A Little Bit More On Immigration: How Things Get Perverted & Unjust
I received the following in my e-mail in the past few days:
The first problem is that this quote in its entirety is a compilation of different thoughts Teddy Roosevelt offered on immigration, most of which occurred after he left office as POTUS. (See Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants)
The second problem is that many of the passages were taken out of context, even though the "quote" does maintain most of its integrity to the ideas offered by Roosevelt.
The third problem is that, while the sentiments bring out an easy empathy from most Americans, it largely ignores factual history. The largest fact of history that has been ignored is the long tradition of using our immigration policy as a tool for conducting institutionalized prejudice and discrimination. A good example of this is provided by looking at the history of Chinese immigration to America, especially from 1840 until just after Teddy Roosevelt left office. A large portion of the Chinese immigrants to America provided what amounted to "slave labor" for the large corporations that came to own the railroads and those industries that became dependent upon the freight cababilities and capacities of the railways. While we do not really look upon the railways as being that important today, the rails not only connected our nation through passenger travels, but also through carrying the mails and connecting merchants, manufacturers and commodities to the markets, materials and suppliers that allowed our economy and industrial revolution to bring the good old US of A to the forefront of global power. That was accomplished on the backs of several immigrant groups, one of the largest being the Chinese.
The Irish and Central Eastern Europeans were also involved in this process and building of the railways. The Irish worked like slaves in the building of the eastern rails as well as in the coal and steel industries necessary for the rails to become real. The Central Eastern Europeans were essential cheap sources of labor for the steel mills. Each of these immigrant groups were all but enslaved by the big corporations--all of whom were endorsed and blessed by congressional influence peddlers and outright bribes (including straight out offering of railroad stock for votes to help fund and authorize the several major railways). These immigrants were pressed to work 10-12 hour days, provided with little in the way of decent food and shelter while working, and the only way many of them could survive and provide for themselves and their families was to take a low-paying railroad job.
The Irish were paid a bit better than the Chinese because they were "white" and Chinese were considered so beneath being "white" that they were literally denied the right of land ownership... surprisingly this denial of property ownership occurred all the way into the late 1970s in some California communities. While the Irish and "hunkies" of Central Eastern European descent were not denied property ownership, they were denied ownership in certain neighborhoods and communities.
Then, too, the railroads were the birthplace of so many scandals in government and business. The initial scandals can be traced to the huge amounts of money and stock that were provided influential congress critters for voting in favor of the railroad corporations for any number of laws and funding processes, including allowing monopolies and exclusivce land deals, many of which violated the rights of Native Americans (and treaties) and long-term settlers in the western states and territories. The second layer of scandal came as the varous corporations that owned the railroads conspired to push certain businesses out of competition by charging those companies higher--often too high--fees for freight. Many smaller operations were forced out of business and the remnants were bought up by those in cahoots with the railroad owners at a fraction of the costs. Many of the businesses that benefited by the railways were also owned--at least in a significant proportion--by the railroad owners. Monoploy after monopoly was born and the vertical interdependency that resulted provided the breeding ground and fodder for the scandals that brought about the Sherman Anti-Trust statute.
This era of US history brought forth the so-called "robber barons" like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie who cornered one market after another on the backs of various working class citizens--most of whom were immigrants--through violation of laws, ethics and standards of decency. It was this era that launched so many calls for reforms, the labor movement, and progressive campaigns to prevent massive corporatism (which is now experiencing a massive resurgence).
So let us look at these things attributed to Roosevelt more carefully, with the actual history in mind.
While Roosevelt said this, he did not practice it. Some of his income came from his association with the larger corporations and more affluent citizens of his day. The Roosevelt family had a long history of association with business and government leaders. And, as president, Roosevelt did little to assure that such principles as "exact equality" was actually fulfilled in the way we conducted immigration policies and practices. (The Chinese are a prime example of how the idea of "exact equality" was not fulfilled.)
But wouldn't this also be predicated upon each individual being allowed to become, in every facet, an American? If an immigrant is denied legal standing to hold property, to be treated equally under law and by social standard, and to obtain justice under the law, then why would anyone want to be "fully American"? But, despite this history of discrimination, those immigrants that were excluded from full participation demonstrated their loyalty to the idea of being American through their service in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II... and still were treated as less than American... less than human. Even after clear demonstration by several immigrant groups of their intent to be American in character and loyalty, most were discriminated against in our society and in our immigration laws, policies and practices. Quotas were put into effect on the basis of prejudices and institutional discrimination, supported no only by the evils of social custom, but by greed for power and money in congress and the corporate board rooms across the nation.
I look at the list of folks who have served our nation and I see a long list of immigrants that demonstrated their allegiance to America... many of whom were denied recognition of their service and loyalty. So while I understand the sentiment expressed here, it is one that reeks of bovine excrement because that is not how we have operated. We have divided ourselves. We did so on the basis of race, creed, place of origin and religion. While we have made some great strides to overcome many of these injustices, we still operate with them in tow... and we still have institutional forms of discrimination, including those that remain active in our immigration laws, policies and practices. In fact, we even have them institutionalized in our e-mails. We operate as hypocrites and deny we do so.
But show me anyone in America that is not proud of their ethnic or family history. I call upon anyone in America to demonstrate that we are "undivided" in our sentiments about our origins. My maternal grandfather was a first generation immigrant from the Scandanavian regions. His mother was Danish and his father was Norwegian. My maternal grandmother was a sixth generation American who could trace her heritage to literally a half-dozen ethnic origins, including early Dutch, French, English and Scottish immigrants to New England. Some of her family ties can be traced to the 1600s and the early settling of Lynn, Suagus and Malden Massachusetts. In fact, some parts of Boston proper were once owned by her paternal uncles and still bear the Thompson family name (i.e. Thompson Square). Her French roots are demonstrated by some of the street names still present in Lynn, Massachuetts (Cowdrey Avenue was owned by the "Coudrey" [Coo-dray] portion of her family). My paternal grandparents were third generation Irish (Downey/Hayes) and French-Canadian (Marquis).
If we list all the names associated with my family, we see a pattern of immigration that is the foundation of America as a great country:
Downey, Marquis, Thompson, Grant (distant cousins to U.S. Grant), McGregor, Lee (distant relatives to Robert E. Lee), Coudrey, Hansen, Arnesen, Coombs, Lewis, Shumway, Wayman, Hayes, Shah, Doucette, Doyle, Reed and Sinclair... to name but a few.
But all of my family has been proudly American... and proudly immigrant. At family gatherings we have all celebrated our ethnicity by preparing foods that reflect our heritage. Many family members remember going to church where their native language was spoken. Most of us grew up in places where ethnic villages and pockets were a reality. In Peabody (Massachusetts) there were sections and neighborhoods that were distinctly Greek, Portuguese and Irish at different times of history. In Lynn (Massachusetts) there were sections or neighborhoods that were Irish, French, Greek, Jewish, Italian and African-American (Black). Almost every major metropolitan city in the US has a Greek Town, China Town, Little Italy or other ethnically defined area.
So while we can share the sentiment of being "all American," the reality is that being all American is about being immigrants that love America and our own unique heritage. The old rub is that we are, as Americans, a strange mix of mutts. Our very character is not that of a "melting pot," but more like a "tossed salad" that is good because of the different genuine flavors brought to the table by the various ethnic ingredients. Absent of our ethnic immigrant history, America loses its strength, unity and principles. Those that buy into the bovine excrement that being American is uniquely identifiable by ignoring all else but that which is brought forth by exclusively American processes are out of touch with reality, history and fact.
Then why does each state have its own flag? The reality of our government is that we are a nation of confederated individual governments, each having its own sovereignty and jurisdiction. While most of us have lost our state identity over the years and as a byproduct of our modern mobility, such was not the case prior to World War II. Our existence as cohesive members of one nation is a much more modern phenomenon than we might think. In Roosevelt's day, most Americans thought of themselves as hyphenated Americans... like Texan-American, Viginian-American, North Carolinian-American, and so forth. Even our military was divided by regiments identified by their state of origin. Those of us that have watched the "war movie" To Hell and Back (Audie Murphy) will recall comments in the movie that reference a "Texas outift," which is indicative of the separateness and cohesiveness that most Americans felt even as late as the middle 1940s.
Our American identity is a modern development, but our American character and principles are much deeper and older. We must reach for these values when we discuss immigration and justice for those that seek to become Americans.
My grandparents spoke various languages. My maternal grandmother spoke English and French. My maternal grandfather spoke Norwegian, Danish, German and English. My paternal grandmother speaks French and English. My paternal grandfather spoke English with a Bostonian accent, but members of his family spoke Gaelic and English with an Irish brogue. Claiming that there is only room for one language in the USA is yet another denial of our greatness. Granted, English is our common language and should be the language that is universal to our nation, but we need to remember our own history. Many of our immigrant grandparents did not speak English when they arrived in America. They spoke a multitude of different languages. Just to survive they moved to neighborhoods where there native language was spoken. In these neighborhoods a uniquely ethnic flavor and character arose and we identified those neighborhoods by the language--and the culture reflected by that language--spoken there.
What was different in past times was the pressure to learn English, as well as the resources to do so. In Boston, New York and Chicago, Jewish communities would provide immigrants of their culture, ethnicities and religion with classes in English. Jane Addams developed Hull House with specific focus on immigrants and a major service provided to immigrants was intensive--but very accessible--training in English. Greek immigrants in my home town sent their children to "regular school" to learn English, but then sent them to "Greek School" to learn Greek.
One of my friends is an immigrant from Iran, by way of political asylum from diplomatic assignment in South America when the Shah of Iran fell from power. His native language is Farsi, but he speaks and writes Spanish as a native. His English is spoken with an accent and he uses idioms that are difficult for a native English speaker to grasp at times. His written English needs a lot of editing. His wife is Dominican and is a brilliant thinker in her native language of Spanish. When I first met her she had great difficulty with speaking and writing English. She struggled with English for several years, but since she conquered it, she has worked as a social worker and a teacher, and raised a family of polyglots. At any given family gathering in their home one can hear the following languages spoken: Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, Italian, American-English and British-English. When I enter their home, I learn so much about what it means to come to America... and what it means to be American. I would not learn so much about being American if they only spoke English.
We really need to hold our prejudices and discriminatory inklings in check, reminding ourselves of our own immigrant histories and how our immigrant past has played a role in the formation of America and what it means to be an American. Then we need to force our politicians to create a genuinely fair, just and workable solution to our immigration problems and issues. Perhaps then we will have something worthy of our prideful demonstrations of being American. But until we work the prejudice and discrimination out of the process, we are nothing more than petty, simple-minded bastards that have forgotten the very principles and values of our way of life.
Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907.
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's be coming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
The first problem is that this quote in its entirety is a compilation of different thoughts Teddy Roosevelt offered on immigration, most of which occurred after he left office as POTUS. (See Theodore Roosevelt on Immigrants)
The second problem is that many of the passages were taken out of context, even though the "quote" does maintain most of its integrity to the ideas offered by Roosevelt.
The third problem is that, while the sentiments bring out an easy empathy from most Americans, it largely ignores factual history. The largest fact of history that has been ignored is the long tradition of using our immigration policy as a tool for conducting institutionalized prejudice and discrimination. A good example of this is provided by looking at the history of Chinese immigration to America, especially from 1840 until just after Teddy Roosevelt left office. A large portion of the Chinese immigrants to America provided what amounted to "slave labor" for the large corporations that came to own the railroads and those industries that became dependent upon the freight cababilities and capacities of the railways. While we do not really look upon the railways as being that important today, the rails not only connected our nation through passenger travels, but also through carrying the mails and connecting merchants, manufacturers and commodities to the markets, materials and suppliers that allowed our economy and industrial revolution to bring the good old US of A to the forefront of global power. That was accomplished on the backs of several immigrant groups, one of the largest being the Chinese.
The Irish and Central Eastern Europeans were also involved in this process and building of the railways. The Irish worked like slaves in the building of the eastern rails as well as in the coal and steel industries necessary for the rails to become real. The Central Eastern Europeans were essential cheap sources of labor for the steel mills. Each of these immigrant groups were all but enslaved by the big corporations--all of whom were endorsed and blessed by congressional influence peddlers and outright bribes (including straight out offering of railroad stock for votes to help fund and authorize the several major railways). These immigrants were pressed to work 10-12 hour days, provided with little in the way of decent food and shelter while working, and the only way many of them could survive and provide for themselves and their families was to take a low-paying railroad job.
The Irish were paid a bit better than the Chinese because they were "white" and Chinese were considered so beneath being "white" that they were literally denied the right of land ownership... surprisingly this denial of property ownership occurred all the way into the late 1970s in some California communities. While the Irish and "hunkies" of Central Eastern European descent were not denied property ownership, they were denied ownership in certain neighborhoods and communities.
Then, too, the railroads were the birthplace of so many scandals in government and business. The initial scandals can be traced to the huge amounts of money and stock that were provided influential congress critters for voting in favor of the railroad corporations for any number of laws and funding processes, including allowing monopolies and exclusivce land deals, many of which violated the rights of Native Americans (and treaties) and long-term settlers in the western states and territories. The second layer of scandal came as the varous corporations that owned the railroads conspired to push certain businesses out of competition by charging those companies higher--often too high--fees for freight. Many smaller operations were forced out of business and the remnants were bought up by those in cahoots with the railroad owners at a fraction of the costs. Many of the businesses that benefited by the railways were also owned--at least in a significant proportion--by the railroad owners. Monoploy after monopoly was born and the vertical interdependency that resulted provided the breeding ground and fodder for the scandals that brought about the Sherman Anti-Trust statute.
This era of US history brought forth the so-called "robber barons" like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie who cornered one market after another on the backs of various working class citizens--most of whom were immigrants--through violation of laws, ethics and standards of decency. It was this era that launched so many calls for reforms, the labor movement, and progressive campaigns to prevent massive corporatism (which is now experiencing a massive resurgence).
So let us look at these things attributed to Roosevelt more carefully, with the actual history in mind.
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin."
While Roosevelt said this, he did not practice it. Some of his income came from his association with the larger corporations and more affluent citizens of his day. The Roosevelt family had a long history of association with business and government leaders. And, as president, Roosevelt did little to assure that such principles as "exact equality" was actually fulfilled in the way we conducted immigration policies and practices. (The Chinese are a prime example of how the idea of "exact equality" was not fulfilled.)
"But this is predicated upon the person's be coming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American..."
But wouldn't this also be predicated upon each individual being allowed to become, in every facet, an American? If an immigrant is denied legal standing to hold property, to be treated equally under law and by social standard, and to obtain justice under the law, then why would anyone want to be "fully American"? But, despite this history of discrimination, those immigrants that were excluded from full participation demonstrated their loyalty to the idea of being American through their service in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II... and still were treated as less than American... less than human. Even after clear demonstration by several immigrant groups of their intent to be American in character and loyalty, most were discriminated against in our society and in our immigration laws, policies and practices. Quotas were put into effect on the basis of prejudices and institutional discrimination, supported no only by the evils of social custom, but by greed for power and money in congress and the corporate board rooms across the nation.
"There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all."
I look at the list of folks who have served our nation and I see a long list of immigrants that demonstrated their allegiance to America... many of whom were denied recognition of their service and loyalty. So while I understand the sentiment expressed here, it is one that reeks of bovine excrement because that is not how we have operated. We have divided ourselves. We did so on the basis of race, creed, place of origin and religion. While we have made some great strides to overcome many of these injustices, we still operate with them in tow... and we still have institutional forms of discrimination, including those that remain active in our immigration laws, policies and practices. In fact, we even have them institutionalized in our e-mails. We operate as hypocrites and deny we do so.
But show me anyone in America that is not proud of their ethnic or family history. I call upon anyone in America to demonstrate that we are "undivided" in our sentiments about our origins. My maternal grandfather was a first generation immigrant from the Scandanavian regions. His mother was Danish and his father was Norwegian. My maternal grandmother was a sixth generation American who could trace her heritage to literally a half-dozen ethnic origins, including early Dutch, French, English and Scottish immigrants to New England. Some of her family ties can be traced to the 1600s and the early settling of Lynn, Suagus and Malden Massachusetts. In fact, some parts of Boston proper were once owned by her paternal uncles and still bear the Thompson family name (i.e. Thompson Square). Her French roots are demonstrated by some of the street names still present in Lynn, Massachuetts (Cowdrey Avenue was owned by the "Coudrey" [Coo-dray] portion of her family). My paternal grandparents were third generation Irish (Downey/Hayes) and French-Canadian (Marquis).
If we list all the names associated with my family, we see a pattern of immigration that is the foundation of America as a great country:
Downey, Marquis, Thompson, Grant (distant cousins to U.S. Grant), McGregor, Lee (distant relatives to Robert E. Lee), Coudrey, Hansen, Arnesen, Coombs, Lewis, Shumway, Wayman, Hayes, Shah, Doucette, Doyle, Reed and Sinclair... to name but a few.
But all of my family has been proudly American... and proudly immigrant. At family gatherings we have all celebrated our ethnicity by preparing foods that reflect our heritage. Many family members remember going to church where their native language was spoken. Most of us grew up in places where ethnic villages and pockets were a reality. In Peabody (Massachusetts) there were sections and neighborhoods that were distinctly Greek, Portuguese and Irish at different times of history. In Lynn (Massachusetts) there were sections or neighborhoods that were Irish, French, Greek, Jewish, Italian and African-American (Black). Almost every major metropolitan city in the US has a Greek Town, China Town, Little Italy or other ethnically defined area.
So while we can share the sentiment of being "all American," the reality is that being all American is about being immigrants that love America and our own unique heritage. The old rub is that we are, as Americans, a strange mix of mutts. Our very character is not that of a "melting pot," but more like a "tossed salad" that is good because of the different genuine flavors brought to the table by the various ethnic ingredients. Absent of our ethnic immigrant history, America loses its strength, unity and principles. Those that buy into the bovine excrement that being American is uniquely identifiable by ignoring all else but that which is brought forth by exclusively American processes are out of touch with reality, history and fact.
"We have room for but one flag, the American flag..."
Then why does each state have its own flag? The reality of our government is that we are a nation of confederated individual governments, each having its own sovereignty and jurisdiction. While most of us have lost our state identity over the years and as a byproduct of our modern mobility, such was not the case prior to World War II. Our existence as cohesive members of one nation is a much more modern phenomenon than we might think. In Roosevelt's day, most Americans thought of themselves as hyphenated Americans... like Texan-American, Viginian-American, North Carolinian-American, and so forth. Even our military was divided by regiments identified by their state of origin. Those of us that have watched the "war movie" To Hell and Back (Audie Murphy) will recall comments in the movie that reference a "Texas outift," which is indicative of the separateness and cohesiveness that most Americans felt even as late as the middle 1940s.
Our American identity is a modern development, but our American character and principles are much deeper and older. We must reach for these values when we discuss immigration and justice for those that seek to become Americans.
"We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
My grandparents spoke various languages. My maternal grandmother spoke English and French. My maternal grandfather spoke Norwegian, Danish, German and English. My paternal grandmother speaks French and English. My paternal grandfather spoke English with a Bostonian accent, but members of his family spoke Gaelic and English with an Irish brogue. Claiming that there is only room for one language in the USA is yet another denial of our greatness. Granted, English is our common language and should be the language that is universal to our nation, but we need to remember our own history. Many of our immigrant grandparents did not speak English when they arrived in America. They spoke a multitude of different languages. Just to survive they moved to neighborhoods where there native language was spoken. In these neighborhoods a uniquely ethnic flavor and character arose and we identified those neighborhoods by the language--and the culture reflected by that language--spoken there.
What was different in past times was the pressure to learn English, as well as the resources to do so. In Boston, New York and Chicago, Jewish communities would provide immigrants of their culture, ethnicities and religion with classes in English. Jane Addams developed Hull House with specific focus on immigrants and a major service provided to immigrants was intensive--but very accessible--training in English. Greek immigrants in my home town sent their children to "regular school" to learn English, but then sent them to "Greek School" to learn Greek.
One of my friends is an immigrant from Iran, by way of political asylum from diplomatic assignment in South America when the Shah of Iran fell from power. His native language is Farsi, but he speaks and writes Spanish as a native. His English is spoken with an accent and he uses idioms that are difficult for a native English speaker to grasp at times. His written English needs a lot of editing. His wife is Dominican and is a brilliant thinker in her native language of Spanish. When I first met her she had great difficulty with speaking and writing English. She struggled with English for several years, but since she conquered it, she has worked as a social worker and a teacher, and raised a family of polyglots. At any given family gathering in their home one can hear the following languages spoken: Farsi, Arabic, French, Spanish, Greek, Italian, American-English and British-English. When I enter their home, I learn so much about what it means to come to America... and what it means to be American. I would not learn so much about being American if they only spoke English.
We really need to hold our prejudices and discriminatory inklings in check, reminding ourselves of our own immigrant histories and how our immigrant past has played a role in the formation of America and what it means to be an American. Then we need to force our politicians to create a genuinely fair, just and workable solution to our immigration problems and issues. Perhaps then we will have something worthy of our prideful demonstrations of being American. But until we work the prejudice and discrimination out of the process, we are nothing more than petty, simple-minded bastards that have forgotten the very principles and values of our way of life.
posted by Jim Downey at 2:29 AM
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