Waiting for a friend in her office’s waiting room, I glanced at newspaper on the coffee table.
The headline was unnerving.
It made me think back to my father, who was welcomed into this country in the 1940s as what was called back then, a “displaced person.”
Today, they’re called refugees. They’re people who have been displaced from their country, their family— due to war or hardship.
If you’ve ever been to the Statue of Liberty, they’re the people she welcomed over the decades and the people referred to in the poem that is etched on the pedestal.
The New Colossus
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
– Emma Lazarus, November 2, 1883
For decades, this nation welcomed them. Our national ideals and narrative has been built on being a country that has welcomed people— the tired, the weak, the wretched.
And today, we have an administration that’s trying to strip this nation bare of the very ideals it was founded on by working tirelessly to limit the number of refugees that are legally allowed to enter this country.
This isn’t an immigration thing. This isn’t an opening for a deflection of the topic to illegal South and Central Americans crossing the southern border. This has absolutely nothing to do with that— and everything to do with America being a place of refuge.
Refuge for the pilgrims who were fleeing religious persecution in their homelands when they came in the 1600s…
Refuge for the first Greeks who landed on the east coast of Florida in the 1700s who opted to begin their lives in the New World as indentured servants rather than stay in their Turkish-occupied lands.
Refuge for orphans of the Greek war of Independence in the 1800s who lost their families.
Refuge for thousands of victims of World Wars and attempted genocide, not to mention extreme poverty in the 1900s.
War, poverty, hardship still exists in the world today and America must never stop being the beacon of hope— and refuge— for people of all walks of life from all corners of the planet.
It’s why America was founded.
It’s what America is.
And unless we let them, Donald Trump and Stephen Miller cannot change that.
Only unless we let them.
What kind of America do you want to live in? It’s a simple question. No diversions. No deflections. A simple question.
Do you want to live in an America that welcomes refugees?
Or do you want an America that closes its doors on refugees?
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10 comments
Hey Idiot who wrote this article! back then the Greek people came to this country to work and prosper and contribute to this wonderful country. The refugees nowadays just want to come here and not work and live off the government. Many of these refugees that come here refuse to work with jews and women. They come here to freeload of the backs of hard working americans…. like the hard working Greek immigrants. So why dont you just educate yourself and wake up and look at the trash that is trying to come here. If you, the author of this article does not like the US anymore…go to Russia idiot! Don’t ever compare the hard working greek immigrants to the trash that is trying to get in here to freeload!!!
Great satire on right wing thinking about immigrants
Well-said Gregory!
Napoleon, Charlemagne, Suleiman, Stalin, Hitler, all wanted to be seen as successors of Caesar and the evil empire that killed Jesus and stole his religion. Anyone who knows the cruel, vindictive ending of Vercingetorix, Spartacus and Carthage knows who really killed Jesus. Anyone who knows the cruel, vindictive ending of Vercingetorix, Spartacus and Carthage knows who really killed Jesus. That is why the Tower of Babel mandates the anarchist nationalism of the cowboy over the globalism of the puritan bureaucrats.
Unfortunately the author does not understand simple economics. Open borders in a welfare state (USA) lead to moral decay and fiscal bankruptcy. An effective immigration policy within a free market economy promotes growth and opportunities which was evident in this country before 1913. Why 1913? That was the year our country and economy was enslaved by marxist, international central bankers under the guise of the Federal Reserve Bank. Since then the dollar has lost 95% of it’s value and has allowed the Central Bank through the insidious policy of inflation to expand the Socialist policies that have lead to this current state of affairs. Our forefathers believed in hard work and individual freedoms and responsibilities as well, not collectivism with a state run socialized welfare system. I have visited Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba and have seen the utopias that Marxist policies have created.
I don’t totally agree with the author, but, the replies are out of this world crazy. One is talking about 1913 and the Federal reserve bank, the other one about Spartacus and Jesus and the other one about how the refugees want to smooch off of us. Which is totally untrue and the result of too much FOX TV viewing. Nobody wants to live on $250 a month that welfare gives you and after they make you ump through hoops. they came here to work and make money. Just likle the Greeks and Irish and Italians.
To Bob Karp,
Educate yourself, history may not always repeat but it does rhyme. I will suggest a classic read to you, The Road To Serfdom, by Frederick Hayek.
NEVER TRUST ANYTHING POSTED BY
LEFTY HOMOSEXUALS like Pappas
I love getting under your skin. Thanks for reading! I see you love The Pappas Post.
Long live America Free! for all the great opportunities it has given to people from all over the world