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Last weekend, Americans indulged in phony patriotism, accompanied by
fireworks and trumpets and pompous voices trying to sound like George
Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Little attention was
given to the people who Americans have oppressed -- the aboriginal people,
the African slaves, the hated Asians, Jews and Catholics. Nor was there any
mention of the many unjust wars that Americans have fought. The Statue of Liberty appeared often in the blue sky over the weekend, but there was no interest in Emma Lazarus' remarkable sonnet engraved on the statue -- "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!" Who are these huddled masses, the wretched refuse, these tired poor, these tempest-tost? |
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We are. At the time Lazarus, a Jew of Portuguese background, wrote, they were the Irish, the French Canadians, the Italians, the Poles, the Slovaks, the Slovenes, the Hungarians, the Greeks, the Jews. Look at the pictures of them filing into Castle Island or later Ellis Island and shudder with the real Americans of that era at the sight of our grandparents and great-grandparents -- an ignorant, confused, ill-clad, dirty, smelly, dull, perhaps dangerous invasion. What would we ever do with them? How could they ever become good Americans? Against their better judgment and with their fingers crossed, the Americans, true to their principles, drew a deep breath and let them in. Then they let them become Americans, gave them the right to vote, and, well aware of the danger, let them run for elective office. After that it was: Katie bar the door. In a story my mother told me long ago, two Irishmen, just off the boat at Castle Island, happened to pass a boat disgorging men and women with somewhat darker skin, babbling in an unintelligible if melodious language and gesticulating like monkeys. "You know, Sean," said Seamus. "Wouldn't this be a grand country altogether if it weren't for all your foreigners?" |
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For all the faults and failings of this country's history and all the prejudice against "your foreigners," the experiment of keeping the lamp beside the golden door is remarkable and virtually unique. In principle, anyone can become American. Indeed everyone should become American. Turks can't become Germans, Algerians can't become French, Italians can't become Swedes. Currently, Mexicans cannot become American, either, but that is a lapse that merely repeats earlier prejudice. Your Irish are a slovenly, superstitious, alcoholic people. They could never govern this country, right? Don't do business with your Jews because you can't trust them, right? Beware your Eyetalins because they are all "connected," right? The real patriots are not the gun-toting thugs who try to slam the golden door shut in the name of Paul Revere and his band of Minutemen, but those who try to find a way for the Mexicans to become Americans like everyone else. Despite all the racist bigotry, the United States is the only mostly white country in the world that has permitted the nomination of a Kenyan American for the presidency. Bigotry may prevent his election -- 10 percent of the voters are convinced that he is a Muslim -- but when the Brits nominate a black candidate for prime minister or permit an heir to the throne to become Catholic, then they can afford to look down their haughty noses at us. Some day a descendant of an "illegal" Mexican will also become a nominee. It's the American way.
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 A Stupid, Unjust, And Criminal War: Iraq 2001-2007 Father Greeley calls to task those who justified, planned and executed the war and reminds us that God weeps at the destruction of war, whether lives lost are ‘ours’ or ‘theirs.’  Order
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