I don't often get emotional. Well yesterday if you were in my house you would have seen me cry. I mean break down and weep. Watching Rachel she put up a video that will forever be burnt in my mind. It was this:
The meeting of a "Dreamer" who knows no nation but the United States. Meeting her mom for the first time in six years, who can't come see her cause she was deported. So they met and hug through a FUCKING WALL in a border town. In what world is this acceptable?
I can only speak for myself, but I am an immigrant. My family came here in the 1870s from Scotland. Heck one of my favorite things of all time is a letter my great, great grandfather wrote to the public in 1914 trying to get elected in Southern Illinois (where I live and my family lives to this day). It starts, and I kid you not with him saying let me introduce myself:
I was born in the Torrance of Campsie, Stirlingshire, Scotland, on the tenth day of March, 1854, of poor but respectful parents.
He goes on to say he didn't graduate from high school and life wasn't always easy, then:
Business on the AT & SFRR being dull that year, I failed to secure a position at my trade. Having a large family to support I betook myself to coal digging for a living. Dug coal for 15 years, and commenced farming in 1894 and been farming since.
The letter ends:
I am a Candidate for the Office of Probate Judge .... I take this means of letting you know who I am, but will endeavor to meet as many of the Voters in the County as possible between now and August Fourth.
I note the above cause we didn't even wait a generation to engrain ourself in this nation. We ran for, and he won that election BTW, public offices. We bought land. We were productive citizens. I am an immigrant.
After this my great grandfather built things. Large things. Good chance if you drive around Southern IL you will drive over a bridge he built. This women I was dating a few months ago found it strange I stopped crossing a bridge, saw the "crest" of my family he put on every bridge, stopped and took a photo.
My grandfather, well he is/was known locally as the "Baby Doctor" cause he delivered 3,600+ plus of them (me included). He could have worked anywhere he wanted, but choose that same town my family had come to years and years before. For years the only doctor around. Even to this day, and there is a III after my name (should be a fourth, but long story), folks find out my name and tell me stories for hours about my grandfather.
My father, well a stud. He is often told he could win election for mayor of his town with 85% of the vote or win a House seat with about the same.
In our lives since coming here we have dug coal, farmed the land, raised cattle, been doctors and professors. I can't express how amazing this nation has been to me and my family. My first family member that came here, I don't think for a second he could imagine how amazing things have been.
So as I said I am immigrant. I said all the above cause I want what I have had for others. In my world I wish MORE not LESS immigrants were the conversation we were having. Isn't it on the Statue of Liberty, the phrase, "give us your huddled masses?" I can buy into that. Give me. Give me. Give us all of them.