground for poverty, civil wars, and countries robbed of natural resources. Perhaps we need a renewed look and what constitutes illegality.
4
Mr. Nguyen has portrayed the pattern of successful stories of hard working new immigrants and their children surpassing short (while real) related bad stories. This pattern appears in many immigrants’ stories.
Then we have agreed that the American dreams and the openness of this country to immigrants (while an obvious inclination to whiteness for a long time) had made and continue to make this country special, rich and happy.
Maybe, just maybe, I am afraid that the big portion of America do not need that specialness because they are convinced they do not benefit from it and have gave up on such dreams. What is their dream? Escape from their reality, it seems.
They in their dream believe Mr. T and Republicans’ promises and feel good for a while.
Social Networkings may have given opportunity to let them pull the US toward an ordinary nation without dreams.
1
My immigrant family not so long ago knew about zero English and were mostly off the farm.
A few made it to 6th grade in the old country. They surely had skills and talents but didn't get any "bank jobs" for sure.
But their children - they became middle class educated - and most did very well relatively speaking. They became the highly skilled workers, business owners, police, etc.
They served their USA well...
Their kids - about all of them -- became well educated professionals of many stripes. High achievers - but normal feet on the ground nice people.
Suspect Kelly's family the same,
I am American but I can and do read, write, and speak the language of my roots when I can and I carry the culture in my heart and mind. But I am AMERICAN!
I do know is this ... I've been around the block and I tell you the best thing that ever happened to American is that it mostly welcomed immigration.
Also I'll tell you this - we'd have been lost before and we'll be lost today without immigrants - from laborers to highly educated professors.
Those that think we don't need them or think only a privileged few should be allowed in are not recognizing reality.
Yes, we need to have responsible diligent protections - but we mostly have had them for awhile.
Sadly Trump World deals in red herrings, straw men, and base emotions.
And Trump uses this issue only to garner base votes. No real necessity.
Woe to our vitality.
42
I have not forgotten, either. What this article does is it reminds us to remind our children. This is a lesson that cannot be lost as long as it is shared with each generation.
11
This article should be required reading for all students when the topic taught is history of the United States.
And for all those who willingly enroll in ESL as adults.
“Convenient amnesia about one’s origins is an all-American trait”.
How true. How sad. And how disrespectful to one’s ancestors.
Not an inkling as to those ancestors’ struggles. and the benefits future generations reaped from their struggle … is sadly lost on so many ‘americans’.
32
Three generations of wealth. That is how long it takes the leadership of countries to create myths about their "great" families and forget what low station they actually started as.
An aristocracy is forming in America.
28
Then you can imagined how deep the myths must be amongst the Boston Brahmins who claims to be here from Way back when it all began.
Such a great, heart-felt, article. I agree with him completly. Thanks for taking the time to put your words on paper. As Jon Meacham says in his new book, it inches us forward on the collective path of democracy.
20
I emigrated to Mexico in my 40's. I did not bring a foreign family along but met and married my beautiful wife here. We do bureaucratic filings for the benefit of both countries but I see less and less value in the "border". I have relatives living (permanently as citizens) in the US, Mexico, Denmark, Hong Kong and one sister moves regularly between Brazil and the US but has not yet fully emigrated to Brazil.
Borders are artifacts of hundreds of years of geographical, religious, and economic based power isolation on this planet.
Cryptocurrencies , Internet connectivity, globalization, air travel and space travel all chip away at these archaic borders that still bind us.
Who lives next to me where I choose to live is their decision.
The lack of effective political leaders worldwide is a symptom that borders have broke the norms of political control in many parts of the world. Taking the right step, even more fluid borders, is the necessary but not evident step.
14
Thank you for sharing that quote from Franklin about the "non-white" Germans. Pretty much every new group of European immigrants who came to the US (voluntarily) after the British settlers were non-white - until they were suddenly not "non-white" - that distinction being reserved for the next wave of immigrants. "Non-white" was applied to the Irish, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Italians, Slovenians, Russians, Slovaks, and others - many recruited en masse to work in the railways, in the mines, in iron and steel, etc.
The descendants of most of those immigrants are ignorant about the realities that their immigrant forebears had to deal with. Since they were "non-white" and therefor not quite as "good" as those who came before them, they were usually treated as a criminal mass, cursed by their "natural" affinity for drugs, alcoholism, gangs, and violence, their families restricted to substandard, overcrowded, housing in neighborhoods with sketchy water supplies, bad or non-existent sewage systems, and many of the same barriers to healthy life that today's immigrants face.
This nightmare part of the American Dream is rarely part of the narrative that the 3rd generation hears from the 2nd generation who have often been "educated" to accept the stories about their less than noble immigrant ancestors as the price of admission to the mainstream where they can take up their place in oppressing the next wave of immigrants.
32
Dennis Lehane has described the same phenomenon this way in his novel, “The Given Day”. In reflecting on the view held by his fellow Boston Irish-Americans, circa 1918, protagonist Danny Coughlin thinks “the idea had never been to seat every race at the table, just to make sure that the last chair would be saved for a Hibernian before the doors to the room were pulled shut.” Unfortunately it has been an attitude shared by members of virtually every immigrant group once they have secured their place here.
14
I am in the throes of reading this book right now, and I've been thinking of the analogies to today (e.g., blaming immigrants for everything, police officers beating up people with their nightsticks just because they "look" like they're Russians or Eastern Europeans, continuing to spread mis-information about the molasses explosion that killed so many people in Boston by saying it was an act of terror when in fact it was because the molasses company was careless, etc.). As a native Bostonian, I recognize much of Lehane's geography, and his historical context is outstanding, but I see so many parallels to today, it's uncanny. Thanks for this comment.
I voted for Bernie in the primary and Hillary in the general.
I am appalled at Trump and Kelly and the rest.
But sometimes we get carried away. This is not the first person to mention Kelly's ancestors.
There is a huge difference from 100 years ago and today. Most people didn't have a high school degree never mind a college degree.
Let's concentrate on the real problems - the terrible Republican tax bill that will add $10 Trillion to our debt.
DACA, education, healthcare, poverty, the EPA, Wall St.
Trump and the Russians. Golfing a Mar-a-Lago. Kushner getting a loan from Qatar.
The list goes on.
29
The Irish had one or two advantages that some others did not. The Irish spoke English and the poor in Ireland are educated along with everyone else by the Nuns.
Once again, the writer is not differentiating between legal (including refuge) and illegal immigration. I suspect that Mr. Nguyen came here legally (despite Jerry Brown's opposition to accepting Vietnamese refugees the first time he was governor.) Mr. Kelly was referring to people coming here illegally, with few skills and no command of English. Not only do they not assimilate easily, their lack of education and English skills make they subject to exploitation by human traffickers.
We can argue over how many immigrants and/or refugees we want to admit, and whether we favor those from certain countries over others (e.g. should we favor Guatemalans over Syrians because their country is closer?) but let us always differentiate between those who follow the rules in coming to the US and those who do not.
19
"let us always differentiate between those who follow the rules in coming to the US and those who do not."
The problem is that "the rules" have frequently changed and are not enforced equally, let alone equitably.
In the 1600s, "the rules" forbid Catholics and Jews from settling in many of the original British colonies. And "the rules" allowed stealing Native Americans' lands.
In the 1600s-1800s "the rules" allowed importation of kidnapped Africans to be kept as slaves/free labor in some states but not others. "The rules" in some states also let free African immigrants be captured and sent to plantations as slaves.
In the 1900s, the Immigration Act of 1924 set quotas for some countries and banned immigration of "nonwhites" from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe (included Italians, Greeks, Armenians, etc.). Arabs, Indians, and Africans were thus banned. But, "the rules" allowed people from Mexico and Central America entry, because they were deemed "white."
In 1965, "the rules" eliminated some quotas but tightened restrictions on immigration by Hispanics/Latinos.
Why is it that the "illegal" immigrants singled out for deportation today are not the many illegal Irish who are here (and working hard) nor the "illegal" Chinese, Indian, and Arabic workers who've overstayed their visas but are "stealing jobs" from "real Americans" who would like to work in the tech industry (if only those corporations would provide training, as corporations used to do)?
"Rules" anyone?
1
I am afraid Mr. Kelly in his heart does not distinguish between the two and even if he does, his reasoning is in the ditch as he shows no empathy and all illegals are in the same bucket. Some "illegals" come to avoid being killed in the home country and on and on. We must have the rule of law but compassion has to be there also.
You should educate yourself about Kelly's background. From an article from NPR today:
"After his NPR interview went viral, an activist genealogist named Jennifer Mendelsohn posted a page from the 1900 federal census. She says it shows Kelly's maternal great-grandfather, John DeMarco, was an illiterate Italian day laborer who spoke no English and did not have citizenship."
Here's John Kelly's maternal grandmother Teresa as a child in the 1900 census.
Her father, a day laborer named John DeMarco had been here for 18 years.
He had not become a citizen.
He could not read, write, or speak English.#resistancegenealogy pic.twitter.com/pmnHD4Yobq
— Jennifer Mendelsohn (@CleverTitleTK) May 11, 2018
Bravo! Thank you for this essay -- and reminder.
12
What puzzles me is why the writer did not address another word expressed by Kelly: "laws."
11
Exactly. Prohibition, as stated in the 18th Amendment, is an absolute and unchangeable law dictated by God and not humans.
10
There have always been anti-immigrant laws in our country. They are updated over the years to reflect our current prejudices. Check out our immigration history.
Did you not realize that had “laws” been applied Kelly wouldn’t be here and neither would Trump be here coz his grandfather should have been deported for not paying German taxes and not serving in German military lawfully?
The response of a normal, healthy, evolved human being to the plight of the world's immigrants is compassion and compassionate action. Their desperation and decency should move us. Welcoming them here will make us a better people and better individual moral beings. It's time to overcome the fear and selfishness. That's a struggle, but in the end it will allow us to think well of ourselves and our country.
24
The response of intelligent, knowledgeable people is a cessation of immigration into the United States. A cessation follows from population projections for the world are 9.8 billion humans by 2050, 22 short years in the future. (United Nations projection: https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-... As the human population increases, and yet more of the gloabal services we depend on for sustenance -- arable land, untainted water, fuel for generation of electrify, and etcetera, will become increasing tenuous. In time, and eventually, a pandemic of epic proportions will sweep across the globe. The 1918-1920 influenza pandemic, a mild precursor to the future, killed between 50 and 100 million people across the globe. How could it be other wise?
1
It's very sad to read closed-minded bigoted comments such as:
"I don't care where my ancestors came from."
"The country is already as diverse as it ever needs to be."
“They don’t integrate well; they don’t have skills."
“They're uneducated."
"They don’t speak English.”
"The will drive out American businesses."
And while I do agree with the problematic issue (that many commenters raise) about the distinction between "legal" and "illegal" immigrants, that issue isn't as clear-cut as most people think (or wish) it is.
For example: We have US and International laws that govern the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. If someone reaches American land and asks for asylum, our law dictates that even though they are at that point "illegal aliens," they cannot be immediately deported; rather, their asylum case must be examined before a decision is made about whether they will be deported.
The situation of "undocumented workers" might seem more more cut-and-dried, except for the fact that we have allowed the under-the-radar system to continue for so long that there are two important humanitarian factors which can't be ignored: 1) the plight of their US-born (and thus citizen) children, and the potential separation of families; and 2) our economic dependence on (and abuse of) them as workers.
While we have the "right" to stop ignoring and start enforcing our own laws, rational and humanitarian thinking suggests that we can't simply round up these people and deport them.
40
"...two important humanitarian factors which can't be ignored: 1) the plight of their US-born (and thus citizen) children, and the potential separation of families; and 2) our economic dependence on (and abuse of) them as workers."
Every immigration reform bill since 2000 addresses that.
And discretionary enforcement of the immigration laws by the Executive can include those considerations.
Polls since 2000 have consistently shown those concerns are shared by a majority of Americans...
...including registered GOP voters in presidential elections.
All of the above successfully obscured by the nativist leather-lungs.
1
Paul, "It's very sad to read closed-minded bigoted comments such as:" When you label people close-minded and bigoted when they object to illegal immigration you highlight another reason why Trump was elected. When you use these labels against American citizens who want the best for their families, you offend many and not just those who voted for Trump.
3
Unless you're a native American on both sides of your family, everyone who was born in this country is descended from someone who came from somewhere else sometime in the past 500 years. And people who consider themselves "native" have tried to keep out undesirables. Trump's anti-Muslim stance reminds me of how Catholics were once persecuted. If Trump's ancestors had been barred from entering this country, he would not be here today. Illegal immigration is an issues, but it should be dealt with based on the facts, not the jingoistic thinking of white people who forget their ancestors could have been put on the wrong side of a wall, too.
19
The native American states too came from somewhere they just didn’t sprout from the soil. Perhaps walked from Asia during the ice age? Many of today’s Tibetans look an awful lot liked many of the Native American tribes in North America! Perhaps dna analysis will expose a connection?
2
Trump’s mother was a beneficiary of “chain migration” via her sister who was already here. Melanija came on tourist visa but worked and received payment which is illegal. She then moved on to high skilled VISA for which no American could be found. I am not sure what is the high skill needed for being a model and totally unsure that no American model could be found. Her parents being in America is another case of “chain migration”. Trump’s grandfather was a German felon who escaped German prison for not paying taxes(which runs in the family) and not serving in German military.
3
Petey,
You are conveniently ignoring a major fact. The native Americans walked into empty land and didn’t displace anyone whereas Europeans came here and committed massive ethnic genocide of Native Americans and then rode the free slave labor with plundered Native American resources to greatness. Big difference.
1
My great-grandfather came to the US in the 1860s from a German farm not far from the Baltic. A long-time legend had him fleeing becoming cannon fodder in the Kaiser's wars. But in reality he escaped in his forties, as a farm hand, with no prospects of a better life or resources to start an independent life. He joined a lot of German immigrants in northern Kansas and southern Nebraska.
During WW1, Germans were actually spat upon by "real" Americans because they still spoke their language to each other. Now, all over the Midwest, "real" Americans include those with my background who spit on immigrants from Mexico and Central America because their first generations have not assimilated fast enough.
Those people with German last names should think upon this.
92
What a powerful powerful piece. I wish every American could read this essay.
19
Well said!
America has opened and closed it's gate to immigrants at different times depending on the economy and the political will. Mostly immigrants were resented by nativists so it took 2-3 generations for their decedents to realize their potential.
I think we're in a time of closing our gates because there isn't a demand for unskilled labor. I'd like to see more attention focused on the supporting women's rights in the countries where we are seeking waves of immigrants emanating from. If we focused on empowering women globally there would be less corruption, patriarchy and income inequity that is forcing people to flee their native lands.
11
No demand for unskilled labor? Think again. All over the US farm owners are lamenting that no US citizens will take the hard labor jobs required to bring crops and meat to your table. $12/hour attracts no US workers, and some report that $18/hour is no better. So either food prices will rise dramatically or people with little other skills must be allowed to live and work here.
Those unskilled laborers might leave agriculture to start small businesses, their kids certainly will, and their grandkids will be doctors, lawyers and PhD-holding university professors.
So it goes.
18
Cheap, mass produced food isn't good for American's. If farms can't pay their workers a livable wage maybe they should be using robots or be producing organic produce and pasture-raised meat that they can charge more for instead. By the same token I'm not sorry to hear that fast food restaurants are having a hard time finding employees.
Banba, well said, but so hard to do, especially in Muslim countries where women have little or no rights and in very poor over-populated countries. Empowering women globally. It has to be done.
2
Kelly, with Irish ancestry, has no business saying what he said. He should know better but he probably didn't study history.
I wonder what percentage of our Generals and politicians studied history? I hope it's a significant number. Might keep us from occupying countries like Afghanistan in the future where many great country's armies have come and gone, uselessly.
19
Generals did not take the US to Iraq.
Generals get advanced degrees in order to be generals. Here is Kelly’s per Wikipedia.
. “In 1976, he graduated from the University of Massachusetts Boston and in 1984, he received a Master of Arts degree in National Security Affairs from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.[7][12] In 1995, Kelly graduated from the National Defense University in Washington, DC with a Master of Science in Strategic Studies.”
1
Like many others posting here I am a descendant of immigrants, immigrants who arrived long enough ago that my ancestors fought in the American Revolution and died in the Civil War preserving the Union. I work in a business where I have contact with immigrants every day, some of whom have advanced degrees from universities in the Middle East and some of whom probably do not have legal residence here. Many of the latter left homes in Mexico or Central America because violence associated with the drug trade for the US market threatened their lives or corn exports subsidized by US taxpayers drove them from their farms. And some of those who come will never learn much English, their children are bilingual, and their grandchildren will be America's leaders in the late 21st century. With today's immigration rules John Kelly's ancestors would be denied immigrant status. And sorry, our selective concern for "legality" would be more impressive were it applied more impartially and completely. In all probability President Trump's wife would have been deported for working without authorization while an alien, his son-in-law would be in jail for lying on his application for security clearance, and other members of his administration awaiting trial. I apologize my ancestors were not more diligent in keeping his draft-evading German grandfather who allegedly later ran a brothel from immigrating here. I prefer the undocumented worker holding 2 jobs so her kids will contribute to the US.
204
Your comment made me think. Would America be better off today if the current POTUS' grandfather had remained in Germany? What have been the net result of Mr. Trump's contributions to the United States? Food for thought.
1
you said it!
1
Mr. Nguyen,
Thank you for this beautiful, extraordinary article and tribute to your mother and to the better angels of American Civilization. Thank you.
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My grandfather was one of those low-skilled immigrants that Mr. Kelly talked about. He came here as a tailor's apprentice, meaning that he did not yet have the skill to be a tailor
then. He did not like tailoring, and he needed money, so he would go to the wholesale flower market and buy handfuls of flowers to sell on street corners. Eventually, one of the wholesalers suggested he come in with them, which he did for 50 years. He and my grandmother had seven children, four sons and three daughters. The oldest daughter went to Jackson College, now Tufts, and became a very well known social worker. The second oldest, in the fashion of the time, became a homemaker, but after going to a well-known college of art; one of her sons became a world-renowned mathematician, the other a doctor. My father went to the Wharton School (he would be embarrassed that Mr. Trump is also an alumnus) and was a successful executive at a large department store. I became a lawyer. One of my other cousins became a doctor, another a business executive.
Just another story of a low-skilled immigrant and what he and his family became.
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Always good to see your name in such places, Jonathan. Scott F.
2
Another news story this week noted that the American fertility rate has reached a new low and is below replacement level. We do not have the young people to do the more basic jobs of the future and provide a tax base as boomers retire. Anyone who visits a nursing home will see that the heavy lifting is provided by workers who speak accented English. Many in their generation might always perform lower paid but much needed work. But immigration is a mark of ambition, and their children will improve their lot and improve our country. Coming from Ireland during the hunger of the 1840s, my own 2nd great-grandmother could not write her name. Her daughter became a college president.
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A couple of years ago I had the misfortune of needing to be in a nursing home for physical therapy after a fall. As you say, many of the care attendants were recent immigrants, in this area mostly Somali refugees. Not only were they performing the unpleasant and difficult work, they were doing it cheerfully and well, despite many of the 'native' employees and patients open negativity about their accents and religion, and barely concealed contempt for their race. Quite a few were studying to become nurses.
This is work that 'natives' don't want to do. Despite being recruited with free training, pay above other jobs for unskilled workers (it should be a lot better pay, but that's a whole other topic) and excellent benefits there is already a chronic shortage. As we boomers age we will need many more of these care attendants, wherever they come from.
29
"Immigration is a mark of ambition..." That says it all; thank you!
2
When the issue of immigration. specifically illegal, came up during a discussion of the 14th Amendment, the issue was NOT immigration but slavery. It was to grant citizenship to slaves and their offspring , not to a bunch of central Americans, or Syrians etc.
Actually if you read the minutes of the Senate discussion on the 14th amendment several senators did bring up the issue of illegal immigration. They believed that the oceans would protect us -the transportation revolution changed that, but we have refused to change our interpretation of the 14th amendment to end birth right citizenship and chain migrations.
12
Judy Weller and others: You got yours; now to h--- with the newbies. Right? The rest ("law-breaking", no English, etc., etc., etc.) is your smoke-screen, no matter how you deny it.
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Some of my ancestors were old stock Americans from England who were here in the early 1600s. Some came over from Ireland after the potato famine. Others arrived in the Midwest from Sweden and Norway and Finland in the 1800s. Undoubtedly there were circumstances that led all of them to travel to the New World. But, at the time they came here, the U.S. needed unskilled labor and it was legal for them to emigrate. I don’t know that the circumstances of 50 or 100 or 200 years ago must necessarily dictate current immigration policy, with due respect to the author’s mom.
11
Bookworm, you completely miss the point and you also ignore the need for millions of farm laborers and slaughterhouse workers that Americans don't seem willing to be -- or maybe we should have a $20/hour farm minimum wage to attract Americans? Which do you choose?
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“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” - Emma Lazarus
Which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The American Dream isn't about coming here already wealthy, with a job lined up, and speaking fluent English. Which all of these would be nice to have. But, about making that dream a realty even when the odds are stacked against them. Yes, some of us may be fortunate enough to trace our ancestry back to the Mayflower. Majority of us were part of a group of ancestors that was considered 'undesirable' due to our ethnicity, religion, or political views. Finally, no mater how advanced a society there will always be a need for unskilled and cheap labor for very few Americans are willing to do it. For they believe that type of work is beneath them i.e.. picking fruit, cleaning toilets, and providing daycare for affluent families.
12
The question should not be allowing immigrates to enter the USA. It is an advantage to the USA to have some immigration, but how many. 100,000 people, 1,000,000 people, 100,000,000 people, a billion?? Having traveled extensively around the world, I believe that America is held in much higher regard by non-Americans than Americans themselves. So America is a magnet for immigrants. Why not go to China, Russia, Iran, Japan,? I would guess that tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people would like ti come to the USA, but the USA can't absorb and assimilate that many people especially in a world of 7.7 billion and growing with all of the famines and civil wars now and in the future. Don't the people that are living in America today have any say about who can come live in our country. The immigrants across our borders don't make the rules, we Americans do, or don't we Americans have any rights in your opinion?
1
The American Dream. The Land of Opportunity. If these words are not for everybody, they mean nothing.
68
Fantastic story..really well done! And, a good perspective. Wow.
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Ancestors represent moral lodestar. Meanness is a word spoken in the Black Community to represent evil in action. The first described act of this evil is its undercutting the foundations of compassion: the simple, observable truth that some people need help, deserve our assistance, demand a share of our bounty as a treasury of hope. The meanness of evil reverses mercy and sows blame, casts its dark shadow over truth and duty. Evil denies the constant witness of sacrifice and redemption in love. Meanness acts to obliterate the calling of high duty and substitute denial, indifference.
Meanness—actionable evil--builds walls rather than paths. Paths are critical to safe passage and progress. Paths mark found knowledge preserved. Walls are barriers that hide and divide. Lincoln at Gettysburg knew and made true the difference.
To install the petty destructiveness of evil as our national standard and our perception of each other is to deny the Lincolnian vision still bright: at his second inaugural, he concluded, "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Not a word of meanness, only greatness. And yet Lincoln had been 'buked and scorned.
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Do try and remember that Lincoln was not referring to illegal aliens from central America or Haiti. He was talking about future relations between the south and the north after the civil war.
Start leaning US history an understand the historical times when certain statements were made. Statesmen and Presidents who lived over 100 years ago were not referring to today's refugees who are not well received in most of the uS.
6
To all: thanks for reading and replies.
Judy: do remember and "start learning" Lincoln was still in a war that cost 750,000 lives on American soil--more than World Wars I and II and Vietnam combined! A war resulting in occupied territory at its end, loyalty oaths and even today elicits violence over its bronze soldiers on pedestals.
Agreed, the conflict was not over illegal aliens, but America's enslaved! It had dissolved the union! It led to brothers fighting against brothers. A gross understatement would call the idea of ending slavery "not well received." Lincoln spoke in the midst of stench from its battlefields; he was killed for it, despite his efforts to reconcile in peace and grace.
Surely you see the conflict and war over slavery was more violent, more marked by grief and hatred than the conflict over undocumented residents, illegal on paper only, who work, raise families, pay taxes, and do jobs others in society are unwilling to do. Despite the Chief of Staff's view, they contribute to our welfare and prosperity, as witnessed by the success of those in the DACA program.
The common measure of the enslaved and the undocumented is their humanity. And how we treat those we exploit who have no intent to harm us, and do us no harm. In harsher times, with more fervent divisions, Lincoln recognized the commonality and community of human lives, above law. With blame and stereotypes, Trump does not. That meanness.
16
Judy, yes I agree the founders of this country were not visionaries in every way like they were projected to be. They were racists who didn’t give the blacks a vote and were evenly to create the electoral college so they can give the blacks an indirect vote and even then counted blacks as 1/3 of whites. They were male chauvinists even more than racists.
So are you saying any higher thoughts and actions and values doesn’t make this country great? Are you saying Lincoln’s higher thoughts have no more value in the 21st century because the context of slavery doesn’t apply to current immigrants? Are you saying this country doesn’t exist based on values BUT only based on “whiteness” when throughout the country’s history it’s been proven that whiteness isn’t a fixed term and that it kept changing and kept adding more and more as white. It’s laughable coz honestly there are fairer East Indians than many Italian Americans.
What we learn from history is a double edge sword. One perspective is that if we are really cognizant of history and ancestry, then none of us really belong here. We are all immigrants who "occupy" a country belonging to the native Americans.
If we are not going to "correct" mistakes from the past, then there are two additional perspectives. One, as Viet suggested, immigrants today should be given as much opportunity as those who came before them, like the ancestors of John Kelly.
Or two, we welcome new comers at our own perils because that's what the Europeans did to the native Americans. They overran the natives and took their country, so it is not theoretical they themselves can be overrun by others.
The reality is there is power in number. When there were just a small minority, especially when they prospered, they integrated, like Steve Jobs. When immigrants come in larger number, they congregate into certain neighborhoods and do not integrated as well. Wasn't that how the Islam Party of Belgium won two seats despite openly campaigning for sharia laws?
The arguments for immigration are both humanitarian and survival stories. It's not so straight forward either sides. Moreover, it is realistically not possible for the the richer countries to take in all the people from poorer countries.
The long term solution is to help the poorer countries prosper by promoting fair and equitable economic models globally, and not allow their own corporations corrupt their politics.
6
Overwhelmingly, domestic terrorism in the US has been perpetrated by "natives." Every study of crime shows immigrants less likely to commit crimes than citizens born here. Every study of English language acquisition by immigrants show the same rate now as for previous groups from a century ago.
You have no faith that the strength of American values will prevail. People come here for freedom, safety, and opportunity. Immigrants add strength to America and always have.
41
The U.S. is not Belgium, thank goodness.
6
That is false. In Belgium as in many other European countries, immigrants, children, their children’s children and so on are treated as second-class citizens for many generations. They stay together because they are persecuted.
America is different. We have welcomed everyone from every country, religion and skin color. While people that share the same ancestry may live near each other, they are fully assimilated Americans.
I see this first hand with the very large Somali community in the Twin Cities. Women cover themselves and wear the hijab. But they are very American. They work on coffee shops and retail. They work in offices, they are engineers, programmers and computer scientists.
They are American and they positively contribute to America.
I am the son of an immigrant. My mother was that daughter of immigrants. Half the people in my house spoke with broken English. I thought we were a normal American family, as American as any other family on the block. Well, we used to be.
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My mother was illiterate, my father had 4th grade education. I went to college and medical school in the United States. As I write this, we are celebrating my nephew’s graduation from med school. I look around the tables of my extended family member; old and young, immigrants and natural born, doctors and cab drivers, all thankful for the opportunity to be her, ALL proud Americans.
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Congratulations to you all! You have much to be proud of.
My Polish dziadek (granddad) came to this country in the early 20th century via Canada to Chicago, and I'm not entirely sure his entry was legal. This was, after all, the time when business and industry were looking for strong backs and workers willing to accept low wages, never mind whether they had valid entry papers.
He moved to Massachusetts, married a lovely young girl from his hometown who was working as a maid at Amherst College, and raised four children---two of whom served with distinction in WWII. I am the first of his grandchildren to earn a master's degree...
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Your family's is the story of America. Or should be.
4
Thank you for pointing out how immigrants, irrespective of their English language skills, have provided our country w/ the most valuable resource, you and me, to ensure our country's continued prosperity.
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The Germans and Irish are no longer clamoring to come here because life in their countries has vastly improved, if not exceeded the quality of life in this country in some respects. It seems countries like China and India -- and Mexico and Vietnam to a lesser extent -- are part of that ascendancy now. A world where people have a chance at a good life in their own country seems like a better world than one in which desperation brings them to this country.
17
Thanks.
I am very disappointed in people I know who forget or never knew that their ancestors were met with the same discrimination they are exhibiting today. By far most of the folks I interact with who are new to the US are hard working and just trying to better themselves and their families.
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I'd like to think that America is an idea--one that can be held in your heart and lived in any country of the world. Certainly, if other countries (America itself) fails to live up to the ideals of the Dream, it is ourselves and our generations that have the ability to stand up and make the dream a reality.
For the privileged few that make it into the USA every year, good for them. They will work harder than anyone born here could ever comprehend.
And someday, God willing, there will be no need to emigrate to the USA because no place on earth would be poor or dangerous or oppressive.
Sighingly, an eternal optimist.
21
I thought of that forgetfulness when I saw the video of the NY lawyer excoriating Spanish speaking workers. I have a preserved clipping from an Albany newspaper with the obituary of my great grandfather. His father was illiterate, and remained so for the rest of his life. My grandfather owned a lumberyard. His son went to college.
I also find the stories of assimilation somewhat exaggerated. My Irish ancestors lived among each other and sent their children to parochial schools. Other ethnic groups had people who never learned English, depending their whole lives on their children. We have very rose colored glasses about our immigrant past. Certainly, not everybody was legal, and unless they came through Ellis Island, how do you know?
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That John Kelly ought to know better and doesn't exemplifies the issue we face with many Trumpists - they are smart enough to know better but somehow they have allowed themselves to be convinced their hate is righteous and patriotic.
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What they "know better" is what gets them and keeps them in the good graces of authority and power -- and may even elevate them.
3
Mr. Nyguyen, as one of the "white Germans" who became a naturalized citizen three decades ago, I have been told by "real" Americans to go back to where I came from when I dared criticizing certain ways and policies of my adopted country, e.g. the gun culture, the fact that everyone running for public office has to wear his/her religion (of the correct kind) like a shield of honor, the lack of universal healthcare, etc., etc.
Yes, the color of my skin doesn't make me an outsider in certain circles, but daring to criticize some aspects of American culture mostly enrages those who have never set a foot abroad.
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Sarah, I hope you continue to challenge the persistence of these and other faults in our nation based on your experiences abroad, despite the mostly enraged responses of those who benefit from lessons learned elsewhere. The immigrant's perspectives are among the most valuable gifts s/he brings; it is hubris that suggests the rest of the world has nothing to teach us. As a citizen, you have as much a right to vote as those who are enraged by your willingness to speak; are you similarly willing to vote? Please do!
36
As an English speaking white Canadian living and paying taxes in the US, I also learned that criticizing US policy was not acceptable, mainly to those who had never traveled outside the country and who believed America's press releases about itself. Other however welcomed a different perspective.
It's not skin colour so much as broad horizons that make a difference. International travel (and don't stay in the resort) is the best education for this sort of thing.
44
I’d be interested to find out what veterans tend to think about U.S. gun policy, especially those that visited Japan. As Nicholas Kristoff’s article suggests, millions live here, crime is low, and there are hardly any shootings, in schools or otherwise.
It’s not all rosy. There’s a lot of room to improve, especially in civil rights. They’re led by old, rural nationalists without guns - no gun problem.
It’s tempting to see this as a test topic Japan always aces and Americans always fail. So maybe us Americans should be more open to cheating on this test ;) But we can’t ignore the risk of Mars Attacks, or Shawn of the Dead, so... (most states and the feds leave it blank).
But to borrow Kristoff’s metaphor, if you take a ride in Japan, this feels like a much safer car. Getting a safe American car may require a different answer than Japan offers. There are hardly any guns here, but America has more guns than adult citizens (we really let this get out of hand).
Maybe new guns need airbags (smart triggers) and other safety rules. Maybe us Americans need continuing driver’s ed (ongoing training) and real license tests (a gun owner can hold many lives in his/her hands but we don’t require a tough, MiB-like test).
Screening should catch abusers and shuffled cops faster than the Vatican catches traveling pedophiles (lives are at stake). Let’s buyback clunkers (unsafe guns), with car inspection rules (open carriers might be less risky). And why immunize gunmakers if they’re safe?
3
As a descendant of Irish and German immigrants, I'm grateful for your research - especially the quote from Benjamin Franklin. Since I have not forgotten where I came from, I was not so surprised when I learned that J. Marion Sims, the "father of gynecology," operated not just on slave women without anesthesia, but also Irish women. At that time the Irish were no more "white" than the Africans, and were considered by most Americans of British decent to be no better than animals. In a very real sense, recent immigrants will always be more "American" than the entitled descendants of older immigrants who, as you say, have conveniently forgotten where they came from.
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This is the dark side of the settlers’ story. Some of our ancestors fled persecution, but instead of empathy for others, majorities sought the freedom to oppress.
They bought indentured servants and slaves, uprooted tribes and forced marches, lynched and exterminated, forced inhumane conditions on child laborers, exploited girls, sterilized the misunderstood, tested on minorities, even stole children from families to erase the tribes. And some of them were criminals. Our ancestors’ countries weren’t sending their best, but there were good people too.
The MAGA golden years after WW2 still featured massive discrimination against non-whites and women. That’s more than 50% of the population. Unless you have delusions about what the average person experienced years ago, going back is a recipe for massive suffering, mostly for us in the 99%.
Except, maybe in terms of taxes. Maybe bringing back high top marginal rates (even phasing them in) and redefining corporate personhood could help, but that’s the opposite of what the GOP arranged last year.
Our founders and the states saw this history unfolding in real time and committed to things like liberty and equality in the constitution. We’re not there yet, but we’re closer than we were back then.
Current leaders are not just choosing to fight for the dark side of our history, they’re fighting against the foundation of our country and its constitution. It’s unAmerican, and shamefully all-too-American at the same time.
20
Thank you, Notan.
1
EyesWideOpen, thanks for the info. The way people wrote about the Irish immigration during the Great Famine made it sound like America was really on her last legs, American civilization was just about over thanks to these illiterate drunken wild half-starved Irish beasts that no decent American would rent a room to or hire to sweep out a stable.
Politicians warned against the Irish just like the Trumpists are warning about Mexicans and Muslims. Because the Irish were Catholics. A foreign religion, headquartered in a foreign country, led by a foreign Pope. To the Americans of 1840s, that was their radical Islam.
I feel such shame when people with identifiably Irish surnames support this immigrant-bashing, anti-Mexican, Islamophobic nonsense. In the 1840s and 50s, this kind of rage was turned against us, and we died from it. I've read that the average male Irish immigrant only lived for six years after touching American soil.
And it was all wrong, because the Irish didn't ruin America after all. Those fears were irrational. The country is still here and Irish-Americans serve with everyone else in the government.
3
Great piece. But it will make no impression upon those who might benefit because they will never see it.
38
True. Which is why it should be required reading in every classroom in North America from grade three upwards. Unfortunately, not going to happen...
3
Great piece. But I think that there are some facts that are being ignored. In the past, in spite of source of the next wave of immigrants, the underlying economic growth appeared to be broadly optimistic.
The problem is for the last couple of decades we've seen a massive decay in opportunities and quality of life for much of rural/small town America. Most of it in fly over country. The media, other than the occasional interest piece, fails to truly convey the impact of this decay. That's why we have ended up with President Trump. And that's why, other than the Socialists, no one is complaining keeping out immigrants. Especially when they are allied with those who wish us dead.
17
Mark appears to be badly confused about the facts and the issues. Just one point: Who do you think is soaking up the money that doesn't go to the decaying part of the country? It's Americans: American billionaires and their cohort.
28
Most poor, rural Americans have fallen behind by their own choices and by other Americans. When employment opportunities in fully mechanized agriculture took their jobs away they failed to change and they failed to move. Immigrants are not to blame. They will only find those to blame when they look at themselves the mirror.
4
Who is allied with those who wish us dead? Your comment is very confusing. Please explain and justify.
Beautiful article. Poignant, powerful and persuasive. Those who demonize immigrants and refugees should ask themselves profound questions about the bitterness they are sowing. As an Italian- Irish- Portuguese and Native American American, I appreciate the salad bowl. We need to be a country that welcomes. After living in Poland, a deeply xenophobic and hostile to outsiders nation, with a 95% ethnicity Polish homogeneous population, there are days I miss diversity of thought, people and space so much. Thank God Berlin is a relatively short train ride away.
98
Mr.Cochran,
Why stay in Poland? Leave, the border is open.
Excellent, honest, introspective piece.
Thank you, Mr. Nyguyen, for reminding us where virtually all of us Americans come from (Native Americans excepted). :)
154
Uh
Read about the Navajo and Hopi. For example.
3
And though it probably took centuries even” native Americans “ immigrated over the land bridge from Siberia
I don't care about where my ancestors came from, if they had slaves, or anything else. I also don't really know, they don't define me or effect my actions. If you do otherwise great for you. That said nobody should be controlled by their history unless they have genetic diseases or advantages.
14
Why does no one in these writings distinguish between legal immigration and being invaded by illegal immigration? A country is entitled to some control because immigration affects its citizens. My ancestors were immigrants, too, but they came legally. As all new immigrants they were were discriminated against, but they worked hard and persevered and educated their children and they became American. It's not that we don't want immigrants, but that it needs to be legal and they should want to assimilate even if it is difficult at first.
30
Yes, my ancestors were also European immigrants. They did not need visas in their time. They would have sought them if necessary much as immigrants today coming from Europe, Asia, or Africa. It is a very difficult process and they are intelligent enough to know that a journey from home to the US cannot be taken on foot. Or, by swimming or flying. Therefore, they are obliged to scrupulously observe the law rather than brave a perilous and potentially fatal journey from Mexico or Central America past gangs, over mountains and through deserts and rivers. Doing it legally is thus at least as much or more a matter of practicality as virtue.
10
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "
-- George Santayana
It's time for America to close its doors to all but the best and brightest. The country is already as diverse as it ever needs to be.
17
Rolf:
The "best and the brightest" are, most often, poor people with ethics and motivation. One look at our country's current billionaire leadership will tell you that education & wealth say absolutely nothing--or at least nothing positive-- about values or ability.
423
Why would "the best and the brightest" even want to come here? Increasingly, there are far better choices of countries for immigration if you're looking for decent affordable education, healthcare, and physical safety (thinking of gun control.)
6
It would appear that the best and the brightest are those knocking on Americas door y this statement. The Native Americans may to have agreed with you on your second statement.
3
The early America welcomed immigrants as long as they were Northern European Protestant Christians. Irish, Chinese (Asians), Jews, Sicilians, et al. were the object of various social, economic and immigration laws, both federal and local, at one time or another.
The latest America is not so different.
The Great Experiment, i. e. whether or not different nationalities, faiths, colors, classes, could live together harmoniously, suffered its first wound at conception: the two-thirds compromise.
From that point to the present it was anti-this group of immigrants, then that group. Ban this nationality, ban that religion; deny rights to this gender or to that skin color.
Politics/governance has become not about what is good for the Nation, but what is good for specific ethnic groups, financial groups, manufacturing groups.
36
Again, what is the two-thirds compromise?
Two-thirds compromise?
The perfect antidote to anti-immigrant sentiment. Thank you for this well written opinion piece.
209
Hamilton was our most influential founding father yet he was considered unamerican by his peers because he was an immigrant. We owe him for our financial system, the coast guard, our strong military and manufacturing sector, and how we interpret the Constitution to this day. Not all first generation immigrants conform to our culture but they and their families contribute much more than they take. We wouldn't be the nation we are today without the fortitude and ingenuity of generations of immigrants.
Thank you for the reminder that every immigrant group going back to our founders was hated and unwanted when they first got here. Hating those who are different is almost a national past time. Hopefully we can do better going forward.
264
Unfortunately, Hamilton also supported the electoral college system which gave us Bush and Trump, so I'm not a fan. And don't get me started on Washington or Jefferson...
6
Hamilton supported the electoral college, but not the system we have today, where we're forced to vote for electors pledged to a specific candidate with winner-take-all results in each state: the ultimate dumbing down of the college.
Historians bemoan the futility of judging figures of the past with morality of today. Apples and oranges.
I am an immigrants from India. I moved here when I was 8 years old. I am currently dating a jewish man and I am gay. My parents, however, are Hindus, barely speak english and depend on me to do majority of the work. They have not assimilated to the current left culture. I have to agree with John Kelly - many immigrants fail to assimilate. However, if they had not brought me here I would have not been exposed to the variety of culture that America has to offer. I am grateful for that.
26
I think the author's point is that while the first generation may not completely assimilate, their offspring are nearly always as American as you might desire (you being a prime example), and that second generation and their descendants have made innumerable positive contributions to America.
110
"They have not assimilated to the current left culture."
V, at this very moment in history, the US executive branch and the majority in Congress follows an arch-right culture, not a left one.
The old battle against the LBGT community and the women's choice is in full swing, in case you didn't notice.
11
You might have had a tough time being gay in India. "s of 2018, however, the Supreme Court is set to reconsider whether to legalise same-sex sexual activity and a draft Uniform Civil Code, if approved in its current form, would legalise same-sex marriage in India."
I have often wondered, like many people I assume, how Kelly ever ascended to a top ranking in the armed services while holding such offensive, discriminatory, and generally unAmerican attitudes about immigrants. Surely, there were many immigrants, or relatives of them, under his various commands.
Was he able to cleverly conceal his enmity towards non-native born Americans, or was this anti-immigrant posture commonly accepted in that branch of the military where he became an officer? If the former, having retired from the service he has now been "liberated" on a number of occasions to speak his mind while also letting the public know the extent of his disturbing, dark bigotry.
497
Mr. Kelly is not anti-immigrant and his comments were not anti-immigrant. He was referring to those who bypass normal immigration requirements and come here illegally. The very fact that they are here illegally makes it hard for them to assimilate.
10
Kelly’s Irish ancestors probably immigrated to the USA in the mid 1800s during the famine in Ireland. The immigration laws were completely different then, and “lawful” immigration at that time may not be considered lawful now. The very fact that they came in large numbers and tended to be Roman Catholic made it very hard for them to assimilate. But they did and Kelly now has the opportunity to denigrate other, later, immigrants.
Where is the data that undocumented immigrants are of such a statistically-significant problem that they deserve to be scapegoated for every little single thing?
I’m sorry, but it’s just plain tiresome to keep hearing about the sanctity of life from the same crowd that so readily sneers people who are trying to escape violence in their home countries.
The vast, overwhelming majority of undocumented people work hard, stay out of trouble, and contribute economically more so than what they will ever get in return. They are NOT the problem they are made out to be, and anyone worthy of being a high-ranking military officer knows this. Kelly is just being politically expedient at the expense of undocumented people, and it’s disgusting.
A splendid and thought-provoking column, Mr. Nguyen.
I am a native-born Bostonian, from Roxbury. John Kelly, today President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff, is from Brighton, at one time a hostile, all-white suburb slightly north and west of Roxbury. It was mostly an Irish and Italian enclave; non-whites didn't hang around much after dark.
But General Kelly joins a very long list of Americans who have become distinguished for rising far above their stations in life. They think that it's due solely to the stuff they inherited from their noble forbears, those who braved tossing seas and chilly winds and unwelcoming flats without furniture or heat. The stone edifices they built, they fancy, were hewn from the elements that God gave to only them. Those "others" who were here before them? Well, they simply didn't work hard enough or have enough education or didn't "integrate well." They blamed "others" for society's padlocks on their ghettos or their own relatives' and friends' red-lining or joining in locally-sponsored segregation, a system which enabled the Kellys to take whatever they wanted. They put it down to "their rights," a generosity they would have denied to others and would come to do so later when they were threatened by "affirmative action."
And the portrait you paint of your fellow Vietnamese in San Jose is not new: strangers in a strange land who shake off the shadows of their origins soon come to twist the knife in the backs of others.
So American.
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I was born in New York but identify with the plight of immigrants, as my late father was one. He grew up in Cairo with deep poverty, few models of success, and limited opportunities. But he was smart and determined. He was the first in his family to attend college and even saw his education through a PhD.
When he came to the US, he was first a statistics professor at Princeton, then a demographer for the UN. Education was his first and last priority for his own children.
Sounds like a model, right? But, he was fortunate that all this transpired when doors were open to him. We wondered, in most recent times, how he would have fared today, with so much fear around outsiders in general and Arabs in particular. Would his life trajectory have played out the same?
And that raises another question, too: how many success stories have been thwarted due to prejudice? It is a loss for everyone when anyone can't realize their potential.
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NM, "how many success stories have been thwarted due to prejudice? It is a loss for everyone when anyone can't realize their potential." Still applies to women today.
@soxared
I feel almost uniquely qualified to respond to this. My mother grew up in Alston, the daughter of Irish immigrants. My wife is a Vietnamese immigrant who came here in her late thirties. I was in Natick high school when "bussing" started. "Metro" students (think poor black children from the city) were bussed into white Metrowest high schools. Not pretty. The bussing riots (and I mean 'real' riots) in Boston that were every bit as nasty as anything in Alabama. As a teenager (I'm Kelly's age) thinking to myself "is this actually happening in Boston?". It certainly shattered any illusions about fair and equal treatment of all people of all 'categories', of life and the pursuit of happiness in America is seriously a bad joke, delusional.
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