Immigrants

Are immigrants stealing our jobs? Are they overcrowding our schools, hospitals, and prisons, ruining our language and endangering our children?  Such questions have always been with us, but they gained a hostile edge in the 1930s, when the so-called Third World— the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania—replaced Europe as the place where the vast majority of immigrants came from. With a different color skin, different tongues, and different customs, the new breed of immigrant stretched the nation’s idea of a melting pot, and met with sometimes hateful resistance that continues to this day. (As a Mexican-born immigrant, I should know.) But in resisting us, the country is resisting its future. Our uniqueness is based on our openness—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” says Lady Liberty, borrowing a line from Emma Lazarus. Our power is based on an ability to attract the world’s best and the brightest. But do we still give newcomers a chance to prove their worth? Judging by the hostile reaction to immigrants during the past decade, America has replaced its compassionate, welcoming smile and open arms with a menacing bark. “Get away, leave me alone, I live by and for myself and don’t need you,” Lady Liberty says now. People still dream of coming to America because this is the land of freedom, equality, and justice. Yet those very principles have not been evident recently. As a result, we have begun to undermine the very foundation on which we stand.