This I Believe

I believe we are all immigrants. I believe Native Americans were here first. I believe our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and further back, before the Mayflower even, all came on the seas and in the seas, over skies and over mountains, through the desert, through the canal, down the river, and up the border, to America.

We have all arrived here, in America, whether weeks, months, years or generations ago, because we have heard and believed: this IS the land of opportunity, the land of stories·rags-to-riches, up from their bootstraps, out of misery, poverty, persecution, turmoil. We have heard and believed: a person can become anything, anyone here. We have heard and believed: there is nowhere else in the world that will provide the means and the know-how. And we, believing, have come to America.

My French grandparents were from Arcadia. That history is another smirch on the character of this country. As the English in Canada, loaded up boats of Indian-allied French men and older boys on separate boats from their spouses and young children, they cast them to sea. Different states refused safe harbor. Hence, pockets of French, from Maine to New Orleans. World War II also brought refugees, Jewish folk, also blocked entrance to many ports, abroad and here.

What gives us the right to declare people (illegal), (undocumented), and still sometimes, (alien)? Why is it okay that we are here? Were the entry requirements more lenient when my French-speaking ancestors were (processed)? Shall we return to the chemical baths of Mexican day laborers years ago? Shall we return to only importing our workforce by force in the holds of ships? When we overthrew the British, were we not revolutionaries?

When we run our hot and cold water faucets, instead of hauling water from an often polluted river, when we get into our cars and drive to our jobs, our vacations, when we shop at the mall, walk in nature, at any state park, public beach, when we have shoes on our feet, clean clothes from our home washer/ dryers, when we play on our computers, ipods, Xboxes, ball courts, skating rinks, when we go to ball games and concerts and movies, when our bellies are full of good foods, fast foods, fine dining, sundry spirits, how dare we say: opportunity stops here, now!

NIMBY·(Not in my backyard) is a shortsighted, even selfish stance– my family improved its lot in life; yours can too, but not where I have to see your poverty, your struggle, not where it might affect my property value.

I believe we have boundless resources. I believe we are all struggling brethren. I believe we must open our hearts, our ‘hoods, our honesty, our gratitude for the opportunity to grow here, to all immigrants, striving to start a better life, where we have all landed, America. This I believe.