Lately, I have been researching my family roots, trying to
find out where my father’s family originated, how my paternal grandparents
wound up coming to the U.S., and how they ended up in small towns in
Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Two Internet tools I have been using are ancestry.com
(which costs money after an initial search) and familysearch.org, a totally free
site put up by the Mormons for all of us to use. (Thank you.) I am one of
millions of Americans who have tuned into these websites. And do you know what
all of us have discovered? If we look far enough back, we have found that ALL
of our ancestors (other than possibly a few Native Americans) originated
outside of the United States. So, somewhere in our past, all of us have family
members who were immigrants. Live with it!
Amazingly, I learned about familysearch.org from a cousin I
never knew I had. She came across some of my blog posts about my Southern roots
and realized that her grandmother was actually my father’s sister. So she put a
comment on one of my posts, and we followed up with emails and phone calls. You
know the kind of things that cousins do. We have combined tidbits of knowledge
about our ancestors that we each knew independently, and we now have a much
fuller picture than before. Except neither of us knows just where my
grandfather was living before he arrived in the U.S. in the 1880s. But arrive
he did, probably through Castle Garden in New York. Then he somehow moved to
the Midwest, took on the last name Goodman, and eventually met my grandmother
in Indianapolis, where her family had settled after arriving from the Ukraine in
Russia. Then they moved to Mississippi, of all places. So now I know the awful
truth—both of my paternal grandparents were immigrants. Live with it!
Part of why I am thinking about this stuff is that I
recently watched Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity—whose ancestors I’m sure came
from somewhere in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe and were subjected to abuse after
arriving in the U.S.—discuss how the country will be “lost” if a new immigration
bill is passed and immigrant children living in this country since birth are
offered a chance to stay here as citizens or others who entered illegally are granted amnesty. The country will be lost because we
will become a country filled with immigrants. News flash! We already are. Live
with it!
There is a quote attributed to former Texas governor Miriam
Amanda “Ma” Ferguson, who in speaking against bilingual education in her state
said, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it is good enough for Texas
schoolchildren.” Now, even Wikipedia has some doubts about whether Ma Ferguson
actually said those astounding words, though the Wikipedia writer is certain
they were indeed spoken by some Texas politician, perhaps as early as the 1880s.
Deep in his Texas heart, Rick Perry (or even Ted Cruz amazingly) might want to
echo the sentiments if not the words of Ma’s quote. And he would sound just as
silly. Live with it!
"Ma" Ferguson contemplating her next big idea
Last Sunday morning (and this is a true story, not made up
for effect), I went for a ride on bike paths linking my town and the town of Saddle
Brook, some five miles away by bike. In one half-mile stretch, I passed patches
of grass on which groups of Indians or Pakistanis were playing cricket, groups
of Latinos were playing soccer (futbol), and a mixed group of kids—white,
black, and brown—were playing baseball. I also heard lots of Russian, Polish,
and Chinese spoken by people I passed along the way, and probably a little Hebrew
and Yiddish too. And I’m sure that the region in which I live is no more ethnic
than are the regions of most Americans these days, no matter how much we try to
isolate ourselves. We are all former immigrants trying to blend in. Live with
it!
 |
| Cricket playing in some Saddle Brook somewhere |
I know that I am riding on a “high horse” here, but the tone
of the debate today on immigration is a little sad and a lot scary. Just as our
ancestors (even Sean Hannity’s and Ann Coulter’s) eventually were “included” in
this country (sometimes after a very bumpy beginning), today’s immigrants will,
over time, find their place too and maybe even be accepted. The country will
survive, and we will be better off for the experience. Live with it!
No comments:
Post a Comment