Letter to the editor accurately contrasts immigrants from different eras.
On 31 March 2006, the Orange County (California) Register published several letters to the editor dealing with the subject of the immigration debate. One of those letters, by a reader named Ernie Lujan, was published under a heading of 'Tear down lady liberty' and read as follows:Illegal immigrants have been around since the early 1900's, except then they entered through Ellis Island in New York City. They came from countries such as Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland and France. And now we accept them as true Americans. Now these people whose ancestors came to this country to make a better life for themselves and their children want to build a great wall along the U.S. and Mexico border and deny these hard-working people the same rights that their ancestors fought so hard and died for. If you build this wall then you must also tear down the great Statue of Liberty that sits in the New York Harbor.Apparently another Register reader penned a rebuttal to some of those immigration debate letters, one which was not published by thenewspaper and has instead been 'printed' by her husband through the expedient of forwarding it via e-mail (where it was circulated under the title of 'New Immigrants').This piece provides an apt illustration of the phenomenon that one can find in nearly every culture, in every era, a group of people who firmly believe that their civilization once experienced a golden age in which social conditions were much better (if not perfect), and modern society is an increasingly worsening corruption of that arcadian past. The trend continues today, as we commonly see responses to social, political, or economic issues that attempt to contrast the present with earlier eras, to hearken back to times when such problems were significantly amerliorated or simply did not exist. Generally such reactions don't ring true, referring not to the way things really used to be, but to idealized, mythical visions of the past couched in absolute terms. So it is with this letter, which attempts to contrast the 'modern immigrant' with immigrants of a century ago, finding the former sadly lacking by comparison. As usual, it references a black-and-white past that never existed.Yes, many of the immigrants who streamed through Ellis Island into the United States around the turn of the century worked hard, obeyed the laws, did their best to learn English (and otherwise become assimiliated into American culture), raised children who willingly took up arms to defend their adoptive country in times of crisis, and made their way in the world (and perhaps even prospered) with little or no help from the government or anyone outside their immediate families and circles of acquaintances. However, plenty of immigrants in that same era did not fit that mold, such as those who:Resorted to scams, petty theft, and all sorts of other crimes to get by, or simply resumed the same kinds of criminal activities they'd been perpetrating in their homelands, sometimes on large, organized scales (e.g., the Italian mafia, Chinese triads). Moved to enclaves or communities in which their original cultures and languages were preserved, obviating the need for them to assimiliate into the broader American culture or learn English, such as Little Germany and Chinatown, found in New York and many other American cities. Such communities disappeared only after the U.S. passed severely restrictive immigration measures in the 1920s. Retained their original family names, or changed their names only reluctantly - the latter not to 'blend in with their new home,' but to try to escape the prejudices, persecution, and violence typically visited upon members of various national, ethnic, and religious groups in the U.S. (e.g., Catholics, Jews, Irish, Italians). Were opposed to U.S. entry into World War I (particularly Irish-Americans and German-Americans) or were affiliated with political groups (primarily socialists) which refused to participate in the war. Disdained free lunches, welfare, and labor laws not because they were virtuous and prized self-sufficiency, but because those government programs and regulations did not yet exist, either for native-born American citizens or immigrants.What this piece illustrates is not so much substantive differences between 'old immigrants' and 'new immigrants,' but rather the truthfulness of the proverb 'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.'
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