Mr McCain, tear down this wall!
Most all of us are the descendants of immigrants. The only folks who have a right to build a wall are the American Indians, and they won’t do that ’cause they want folks coming to their casinos!
Hispanics have better “American Family Values” than most American families. Go to any park in Southern California on any holiday and look who’s there… huge families of Hispanics celebrating together. Stroll the Hispanic streets of American and see who’s dressed up in their Sunday finest walking hand-in-hand to their local church. Now turn your eyes to the underbelly of America. It’s Hispanics that are doing the cooking, cleaning, harvesting, landscaping, construction, and other jobs we can’t staff otherwise. Look to the street corners to see who’s standing there with a sign saying “Pity me, I need help.” It’s never a Hispanic, they’re all lined up at Home Depot offering work for their money!
Immigrant bashing is a grand tradition in America, even though we are a nation of immigrants. We bashed the Irish, we bashed the Italians, we bashed the Chinese. Ironically, we bashed the Blacks, though we brought them here against their will. Each new generation of Americans, themselves the sons of immigrant fathers, has disparaged the latest “flood” of immigrants.
Building a wall is Un-American. It’s not who we are. Those who ask for walls forget the ideals on which we have built this great Nation. I say we reject the ugliness rising from the fear in our hearts and embrace the hope that was and is America.
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, 1883
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
We should open our arms to these hard working, family oriented, church going, Hispanic people just as our own fathers were welcomed to America’s shores in the past.
Also as in the past, we demand that immigrants become a part of America, not a sub-country within it’s boundaries. English is our national language, and our immigrant fathers struggled to learn it immediately upon arriving at our shores. Neither in the past have we invited those who wish to beg in our streets for a hand out rather than offer their labor in exchange for their place in America.
Let those who are here performing our work and raising families within our borders join America as citizens of equal stature to others who have come before. Let those at our borders looking in with envy, who have been good citizens of their homelands, who have learned our national language, who have sponsorship of American employers, let those people join our Nation as guests. Let these guests demonstrate their character and continued employ as productive guests before granting full citizenship.
America is not a piece of land owned by its current residents, it is an ideal that belongs to all Men. It was founded on faith in the ability of hard working people to govern themselves as equal participants in a free and prosperous future, to live the American Dream. It is, and has always been, the duty of those who live the Dream of our immigrant fathers to embrace the new generations of immigrants who share faith in that same Dream.
Mr McCain, we need leaders who remind us of who we should be rather than pander to who we are. We need leaders who lead with hope rather than fear.
Mr McCain, tear down this wall!
