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Twenty of us sat around a laptop and paper-topped table, waiting nervously for the leader of our nation to address the issue we prioritized for 2010. The State of the Union speech was captivating. President Obama called for action to address our nation’s toughest challenges. Finally, a little over an hour into the speech, Obama mentioned immigration reform! It was only six seconds, but those six seconds gave the twenty of us in that room and the millions more across the nation just a little bit more hope that change would come in 2010. President Obama stated, “In the end, it is our ideals, our values that built America – values that allowed us to forge a nation made up of immigrants from every corner of the globe; values that drive our citizens still.” But are American’s really still driven by those values?
Phoenix was hit with an unusual storm recently. Of course, all life stopped. Lying on my bed I could still hear the few vehicles left on the road. The typical sound of screeching tires and blasting horns intermingled with the bangs and clatter of tree branches striking at my window. I looked out and saw the Clarendon Hotel and another tall building. I’m only on the second floor, but looking up I felt I was in a sky-scraper. I was absorbed into the false romanticism of living in a big-city. Phoenix can seem quite small sometimes. What if I was in Chicago, New York!
Over one hundred years ago, on New Year’s Day, a young girl from Ireland became the first person to enter Ellis Island in New York. She wore a skirt down to her ankle, a hat, boots and a buttoned up jacket. Her name was Annie Moore. Twelve million people would enter Ellis Island as Annie did. Many point to the differences in the experience of those immigrants and immigrants today. Before, immigrants saw that colossal woman holding a torch 305 feet above the waters of the New York Harbor—a welcoming vision. Now they see a tall wall, chain-linked barbed-wire fence, surveillance balloons, or security boats sailing up and down our coasts. There are, however, much more similarities than differences between the immigrants’ experience. We just have to know where to look. First, Annie was treated as a celebrity; given a gold coin upon disembarking. Most immigrants received a less then red-carpet treatment. The boats docked, immigrants disembarked, they were then given physicals to check for, primarily, cholera, favus, and mental infirmities. If you passed, which most did, you were thrown into the streets, sometimes only hours after enduring a 3,000 mile trip of two weeks or more in a humanity and filth-filled ship lacking in nutritional meals.
The similarities that matter most, however, are not in how immigrants got here but what they did when they got here. For many immigrants, they saw America as the land where streets were paved with gold. One immigrant poignantly noted “I landed and found out three things: first, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all; third, I was expected to pave them.” And pave they did. Immigrants built our railroads, cities, and military. This is the similarities I see between the twelve million immigrants then and the twelve million immigrants now. In my mother, my neighbors, my peers, I see that hard-work, that American ideal, those values of progress, unity, hope, and persistence in the face of pressing challenges.
In Phoenix, Arizona, current immigration policies enable our police department to racially profile individuals and consequently trample on the rights of American citizens. Here, women are forced to give birth in chains. College graduates cannot work, college students do not have the resources to continue their education and strive for their goals, and high school students are dropping out feeling there is nothing to strive for.
Meanwhile, studies have shown that immigrants commit fewer crimes and that immigration reform will add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy, drive up wages for all workers, and support nearly a million jobs. But are American’s still driven by those values that our ancestors upheld? We are. We have to be!
Once again America is at a cross-road. We are asked to again embrace our immigrants, once again accept the prosperity they will bring, once again come together to fix a system that has become both morally and economically indefensible.
I foresee opposition from a loud minority. But we cannot continue to ignore the fact that deporting 12 million people will hurt our economy, where as integrating would benefit our economy. We cannot continue to fall into the trap of hateful rhetoric. We have some deficits to address, and one of those is a deficit of empathy. We cannot ignore an issue that constitutes a large part of our identity as a nation, for if we do we risk damaging the lives and future of immigrants and American citizens alike. We must reform an ineffective immigration system that leaves America broken.
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