Not everyone who sailed to America from Europe had to go through Ellis Island. Those with first- and second-class tickets were greeted with a nod and a welcome, while those who rode in steerage were sized up and questioned to make sure they wouldn’t be a burden to the U.S. government.
Yet immigrants came because enduring any humiliation in New York was well worth getting away from whatever they were escaping.
In 1907 more than one million people were processed at Ellis Island (where they used to hang pirates) and only two percent of all immigrants were denied entrance. Those people were deemed feeble or insane, so it would be hard for them to find work.
As cruel as some were in this country – to natives, Italians, Irish, Jews, Chinese, etc. – immigrants with gumption, naiveté and pixie dust in their pockets survived.
We are related to, or at least a friend of, someone who knows Stephen Miller, the White House Senior Advisor. It would be nice to remember who told me this story, but you know sometimes it’s hard to remember if it was three years ago or 12:30. Doesn’t mean Alzheimer’s, just means forgetful.
Stephen Miller has been busted, or exalted, for encouraging white nationalism in the United States. He is zealous about separating migrant children from their parents in order to stop the flow of people running for their lives, even though his own relatives escaped persecution in Belarus and settled in Pennsylvania.
Different times, different rules?
This part we know for sure: Stephen Miller was invited to Thanksgiving dinner by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and his wife, Karen, who allegedly didn’t want Stephen to have nowhere to go. Karen invited him back a second year, and that time she got a hug.
As bad as Stephen Miller’s policies and outlook seem to me, someone was gracious enough to hug and feed him.
Gerry Fonseca, whose picture is on p.3 this week, has every right granted to every citizen of this country to flout the clear and present danger of an administration that wants us divided so we can be conquered and sold at auction.
Indifference might work for some, but those who take a stand knowing they could be shunned or spit upon, also know they could find unlikely allies in the warmth of a cold parade.
And they might get invited to Thanksgiving dinner.