The DINI CIACCI Family

---For my come back (it's been 4 years since my last post),

I chose a piece I wrote for my English class back in my Rexburg days---

America has always been considered as the greatest melting pot of cultures, ideas, and races of the world. But in this country, immigration‒the very core of this cradle of cultures‒has never been an easy subject for politicians and citizens alike. Especially after the events of 11 September 2001, many have started advocating closing the borders and deporting all those who are in the U.S. illegally. But what would America look like and what would America be, had immigration not been a part of its history? I believe the history of this country shows that had this land not allowed immigration, the very United States of America‒as we know it today‒would have never been born.

Before 1492, the year Christopher Columbus arrived on the Eastern shores of the American continent, this land was unknown to the Westerners. This, together with the lack of proper and reliable means of mass transportation, had kept America out of the common emigration routes.

Many oppressed citizens of England, who longed for a place where they could express their religious sentiments freely, chose this new-found land to fulfill their dreams for freedom and fulfillment. One event in that period’s history has come to symbolize the start of the migration movements that populated America; it is the voyage of the Mayflower. But as we read in Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, “beginnings are rarely as clear-cut as we would like them to be” (Preface).

Still the Mayflower journey remains the symbol of the immigration fluxes that started bringing to America scores of Pilgrims looking for religious freedom and self-fulfillment. Another major force contributing to the populating of America was the forced transportation of Africans to what would later become the United States of America. Over a period of almost 300 years‒between the late 1400s and the mid-1800s‒“around 15 million Africans were transported to America against their will where they were forced to work as slaves” (Wilson).

It was these combined vast-scale migrations that eventually brought about the birth of the United States of America. And these migrations did not stop after this land had organized itself into a nation.

In the mid-1800s in fact, California’s gold rush gave reason to another world region’s people to emigrate to the United States in great numbers. It was the Chinese, who saw an opportunity in gold searching and moved to the U.S. en masse. This prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, “an act to prohibit the coming into and to regulate the residence within the United States, its territories and all territory under its jurisdiction and the District of Columbia, of Chinese and persons of Chinese descent” (Noyes). This was the first formal act prohibiting the free entrance of foreigners into the United States. America had suddenly realized that immigration had become an issue.

But just as much as “beginnings are rarely as clear-cut as we would like them to be” (Philbrick) conclusions aren’t either; and so, this Act did not really prevent nor even substantially discourage further immigration in the following years.

And in fact, in 1907 America experienced the highest number of immigrations in its history up to that point and from that time forward. As recorded by Henry Pratt Fairchild that year there was “a grand total of 1,285,349 immigrants.”

Although not in such great quantities, more and more people have been emigrating to the U.S. even with all the Acts and policies aimed at restricting their access. Entire shiploads of foreigners came to the U.S. between the late 1800s and the early 1900s. “In 2006, there were about 35.2 million foreign-born legal immigrants‒roughly one every eight Americans‒living in the United States. Add to this about 11-12 million illegal immigrants” (Miller).

These figures help us understand the magnitude of the issue and also why immigration has become a recurring and forced issue on the agenda of every candidate to the U.S. Presidency; between legal and illegal immigrants, 1 out of every 6 people currently in the U.S. was not born here. So it is inevitable that such a large scale issue would stir different and even opposing opinions. And most of the times, discussions on immigration do not differentiate between illegal immigrants and legal ones; often the hard feelings people hold against illegal immigration affect their take on legal immigration as well.

It seems that, when it comes to immigration though, whether legal or illegal, both Washington and the common American feel alike. This is evident in the following excerpts.

The most common sentiments on illegal immigration are well summarized in these sentences from Gordon Howard Hanson: “Illegal immigration has obvious flaws. Continuing high levels of illegal immigration may undermine the rule of law and weaken the ability of the U.S. government to enforce labor-market regulations . . . Large inflows of illegal aliens also relax the commitment of employers to U.S. labor-market institutions and create a population of workers with limited upward mobility and an uncertain place in U.S. society.”

But what about legal immigrants? Miller and Spoolman report that, “Proponents of reducing legal immigration argue that it would allow the United States to stabilize its population sooner and help reduce the country’s enormous environmental impact. Polls show that almost 60% of the U.S. public strongly support reducing legal immigration.”

So it appears that both Mr. Fellow in Hot Springs, South Dakota, and Senator So-and-So in Washington think immigrants, whether legal or not, are a source of problems and should be sent back to where they came from.

Virtually all political parties advocate stronger measures both against legal and illegal immigration. During the 2008 electoral campaign, the hot topic of immigration saw the Democrats asking for a greater responsibility from the federal government to secure the nation’s borders, advocating stronger measures against employers of illegal immigrants, and asking illegal workers to turn themselves in, and pay a penalty (Democrats.org); the Republicans sought support in favor of stronger powers to law enforcement to protect the borders, haunt down illegals, and to erect a border fence (Gop.com); and the Constitutionals proposed a moratorium on legal immigration. Their reasons were almost virtually the same: according to these parties and their candidates, as reported by the Constitutionals, immigrants “have been made eligible for various kinds of assistance, including housing, education, Social Security, and legal services.” They further suggested that “this unconstitutional drain on the federal Treasury is having a severe and adverse impact on our economy, increasing the cost of government at federal, state, and local levels, adding to the tax burden, and stressing the fabric of society.” They even stated that “The mass importation of people with low standards of living threatens the wage structure of the American worker and the labor balance in our country” (Constitutionparty.com).

All of the above is fair enough, or isn’t it? The Libertarians represented the lone voice in this debate by holding a different position. They stated that “the supply of Americans who have traditionally filled many of those [low-skilled] jobs . . . continues to shrink . . . the typical American worker becomes older and better educated. Yet our system offers no legal channel for anywhere near a sufficient number of peaceful, hardworking immigrants to legally enter the United States even temporarily to fill this growing gap. The predictable result is illegal immigration. In response, we can spend billions more to beef up border patrols. We can erect hundreds of miles of ugly fence slicing through private property along the Rio Grande. We can raid more discount stores and chicken-processing plants from coast to coast. We can require all Americans to carry a national ID card and seek approval from a government computer before starting a new job. Or we can change our immigration law to more closely conform to how millions of normal people actually live. Crossing an international border to support your family and pursue dreams of a better life is not an inherently criminal act like rape or robbery. If it were, then most of us descend from criminals. As the people of Texas know well, the large majority of illegal immigrants are not bad people. They are people who value family, faith and hard work trying to live within a bad system” (Lp.org).

Now, this is quite a new take on this matter. But is it really a lone voice? Or do others share this peculiar view? Hanson summarizes the findings of a report that shows that, “From a purely economic perspective, the optimal immigration policy would admit individuals whose skills are in shortest supply and whose tax contributions, net of the cost of public services they receive, are as large as possible. Admitting immigrants in scarce occupations would yield the greatest increase in U.S. incomes, regardless of the skill level of those immigrants. In the United States, scarce workers would include not only highly educated individuals, such as the software programmers and engineers employed by rapidly expanding technology industries, but also low-skilled workers in construction, food preparation, and cleaning services, for which the supply of U.S. native labor has been falling” (Hanson).

So what is one to think of this whole issue? Is immigration a good thing for America or not? If it is, should policies be implemented to favor it? And if it is not, should the homes of illegal immigrants be raid to drive them out of the country, as provocatively suggested out by the Constitution Party, so that true Americans can have their jobs and prosperity back? If the latter is the way to go, could someone please introduce me to a true American?

For I am just a foreigner, but as I see it, there is no true American; an American to me is one who has either himself come from somewhere else or whose parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents came from somewhere else long ago. The United States as we know it today is the product of massive and repeated migrations of people from Northern and Central Europe first, then from Africa, and later from all the rest of the world, including scores of delinquents and law breakers of all types shipped to America from Britain for over 150 years. If only true Americans where to be left to populate this land, only the Indians could claim the right to stay. But the United States of America has always generally been a welcoming country . . . and luckily so. In fact, had it not been for its welcoming spirit, allowing hopefuls to come into its borders to try and make their dreams come true and contribute to the greatness of this land, the United States of America, as we know it today, would have never seen its birth.

This country was founded by all those who left their own homelands and came here with dreams for a better life and a better future for themselves and their children. This is exactly what brought to this land the Pilgrims, who fathered the Founding Fathers of this nation, and later people like Albert Einstein (physicist and Nobel Prize winner), Madeline Albright (Former Secretary of State), Martina Navratilova (athlete), Charlize Theron (actress), Arnold Schwarznegger (actor and California Governor), Elaine Lan Chao (Secretary of Labor), and Joseph Pulitzer (author); all people who contributed to making America the great place it is.

Some may argue that these were all talented and accomplished individuals who gave a contribution to this country, and that the ones who should not be allowed to immigrate and become citizens of this country are those who instead of adding to the prosperity and prestige of the United States come here without anything to contribute and live off the generosity of this country and its people. So, for example, a young Jewish boy and his family from Russia, wanting to come to the United States just because of the political turmoil in their home country, should not be allowed to come since they cannot speak the language, do not having anything to contribute, and will enjoy benefits they have not contributed to pay for.

Well, let’s see if I can help you see the matter from a different perspective. Have you ever heard of Israel Isidore Baline? And what about Irving Berlin? The latter is simply the English language rendition of the former, which is the name of a 4 year old boy whose Jewish family from Russia migrated to the United States when the Communist government started persecuting them. When he came to the United States, Irving could not speak English and resorted to singing on buses to raise a little money for his family to survive. Touching story, but why should I care, you may be asking yourself. Well, it was Irving Berlin who wrote some of the most recognizable and emotion stirring songs of this great country, among them: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “White Christmas,” and “God Bless America.”

Doesn’t this change things? What about letting a Jewish immigrant family settle in the U.S. now?

But why would an immigrant say “God Bless America?” How could such touching and sense filled words come out of the mouth of an immigrant? I believe it is because young Irving knew this very land‒his new home‒had given new hope to a hopeless boy, with no apparent future, nor any skills to make him appetible and welcome. All he had was a dream, a dream to have a chance to be free and make his life better.

The people of the United States of America should never forget how their nation came about and that the very birth of this country is the consequence of massive migratory fluxes made possible by the welcoming spirit of this land. This nation would not be the one we know today, had the borders of this land been sealed. The world is full of Irving Berlins waiting to have their chance in life. And so the real question is not whether or not immigration is good or bad, for we have seen arguments both in support and against, but how America can help make these dreams come true, that is if America wants to keep its place as the leading force for good in the world. Although not a Libertarian myself, I believe the answer lies in the spirit of the position held by the Libertarians, who in essence call for a better regulation of the migratory fluxes. This, I believe, would safeguard the right claims of the Americans who ask for protection of their rights, while at the same time continuing to make America the land all the world looks up to and still considers the promised land.

Just think about how America would look like if its borders had been sealed throughout its history. This nation would have never seen its birth. So, if you want to uphold the core, foundational values of this land, you will find yourself leaving with more and more diverse cultures in your neighborhood. Else, if you are one of those who advocate sealing America’s borders and expelling those who do not belong here, I suggest that you be ready, because unless you’re a native American (an Indian), you will have to start packing and look for a new home in a land that has not forgotten its roots and history.

Philbrick, N. (2006). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. New York: The Penguin Group (Preface). Retrieved from
htt://books.google.com/books?id=aw4MbnSCfnMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mayflower&hl=it&ei=QWeLTZOpEZPWtQODrdSJCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wilson, R. (2006). Issues of the World: Immigration. Malaysia: Aladdin Books (p.44). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=p-88lbAEaqgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=immigration&hl=it&ei=Nk-LTfafApKksQPxjomoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=true

Noyes, T. W. (1903). Oriental America and its problems. Washington: Press of Judd & Detweiler (p.217). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=TnUwgmsUW0AC&pg=PA217&dq=chinese+exclusion+act&hl=it&ei=Xm6LTcaTM4fQsAOikdSUCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=chinese%20exclusion%20act&f=false

Philbrick, N. (2006). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. New York: The Penguin Group (Preface). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=aw4MbnSCfnMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mayflower&hl=it&ei=QWeLTZOpEZPWtQODrdSJCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Fairchild, H. P. (1918). Immigration: a world movement and its American significance. New York: The MacMillian Company (p.123). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=K-QoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=immigration&hl=it&ei=Nk-LTfafApKksQPxjomoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mayflower&f=false

Miller, T. & Spoolman, S. (2007). Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning (178). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=Yhmar5MiFF8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=living+in+the+environment:+principles,+connections,+and+solutions&hl=it&ei=T0iSTfLbK9PZiAKHw7iCAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hanson, G. H. (2007). The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration. New York: Council on Foreign Relations (p.4). Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=FJoXbhBivAwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+economic+logic+of+illegal+immigration&hl=it&ei=70qSTa7ZJ6nfiAL_16X2AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

What We Stand For: Immigration Reform. (2008). Democrats. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from http://www.democrats.org/issues/immigration_reform

Immigration, National Security, and the Rule of Law. (2008). Republicans. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from http://www.gop.com/2008Platform/2008platform.pdf

Immigration. (2008). Constitution Party. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from http://www.constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php#Immigration

Immigration Law Should Reflect Our Dynamic Labor Market. (2008). Libertarian Party. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from http://www.lp.org/issues/immigration