Amen again and again to this. It never seems to dawn on these grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants who are now neo-Know Nothings that immigrants are the lifeblood of America and the sustainers of the American project. And it's not just because they're willing to work the jobs no one else wants in order to establish their families in a better place where they can make a life for themselves. It's because the American Dream is more real to them than to those fourth- and fifth- and tenth-generation Americans (white Americans, inevitably) who have become complacent and take opportunity for granted.
And so you have fascist morons like Ken Cuccinelli who try to claim that Emma Lazarus' stirring words on the Statue of Liberty were meant only for Northern and Western Europeans (as if Cuccinelli somehow imagines that his olive-skinned Mediterranean forebears came over on the Mayflower rather than a ship full of other desperate immigrants who looked up with awe at the "mighty woman with a torch" as they sailed into New York Harbor).
The America that aspires to the ideal that all persons, created equal, have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness says to the world: "We welcome your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It says: "Send these, your homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door." It is not so much about "Liberty Enlightening the World," as the French originally named the statue, as "Liberty INVITING the world."
But that's not the America that MAGA aspires to be. And if they win this year, they should at least have the honesty to tear down the statue that stands in opposition to everything J.D. Vance and his miserable cohorts espouse.
I mean it's just SO counterproductive, ripping off your nose to spite your face. Immigrants—all new immigrants—are more grateful, more patriotic, more family oriented than 5-generations. Once I asked Humada if he planned to have children and he said, "Of course! When I find I'm set up financially and find a wife." Pose that question to your average 23-year-old finance bro in New York ("Huh? First I have to spend 20 years not committing so I can bang faceless strangers and feel empty.")
Amen again and again to this. It never seems to dawn on these grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants who are now neo-Know Nothings that immigrants are the lifeblood of America and the sustainers of the American project. And it's not just because they're willing to work the jobs no one else wants in order to establish their families in a better place where they can make a life for themselves. It's because the American Dream is more real to them than to those fourth- and fifth- and tenth-generation Americans (white Americans, inevitably) who have become complacent and take opportunity for granted.
And so you have fascist morons like Ken Cuccinelli who try to claim that Emma Lazarus' stirring words on the Statue of Liberty were meant only for Northern and Western Europeans (as if Cuccinelli somehow imagines that his olive-skinned Mediterranean forebears came over on the Mayflower rather than a ship full of other desperate immigrants who looked up with awe at the "mighty woman with a torch" as they sailed into New York Harbor).
The America that aspires to the ideal that all persons, created equal, have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness says to the world: "We welcome your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." It says: "Send these, your homeless, tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the Golden Door." It is not so much about "Liberty Enlightening the World," as the French originally named the statue, as "Liberty INVITING the world."
But that's not the America that MAGA aspires to be. And if they win this year, they should at least have the honesty to tear down the statue that stands in opposition to everything J.D. Vance and his miserable cohorts espouse.
I mean it's just SO counterproductive, ripping off your nose to spite your face. Immigrants—all new immigrants—are more grateful, more patriotic, more family oriented than 5-generations. Once I asked Humada if he planned to have children and he said, "Of course! When I find I'm set up financially and find a wife." Pose that question to your average 23-year-old finance bro in New York ("Huh? First I have to spend 20 years not committing so I can bang faceless strangers and feel empty.")