The first of his ancestors to enter this country was his father’s father, Friedrich, in 1885. He went back to Germany for his bride, whom after he married her came to the US in 1902.
Trump’s mother entered the US from Scotland in 1930.
I am completely of Eastern European Jewish background. So when did my family come here?
Harry Levitsky, whose name was changed to Livingston, entered the US from Lithuania as a child with his parents in 1862.
He got married in the mid-1880s, and had his eldest child, my mother’s father George, in 1888.
My mother’s mother Regina nee Brozan (to which the name was changed from Broznicki or Brodnicki) entered the US in 1906 from Bialystok, Poland, with her father, she being the eldest child.
On my father’s side, his father David came from Slobodka Poland by way of Hamburg when he was 15 in the lat 19th century. He married my paternal grandmother Mamie who had been born in the United States circa 1885.
So, three of my four grandparents were in this country before 1900, and the last to arrive came in 1906.
Both of my parents were born US citizens, my dad in 1911 in Utica NY and my mom in 1915 in NYC.
In otherwords, I have far more American roots than does the current occupant of the Oval Office
But here’s the rub — I have students who are Black whose roots go back far further than mine. Their heritage is entirely of African-American slaves (and in some cases the slave-holders whose property they were). We stopped importing slaves in the US in 1808.
Or I can take my brother-in-law, recently retired from the FBI. He grew up speaking Spanish. But don’t call him Mexican, because his family on both sides have been in what is now Northern New Mexico since before 1800, and probably since before there was a US — they did not come to the US, the US came to them.
Donald Trump wants to get rid of what he calls “chained migration” which is better described as family reunification. But Trump’s mother came to the country that way, and so did his father’s father, who moved in with his sister (Donald’s great-aunt) when he arrived in the States.
Oh, and why did Friedrich Drumpf come to the US? To avoid having to serve in the military back in Germany.
Trump’s grandfather did not serve.
Trump’s father Fred did not serve in the US military.
Trump’s uncle John Trump, who was a professor at MIT, never served in the military.
We all know about the five deferments The Donald had to avoid Vietnam
Neither Don Jr. nor Eric (nor Ivanka) has ever served in the US Military.
While my grandparents did not serve, let’s look at my family
- great-uncle married to maternal grandfather’s sister- US Army WWI
- Dad, US Navy, WWII
- Mother’s brother, US Army, WWII
- Mother’s sister, US Army, WWII
- me, US Marines during 1960s
there are more, but you get the picture.
Donald Trump is less a real American than me, than my family, than the vast majority of African-American families.
It shouldn’t matter whether or not one served in the military — many women, many disabled people, many people for religious or moral reasons, did not serve, but are fully Americans, fully loyal.
But here’s the rub — in America we should not care when our families came here, only our loyalty to the principles (Constitution and Bill of Rights and Rule of Law) and the nation.
On that basis, not only am I more American than Donald J. Trump- so are the vast majority of citizens and permanent residents of this country.
And that is true even before we consider whether or not he is a Putin puppet..