I’m an immigrant — albeit a legal one, having run the gamut, 45 years ago, of U.S. foreign service workers who treated me like scum for thinking that I might be worthy to be allowed into this “precious” country.
Still, I was lucky when I came here, being from a country favored by Americans these days: just about everyone I’ve met here is at least “part Irish” (me, I’m 97%, according to ancestry.com).
Over the years, I’ve given way more to this country — in children (6), grandchildren (9 and counting), in work, in taxes, in service and in fealty — than I’ve ever taken. And I do love it and tear up every July 4 when they play “Proud to be an American” as the skies fill up with fireworks.
Still, I’m painfully aware that it was my people who were seen as “dirty immigrants stealing the jobs and the bread out of the mouths of purebloods” just 150 years ago. Due to simply the hands of time, I was luckier than them: I wasn’t running from famine or persecution, I was running into the arms of the man I love.
Still, I can’t help but see every “stranger at the gate” as my brother or my sister. I do understand, I really do, why you “can’t let everyone in,” but I’m asking, can’t you at least treat with dignity and respect those who now fill the shoes — that of the “poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to be free” — that your ancestors once wore?
For me, it’s the very least I can do.
Linda Petersen, South Jordan
