Immigrant Contribution Quotes

In fact, no immigrant in American history has ever made a larger contribution than Alexander Hamilton.

As I would learn later on, developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world -- those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt.

If a person cannot solve a conflict with a friend, how can they possibly contribute to larger efforts for peace? If we refuse to speak to a friend because we project our anxieties onto an email they wrote, how are we going to welcome refugees, immigrants, and the homeless into our communities? The values required for social repair are the same values required for personal repair.

[Author's Note:] It took me four years to research and write this novel, so I began long before talk about migrant caravans and building a wall entered the national zeitgeist. But even then I was frustrated by the tenor of the public discourse surrounding immigration in this country. The conversation always seemed to turn around policy issues, to the absolute exclusion of moral or humanitarian concerns. I was appalled at the way Latino migrants, even five years ago - and it has gotten exponentially worse since then - were characterized within that public discourse. At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings. People with the agency to make their own decisions, people who can contribute to their own bright futures, and to ours, as so many generations of oft-reviled immigrants have done before them.

Thus the Brexit debate in Britain –a major nuclear power –revolved mainly around questions of economics and immigration, while the vital contribution of the EU to European and global peace has largely been ignored. After centuries of terrible bloodshed, French, Germans, Italians and Britons have finally built a mechanism that ensures continental harmony –only to have the British public throw a spanner into the miracle machine.

Immigrants are seen as mere labor, our physical bodies judged by perceptions of what we contribute, or what we take. Our existence is as broadly criminalized as it is commodified.

This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like me find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home. After twenty-five years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.

Over the course of the millennia, all these multitudes of ancestors, generation upon generation, have come down to this moment in time—to give birth to you. There has never been, nor will ever be, another like you. You have been given a tremendous responsibility. You carry the hopes and dreams of all those who have gone before. Hopes and dreams for a better world. What will you do with your time on this Earth? How will you contribute to the ongoing story of humankind?

It’s not that I hate everyone outside of England. I don’t. I don’t hate people from Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. How could I? I don’t know them. How could I hate someone I don’t even know? That would take a special kind of madness. But if they refuse to make a useful contribution to society then we should send them back where they came from because we just can’t afford them anymore. It’s 10.30 p.m. and my front door’s locked. Why? Certainly not because I hate everyone OUTSIDE the front door, but because I love everyone INSIDE. Nobody’s telling me not to not to lock my front door. Or are they? The EU certainly is.

At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and, at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings. People with the agency to make their own decisions, people who can contribute to their own bright futures, and to ours, as so many generations of oft-reviled immigrants have done before them.

Asian Americans were first derided as “unskilled labor” until the 1965 Immigration Act prioritized Asian Americans who were more highly educated and financially successful, in the belief that they would “contribute” more to American society.

The rich countries also contribute to the brain drain from developing countries by more willingly accepting people with higher skills. These are people who could have contributed more to the development of their own countries than unskilled immigrants, had they remained in their home countries.

Thus, immigrants from Korea really did make a big contribution to the modern Japanese, though we cannot yet say whether that was because of massive immigration or else modest immigration amplified by a high rate of population increase. The Ainu are more nearly the descendants of Japan’s ancient Jomon inhabitants, mixed with Korean genes of Yayoi colonists and of the modern Japanese.

I can be a bit romantic about history, but I’m also pragmatic about the present. America cannot, of course, have open borders. We need a clear, sustainable immigration policy, one that better manages the flow of people who do not pose a threat and can contribute to our economy and culture. Immigration laws can be sensible without extinguishing the idea that brought so many here and compels so many to stay.

White people today, particularly outside the South, often distance themselves from slavery and Jim Crow by insisting that their immigrant ancestors had nothing to do with these atrocities and, in fact, themselves faced discrimination but were able to overcome it. (In fact, this popular belief is one of the core ideas contributing to white racial resentment against Black people and newer immigrants of color.) But the Irish, Germans, Poles, Slavs, Russians, Italians, and other Europeans who came to the United States underwent a process of attaining whiteness, an identity created in contrast to the Blackness of unfree and degraded labor. As immigrants, these groups had an opportunity to ally themselves with abolition and, later, equal rights and to fight for better social and economic conditions for all workers. They chose instead, with few exceptions, the wages of whiteness.

But there was a pulling back in the Middle East, and it had two major consequences: it abetted the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, and it contributed to the massive outflow of refugees from that region into Europe. That outflow in turn helped to create the anti-immigration backlash that fueled the British withdrawal from the European Union and the rise of populist/nationalist politics inside almost every EU member state. It

THRIVE ON CHANGE. Many of us get tired of hearing that mantra, especially when we must cope with changes disrupting what we most care about. Yet the relentless acceleration of change requires flexibility of all of us, whatever our skills and roles. We are hurtling into the future, and the future will soon be a very different culture. Like an immigrant to a land with different customs and languages, we have to continually adapt and cultivate mindsets that maintain both our integrity and capacity to contribute.

Restrict nothing--keep everything open: to Italy, to China, to anybody. I love America, I believe in America, because her belly can hold and digest all--anarchist, socialist, peacemakers, fighters, disturbers or degenerates of whatever sort--hold and digest all. If I felt that America could not do this I would be indifferent as between our institutions and any others. America is not all in all--the sum total: she is only to contribute her contribution to the big scheme. What shall that contribution be? I say, let it be something worth while--something exceptional, ennobling.

Free speech is a fundamental foundation of a free and fair democracy. But let’s be honest and have the guts to unpick who gets to speak, where, and why. The real test of this country’s perimeters of freedom of speech will be found if or when a person can freely discuss racism without being subject to intellectually dishonest attempts to undermine their arguments. If free speech, as so many insist, includes being prepared to hear opinions that you don’t like, then let’s open up the parameters of what we consider acceptable debate. I don’t mean new versions of old bigotry. I mean, that if we have to listen to this kind of bigotry, then let us have the equal and opposite viewpoint. If Katie Hopkins, with help from the Sun newspaper, publishes a column describing desperate refugees trying to travel to Britain as cockroaches, then we need a cultural commentator that advocates for true compassion and total open borders. Not the kind of wishy-washy liberalism that harps on about the cultural and economic contributions of migrants to this country as though they are resources to be sucked dry, but someone who speaks in favour of migrants and open borders with the same force of will with which Hopkins despises them.

On the labour front in 1919 there was an unprecedented number of strikes involving many millions of workers. One of the lager strikes was mounted by the AF of L against the United States Steel Corporation. At that time workers in the steel industry put in an average sixty-eight-hour week for bare subsistence wages. The strike spread to other plants, resulting in considerable violence -- the death of eighteen striking workers, the calling out of troops to disperse picket lines, and so forth. By branding the strikers Bolsheviks and thereby separating them from their public support, the Corporation broke the strike. In Boston, the Police Department went on strike and governor Calvin Coolidge replaced them. In Seattle there was a general strike which precipitated a nationwide 'red scare'. this was the first red scare. Sixteen bombs were found in the New York Post Office just before May Day. The bombs were addressed to men prominent in American life, including John D. Rockefeller and Attorney General Mitchell Palmer. It is not clear today who was responsible for those bombs -- Red terrorists, Black anarchists, or their enemies -- but the effect was the same. Other bombs pooped off all spring, damaging property, killing and maiming innocent people, and the nation responded with an alarm against Reds. It was feared that at in Russia, they were about to take over the country and shove large cocks into everyone's mother. Strike that. The Press exacerbated public feeling. May Day parades in the big cities were attacked by policemen, and soldiers and sailors. The American Legion, just founded, raided IWW headquarters in the State of Washington. Laws against seditious speech were passed in State Legislatures across the country and thousands of people were jailed, including a Socialist Congressman from Milwaukee who was sentenced to twenty years in prison. To say nothing of the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 which took care of thousands more. To say nothing of Eugene V. Debs. On the evening of 2 January 1920, Attorney General Palmer, who had his eye on the White House, organized a Federal raid on Communist Party offices throughout the nation. With his right-hand assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, at his right hand, Palmer effected the arrest of over six thousand people, some Communist aliens, some just aliens, some just Communists, and some neither Communists nor aliens but persons visiting those who had been arrested. Property was confiscated, people chained together, handcuffed, and paraded through the streets (in Boston), or kept in corridors of Federal buildings for eight days without food or proper sanitation (in Detroit). Many historians have noted this phenomenon. The raids made an undoubted contribution to the wave of vigilantism winch broke over the country. The Ku Klux Klan blossomed throughout the South and West. There were night raidings, floggings, public hangings, and burnings. Over seventy Negroes were lynched in 1919, not a few of them war veterans. There were speeches against 'foreign ideologies' and much talk about 'one hundred per cent Americanism'. The teaching of evolution in the schools of Tennessee was outlawed. Elsewhere textbooks were repudiated that were not sufficiently patriotic. New immigration laws made racial distinctions and set stringent quotas. Jews were charged with international conspiracy and Catholics with trying to bring the Pope to America. The country would soon go dry, thus creating large-scale, organized crime in the US. The White Sox threw the Series to the Cincinnati Reds. And the stage was set for the trial of two Italian-born anarchists, N. Sacco and B. Vanzetti, for the alleged murder of a paymaster in South Braintree, Mass. The story of the trial is well known and often noted by historians and need not be recounted here. To nothing of World War II--

His son wanted to be a firefighter, but didn't get the job. Mr. Neck is convinced that this is some kind of reverse discrimination. He says we should close our borders so that real Americans can get the jobs they deserve. The job test said that I would be a good fire fighter. I wonder if I could take a job away from Mr. Neck's son. Mr. Neck writes on the board again: "DEBATE: America should have closed her borders in 1900." That strikes a nerve. Several nerves. I can see kids counting backward on their fingers, trying to figure out when their grandparents or great-grandparents were born, when they came to America, if they would have made the Neck Cut. When they figure out they would have been stuck in a country that hated them, or a place with no schools, or a place with no future, their hands shoot up. They beg to differ with Mr. Neck's learned opinion. ... The arguments jump back and forth across the room. A few suck-ups quickly figure out which side Mr. Neck is squatting on, so they fight to throw out the 'foreigners.' Anyone whose family immigrated in the last century has a story to tell about how hard their relatives have worked, the contributions they make to the country, the taxes they pay. A member of the Archery Club tries to say that we are all foreigners and we should give the country back to the Native Americans, but she's buried under disagreement. Mr. Neck enjoys the noise, until one kid challenges him directly. Brave Kid: "Maybe your son didn't get that job because he's not good enough. Or he's lazy. Or the other guy was better than him, no matter what his skin color. I think the white people who have been here for two hundred years are the ones pulling down the country. They don't know how to work - they've had it too easy." The pro-immigration forces erupt in applause and hooting. Mr. Neck: "You watch your mouth, mister. You are talking about my son. I don't want to hear any more from you. That's enough debate - get your books out.

Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage? 2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels? 3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (page 108). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book? 4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story? 5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “no one would hire a lady lawyer.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today? 6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (page 155). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges? 7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “some of them are nicer than Americans.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term Americans? 8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question? 9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (page 185). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family? 10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death? 11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “you only get one great love in a lifetime.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love? 12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend. Enhance

The Malays were outstripped economically in their own country by the immigrant races. In the words of historian Lennox Mills, “when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor country; when they left he was a poor man in a rich country.” British attitudes and policies, what the Malays did for a living, the strengths of the immigrants and the nature of the Malay value system all contributed to their backward economic position.

intended to be more inclusive than the one run by his predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki, whose sectarian policies led to disaffection by Sunnis and contributed to the rapid advances by IS. The new government includes members of Iraq’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Although he flexed the White House’s executive muscle over IS, Mr Obama went limp on his promise to take executive action on immigration reform. He said he would do nothing until after November’s mid-term

If we do not `Americanize' our immigrants by luring them to participate in our best civilization ... they will contribute to the degeneration of our political body and thus de-Americanize and destroy our national life.

Free enterprise has eradicated more poverty than all the government programs in the world combined. That is the story of free enterprise. That is why it is startling that over the last few decades, Federal policies have contributed steadily to undermining the free enterprise system.   We

These “undocumented workers” from south of the border may have come here illegally, but they have long ago integrated themselves into their communities. Once here, they obey the laws. They pay taxes. Many of their sons and daughters serve in the military. They make up the majority of the workforce in several key industries: agricultural workers, child care, kitchen help in restaurants, housecleaning, maid service in hotels, and more. I’ve seen the great contribution they’ve made to their communities in California. Like generations of immigrants before them, they have become American citizens by choice, not by birth. They are, in effect, already citizens in every respect but one. It’s now important to make it official, as Ronald Reagan did, and grant them citizenship—or at least a path to citizenship—in order to save families from the fear of being torn apart by federal agents. Of

Economists estimate that if international immigration restrictions were removed, we’d have massive global economic gains. Economist Michael Clemens has suggested that the gains would range from 50 to 150 percent of world GDP.9 On average, that’s a doubling of global income. The largest gainers would be the immigrants themselves. Greater global migration would contribute to a massive reduction in world poverty—just as internal migration has in China today, as we saw in Beijing and Shanghai.

Quoting page 85: The OCR [Office for Civil Rights] in the early 1970s in effect experienced an internal capture shift. The black agenda activists who had dominated the office between 1965 and 1970 were joined and to some extend displaced by a new cadre of Latino activists. Not content with the transitional model of bilingual education, which used native-language instruction as a bridge to English language proficiency, the Latino nationalists called for Spanish-based cultural maintenance programs of indefinite duration. La Raza Unida’s 1967 founding statement captured the Chicano spirit of cultural nationalism and linguistic ethnocentrism: “The time of subjugation, exploitation, and abuse of human rights of La Raza in the United States is hereby ended forever,” the manifesto proclaimed. “[We] affirm the magnificence of La Raza, the greatness of our heritage, our history, our language, our traditions, our contributions to humanity and culture.

Hispanic households are more likely than blacks to use “means-tested” programs, or what we consider welfare. In 2005, fully half of all Hispanic families used welfare programs as opposed to 47 percent for black, and 18 percent for whites. Welfare use rises from the second to the third generation of Mexican immigrants. The Center for Immigration Studies found that every household of illegal immigrants consumed an estimated $2,700 more in federal government services in 2002 than it paid in federal taxes, adding about $10.4 billion to the deficit. The largest federal costs were Medicaid ($2.5 billion), medical treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion), food assistance ($1.9 billion), prisons ($1.6 billion), and school aid ($1.4 billion). These figures do not include state and local spending. Non-citizens are ineligible for many forms of welfare. The study therefore concluded that if illegal immigrants were legalized, their increased welfare use would nearly triple the net federal outflow per family from $2,700 a year to $7,700 a year. Some defenders of immigration claim it will save social security. It will not. Immigrants grow old, just like everyone else, and many bring their aged parents from their home country. They would contribute to the health of social security only if their earnings were well above the native average, which they are not. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies concludes that there is likely to be a Social Security payments crunch, but immigration will not be the solution: “Americans will simply have to look elsewhere to deal with this problem.

How could a nation rich in resources and land, and free from fear of attack, understand the position of a tiny, crowded island empire with almost no natural resources, which was constantly in danger of attack from a ruthless neighbor, the Soviet Union? America herself had, moreover, contributed to the atmosphere of hate and distrust by excluding the Japanese from immigration and, in effect, flaunting a racial and color prejudice that justifiably infuriated the proud Nipponese.

The intention of this chapter is to exhibit the extent to which multicultural world historians have been willing to violate two basic principles of the historical profession — respect for the scholarly sources and reliability in the evaluation of the evidence — in order to downplay Western uniqueness, equalise the achievements of all races in world history, blame Europeans for the backwardness of other civilisations, while emphasising the connections of the West with the rest of the world in order to make non-European immigrants feel that they have contributed as much to the making of the West as Europeans. In this way, they wish to create a historical account that is suitable to a heterogeneous race-mixed Western culture consistent with the protocols of diversity enrichment.

B the spring of 1848, the religious climate was still unsettled and ripe for progressive new ideas. America's cities were expanding, its populations swelling with immigrants from Ireland and Europe, its factories and ports booming all of which contributed to a rising mortality rate.

This infuriates me. The Windrush scandal shows a callous disregard for Commonwealth immigrants, part of a wider lack of respect and appreciation for good, decent people like Grandad Bertie and my mum, who paid their taxes for years and who in their own way contributed

I would like for us to dwell on the notion of “dictators killing their own people,” which is quite problematic and misleading. First, the notion presumes that killing one’s own people is only done by directly using weapons and prisons, as commonly cited when referring to Arab dictators, but it overlooks the many other indirect ways through which a state can kill its own people, like denying them decent, livable wages; healthy, chemical-free, non-cancerous foods; access to decent basic healthcare and good education; and many other basic human rights that are a privilege not a right in the US. Never mind that the US doesn’t even come close in providing these basic needs whose lack can easily make any state responsible for “killing its own people”, I am not disclosing a secret when I say that the US equally fails in the test of not directly killing its own people through imprisoning and shooting blacks, immigrants, and Muslims. The second serious problem with the statement of dictators “killing their own people” is the failure of many so-called academics and intellectuals who contribute to knowledge production in interrogating it in an honest manner, which, to me means that the starting point is always to look at how the US kills its own people. Once that is determined and confirmed, it would be hard to make the case that the US is in a position to go around the world hunting other authoritarian regimes who do kill their own people. This fact makes many academics and intellectuals—unless willing to pay a high price for speaking the truth—complicit with the agendas of the warmongers who have been exterminating the people of the Middle East for many decades now. As a result, one can’t help wondering whether the real job of many feeble and co-opted intellectuals and academics in America is to simply aid the establishment in promoting itself as a “free democracy”, and consequently aiding it with its false mission of “democratizing” other nations.

Is the cause of America the cause of all mankind? And what is that cause after all? From distant glimmerings of “America” (the Waldseemüller map of 1507) to “City upon a Hill” and “Magnalia Christi Americana,” into the nineteenth century with “American Scholar” and the “[slaves’] fourth of July,” and continued throughout the twentieth century with “double-consciousness,” “Trans-national America,” “settlement ideal,” “American Dream,” “I have a dream,” “Postethnic America,” “Achieving . . . America,” and the “heyday of the fuzzies,” Americans have been trying to figure this out for quite some time. Over the course of the centuries, Americans learned and self-taught, native born and immigrant, religious and secular, and left and right have contributed to this long conversation by offering new arguments and key terms for Americans to think about the world, themselves, their truth, and their America. No one, so far, has been successful in answering these questions once and for all. They only came up with provisional explanations and then posed new questions. Perhaps we should not want it any other way. And so the conversation of American thought continues.

Decolonial pedagogy is not an "additive" approach to an already existing curriculum or pedagogy--it should be a foundational approach for all educators. Its character is utopian in vision, and if we do not claim utopia in our thinking about the possibilities of education contributing to a socially just and humane future, then to where will we carry our imaginations?

DOES EVERYONE IN AND NO ONE OUT INCLUDE ALL IMMIGRANTS? Immigrants contribute tens of billions of dollars to our economy, and the sustainability of programs such as Social Security and Medicare to a significant extent depends on taxes paid by such workers. Further, health costs for immigrants are about one-third those of NHWs. Ethical, religious, and humane issues could all be raised to support improving access to care for such immigrants.

Even those on the left talk about how immigrants make America great. They point to photographs of happy refugees turned good citizens, listing their contributions, as if that is the price of existing in the same country, on the same earth.

Most former Harvey Girls remembered the good times, the satisfying and happy times of their work. And when reading the reminiscences of the Harvey Girls, it is important to remember that they lived and worked in a time and a society that did not always applaud their choice to “go west” as single women, even when made out of economic necessity. They did not live in a time that admired spunk and independence in working women, despite the American West and its promises of freedom and space. That promise, historians are beginning to realize, was reserved for its male immigrants. The myth of the West was largely a male dream—an adventure of danger, risk, excitement, and high stakes. Neither women nor Indians counted.4 We have learned that both women and Indians did count; the extent of their contributions is still being uncovered. It is only recently, in a society interested in its women’s history, that women like the Harvey Girls have been hailed as contributors to the American story. Only a few decades ago, the women in this book would have told their life stories to a stranger reluctantly, questioning the premise behind so many inquiries into their daily lives. Their pride and enthusiasm for the work they did, the role they played along the Santa Fe Railway, has only now found an appreciative audience.

This was clear less than thirty minutes into the speech, when—as I debunked the phony claim that the bill would insure undocumented immigrants—a relatively obscure five-term Republican congressman from South Carolina named Joe Wilson leaned forward in his seat, pointed in my direction, and shouted, his face flushed with fury, “You lie!” For the briefest second, a stunned silence fell over the chamber. I turned to look for the heckler (as did Speaker Pelosi and Joe Biden, Nancy aghast and Joe shaking his head). I was tempted to exit my perch, make my way down the aisle, and smack the guy in the head. Instead, I simply responded by saying “It’s not true” and then carried on with my speech as Democrats hurled boos in Wilson’s direction. As far as anyone could remember, nothing like that had ever happened before a joint session address—at least not in modern times. Congressional criticism was swift and bipartisan, and by the next morning Wilson had apologized publicly for the breach of decorum, calling Rahm and asking that his regrets get passed on to me as well. I downplayed the matter, telling a reporter that I appreciated the apology and was a big believer that we all make mistakes. And yet I couldn’t help noticing the news reports saying that online contributions to Wilson’s reelection campaign spiked sharply in the week following his outburst. Apparently, for a lot of Republican voters out there, he was a hero, speaking truth to power. It was an indication that the Tea Party and its media allies had accomplished more than just their goal of demonizing the healthcare bill. They had demonized me and, in doing so, had delivered a message to all Republican officeholders: When it came to opposing my administration, the old rules no longer applied. —

This novel deals with the rise of the new right across Europe. It’s a troubling issue, one that continues to escalate (chapter 64). Incidents of violence and how local courts and law enforcement turn a blind eye (chapter 18) are not fiction. Anger toward Jews and immigrants is steadily increasing (chapter 57). Nationalistic parties across the Continent are gaining more and more followers. Why is this happening? A number of factors are contributing. The greatest mass movement of humanity since the beginning of the 20th century, refugees from Eastern Europe, Turkey, Africa, and the Middle East, has placed an enormous strain on resources. A decade of little to no European economic growth has only added to the frustration, as has the failure of the old social welfare state. A generation of strong leaders are aging and dying off, their places taken by less competent populists who have a growing disillusionment with the European Union. They argue that the EU is no longer a place of peace, prosperity, cooperation, and harmony.

to produce. As John Adams wrote, “Property monopolized or in the Possession of a few is a Curse to Mankind. We should preserve not an Absolute Equality.—this is unnecessary, but preserve all from extreme Poverty, and all others from extravagant Riches.”1 Here are ten steps that I think might help put us more on the course intended by the Revolutionary generation, to help us move beyond where we are stuck and instead toward what we ought to be: 1. Don’t panic Did the founders anticipate a Donald Trump? I would say yes. As James Madison wrote in the most prominent of his contributions to the Federalist Papers, “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”2 Just after Aaron Burr nearly became president, Jefferson wrote that “bad men will sometimes get in, & with such an immense patronage, may make great progress in corrupting the public mind & principles. This is a subject with which wisdom & patriotism should be occupied.”3 Fortunately the founders built a durable system, one that often in recent years has stymied Trump. He has tried to introduce a retrogressive personal form of rule, but repeatedly has run into a Constitution built instead to foster the rule of law.4 Over the last several years we have seen Madison’s checks and balances operate robustly. Madison designed a structure that could accommodate people acting unethically and venally. Again, our national political gridlock sometimes is not a bug but a feature. It shows our system is working. The key task is to do our best to make sure the machinery of the system works. This begins with ensuring that eligible citizens are able to vote. This ballot box is the basic building block of our system. We should appreciate how strong and flexible our Constitution is. It is all too easy, as one watches the follies and failings of humanity, to conclude that we live in a particularly wicked time. In a poll taken just as I was writing the first part of this book, the majority of Americans surveyed said they think they are living at the lowest point in American history.5 So it is instructive to be reminded that Jefferson held similar beliefs about his own era. He wrote that there were “three epochs in history signalized by the total extinction of national morality.” The first two were in ancient times, following the deaths of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, he thought, and the third was his own age.6 As an aside, Trump’s attacks on immigrants might raise a few eyebrows among the founders. Seven of the thirty-nine people who signed the Constitution were themselves born abroad, most notably Hamilton and James Wilson.7

A memoir in which the author shares his impressive journey of emigrating to the United States to escape a difficult life in an impoverished Nigerian village. Born into an extremely poor family in Nigeria, ‘Deji Ayoade had early memories of wanting to come to America to do better for himself. For years, he dreamed about having a bright future in the United States. At seven, he promised his mother that one day he would be a doctor in America and take her and his siblings away from their dangerous and impoverished existence. By the age of thirty-three, ‘Deji had been in the United States for five years and was living his dream. He had earned a master’s degree, married and had a child, been recruited into the Navy, and become a US citizen. He makes good on the promise to his mother and brings her, his sister, and his sister’s baby to the United States. UNDERGROUND: A Memoir of Hope, Faith, and the American Dream is a well-structured, compelling memoir written by a determined man with big dreams, ambitious goals, and the strength to never lose sight of where he is headed. Commitment, intelligence, and drive contribute to his fulfilling what he deems to be his purpose in life. His accomplishments in the armed services are nothing short of admirable. Ayoade draws readers into the 1980s culture of the poorer regions of Nigeria with vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells of areas in which they lived. His credible recreation of scenes reveals insight into the civilization that had considerable influence on him. Family dynamics also play a significant role in Ayoade’s life. His recollection of his father’s contradictory behaviors both confuse and enlighten him. His fond memories of his grandmother—the family member he trusted the most—are heartfelt and touching. While coming to the United States offers many positive experiences for Ayoade, it doesn’t come without problems, and one that the author talks about with deep emotion and candidness is racism. Thoughtful in the way he acknowledges possible differences of perspectives, he describes how it feels to be looked at differently. One scene in particular demonstrates just how prejudiced and insensitive people can be when it comes to racial biases. Ayoade writes from the heart with emotion and honesty that demonstrate his passion for what he does in life. His ability to weave together a cohesive story from so many disparate fragments is remarkable. His religious faith and commitment to never-ending improvement for himself are inspiring and a basis for being a role model for others. UNDERGROUND: A Memoir of Hope, Faith, and the American Dream–author ‘Deji Ayoade’s reflections on overcoming enormous obstacles and emigrating from Nigeria to the United States–is candid, heartwarming, and inspirational.

In the words of President Lyndon Johnson when he signed the 1965 immigration reform act: “This is a simple test, and it is a fair test. Those who can contribute most to this country—to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit—will be the first that are admitted to this land.”21

Within positivity culture, immigrants and people of color are expected to be grateful for what they have and to embrace the pursuit of happiness developed by the Founding Fathers. If they aren't satisfied, they can just "go back to where you came from." Conversely, we use positive stereotypes to reinforce the types of people who have "made it" within this system. We say things like "She's a strong Black woman" without questioning why Black women have to be so strong and why we expect this from them. The happy, contributing immigrant is celebrated for achieving the narrow definition of the American dream against all odds. Even though these stereotypes are positive and often given as compliments, they become quite restrictive for anyone within the group who can't live up to them.

It’s about corporate America, the rich and the super rich are taking money from the poor and the middle class and giving it, with the help of the Republican party, to the rich, to CEOs who earn a hundred and forty million dollars after they’re forced out of a company when it’s losing money. It’s about defending pensions from corporate bankruptcy tricks and your private property from eminent domain to put up Wal-Marts. It’s about immigration reform which puts an end to the senseless death of the poor but ambitious in the deserts of the southwest, it’s about recognizing the importance of the contribution of Mexican Americans to our national culture.

Looking for fears, indeed, may be a more fruitful research strategy than a literal-minded quest for thinkers who “created” fascism. One such fear was the collapse of community under the corrosive influences of free individualism. Rousseau had already worried about this before the French Revolution. In the mid-nineteenth century and after, the fear of social disintegration was mostly a conservative concern. After the turbulent 1840s in England, the Victorian polemicist Thomas Carlyle worried about what force would discipline “the masses, full of beer and nonsense,” as more and more of them received the right to vote. Carlyle’s remedy was a militarized welfare dictatorship, administered not by the existing ruling class but by a new elite composed of selfless captains of industry and other natural heroes of the order of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick the Great. The Nazis later claimed Carlyle as a forerunner. Fear of the collapse of community solidarity intensified in Europe toward the end of the nineteenth century, under the impact of urban sprawl, industrial conflict, and immigration. Diagnosing the ills of community was a central project in the creation of the new discipline of sociology. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), the first French holder of a chair in sociology, diagnosed modern society as afflicted with “anomie”—the purposeless drift of people without social ties—and reflected on the replacement of “organic” solidarity, the ties formed within natural communities of villages, families, and churches, with “mechanical” solidarity, the ties formed by modern propaganda and media such as fascists (and advertisers) would later perfect. The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies regretted the supplanting of traditional, natural societies (Gemeinschaften) by more differentiated and impersonal modern societies (Gesellschaften) in Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), and the Nazis borrowed his term for the “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft) they wanted to form. The early twentieth-century sociologists Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Roberto Michels contributed more directly to fascist ideas.

What the article didn’t acknowledge was that many East and South Asian Americans going through high school and college in the 1980s were children of the first wave of Asians to come to the U.S. after 1965, a disproportionate number of whom were hyper-educated superachievers themselves, because of the Hart-Celler Act’s preferences for immigrants capable of contributing to the scientific, medical, and engineering professions. (And meanwhile, the experiences of children of Asian immigrants who arrived through other channels, for example as refugees of war, did not match the stereotype.)

In the framework of Israeli nation building, cultural and material concerns thus reinforced each other, merging into a discourse that—in the words of legal scholar Sagit Mor—combined “ableism” with “orientalism.”113 It placed migrants in a hierarchy according to their ability, health, and class, but also according to origin. Ableism came first. In principle, the young state cherished productivity and abhorred those who could not contribute to the building effort: people who were sick, handicapped, or old and “social cases” (mikrim sotzialiim). Orientalism became apparent in the sense that this type of “inferior human material” was considered to be widespread among Jews from North Africa.114 The result was a conception of the stereotypically sick, poor, and lazy Oriental immigrant who was of little value to the state-building enterprise and was to be kept out. This did not preclude the immigration of Oriental capitalists (baalei hon), which was to be facilitated.

Oscar Handlin has said, “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history." In the same sense we cannot really speak of a particular immigrant contribution to America, because All Americans have been immigrants or the decedents of immigrants, even the Indians as mentioned before, migrated to the American continent. We can only speak of people whose roots in America are older or newer.

Moira Inghilleri emphasizes the active role played by interpreters and translators, a role almost as important as that played by immigration officers, even though the public and media perception seem to ignore or belittle their essential contribution. By law, asylum seekers are to be provided with an interpreter before a formal interview with an immigration officer can be conducted, and Luiselli’s essay details the risky process through which the information is collected and organized prior to a formal hearing within the US immigration system.

Thus, statist immigration policies centered on endless waves of legal and illegal immigration have contributed significantly to the income deterioration of low-income American earners and the “inequality gap” between rich and poor, which the statists claim to abhor.

He’s a politician. It’s all about money. The size of his damned war chest. Kissing babies is total BS. It’s all about campaign contributions. Television and radio time. Mass mailings. What’s the biggest issue facing a career politician? The economy? Crime? Unemployment? Illegal immigration? It’s none of those things. It’s getting reelected to another term.

The flow of immigrants into the United States was a “golden stream” which contributed more to her national wealth than “all the gold mines in the world.” Immigrants were America’s economic secret weapon.

Both the immigration legislation and the draconian regime of high tariffs (the Ford–McCumber tariff of 1922 and the Smoot–Hawley tariff of 1930) converted the U.S. into a relatively closed economy during the three decades between 1930 and 1960. The lack of competition for jobs from recent immigrants made it easier for unions to organize and push up wages in the 1930s. The high tariff wall allowed American manufacturing to introduce all available innovations into U.S.-based factories without the outsourcing that has become common in the last several decades. The lack of competition from immigrants and imports boosted the wages of workers at the bottom and contributed to the remarkable “great compression” of the income distribution during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.36 Thus the closing of the American economy through restrictive immigration legislation and high tariffs may indirectly have contributed to the rise of real wages in the 1930s, the focus of innovative investment in the domestic economy, and the general reduction of inequality from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Indeed, the majority of immigrants migrate to feed families, and also contribute, to build the economy of the host country. However, having the right to perform their values; it defines human rights and freedom, as the insight of respect, away from distinctions.

The comment smacked of aristocratic disdain for the self-made man. In fact, no immigrant in American history has ever made a larger contribution than Alexander Hamilton.

Adler studied a group of Hmong refugees from Laos who had immigrated to central California in the late 1970s and were not always able to perform their traditional religious rites during the upheaval of genocide and relocation. In Hmong culture, there is a strong belief that night-mares can be fatal; this evil expectation, or nocebo, apparently contributed to the sudden unexplained nocturnal deaths of almost two hundred Hmong immigrants (mostly young and in good health) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Once they were more assimilated and the old beliefs lost their power, the sudden deaths stopped.

Consider, for a moment, just the physical resources built up by faithful Catholics in America over the years. Scrimping and saving so that they could contribute their hard-earned nickels and dimes, working-class Catholics bequeathed us beautiful churches, parish schools, hospitals, and universities. Now many of those churches and schools are closed, while the hospitals are being sold off to secular corporations. We cannot ignore the spending of over $3 billion to pay the costs incurred by an inexcusable failure to curb sexual abuse among the clergy—a squandering of resources that has now driven ten dioceses into bankruptcy. Parish closings are commonplace in America today, and prelates are praised for their smooth handling of what is seen as an “inevitable” contraction of the Church. A question for the bishops who subscribe to such a defeatist view. Why is it inevitable? The closing of a parish is an admission of defeat. If the faithful could support a parish on this site at one time, why can they not support a parish today? American cities are dotted with magnificent church structures, built with the nickels and dimes that hard-pressed immigrant families could barely afford to donate. Today the affluent grandchildren of those immigrants are unwilling to keep current with the parish fuel bills and, more to the point, to encourage their sons to consider a life of priestly ministry. There are times, admittedly, when parishes

Corporate investors, who have poured billions into the business of mass incarceration, expect long-term returns. And they will get them. It is their lobbyists who write the draconian laws that demand absurdly long sentences, deny paroles, determine immigrant detention laws, and impose minimum-sentence and Three-Strikes laws, which mandate life sentences after three felony convictions. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest owner of for-profit prisons and immigration detention facilities in the country, earned $1.7 billion in revenues and collected $300 million in profits in 2013.50 CCA holds an average of 81,384 inmates in its facilities on any one day.51 Aramark Holdings Corp., a Philadelphia-based company that contracts through Aramark Correctional Services, provides food for six hundred correctional institutions across the United States.52 Goldman Sachs and other investors acquired it in 2007 for $8.3 billion.53 The three top for-profit prison corporations spent an estimated $45 million over a recent ten-year period for lobbying to keep the prison business flush.54 The resource center In the Public Interest documented in its report “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations” that private prison companies often sign state contracts that guarantee prison occupancy rates of 90 percent.55 If states fail to meet the quota they have to pay the corporations for the empty beds. CCA in 2011 gave $710,300 in political contributions to candidates for federal or state office, political parties, and so-called 527 groups (PACs and super PACs), the American Civil Liberties Union reported.56 The corporation also spent $1.07 million lobbying federal officials plus undisclosed sums to lobby state officials.57 The GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest for-profit prison management companies, donated $250,000 to Donald Trump in 2017.58 The United States, from 1970 to 2005, increased its prison population by about 700 percent, the ACLU reported.59 Private prisons account for nearly all newly built prisons.60 And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons, according to Detention Watch Network.61

Immigration has contributed greatly to an environment in which it is obligatory for whites to promote diversity. Almost as an accidental by-product of immigration reform, the United States opened itself to large numbers of non-white newcomers who are now the primary source of diversity. Although immigration is likely to reduce whites to a minority in just a few decades, racial etiquette requires that whites must not think of this as anything but an exciting prospect. The logic of anti-racism means diversity must be a strength because it would be racist to oppose it. For whites to express doubts about the wisdom of policies that ensure their children will be racial minorities is to open themselves to charges of bigotry. To avoid these charges they must speak with enthusiasm about the diversity immigration brings. Their behavior, however, belies their words; they flee the very diversity they are at such pains to praise. Non-whites promote diversity because they profit from it. It increases their opportunities at the expense of whites. Celebrations of diversity also flatter them. After all, they are providing what is claimed to be America’s “greatest strength.” There is more than a hint of arrogance in this view—that the United States was lifeless and incomplete before Hispanics or Asians came in large numbers—but it is now common even for immigrants to insist that diversity is central to our identity. Whites have been persuaded to support diversity—even if it restricts opportunities for them and reduces their numbers and influence—because they have been taught that not to support it would be racist. This is truly astonishing: Whites are supporting something that is not only against their own interests but that is manifestly untrue.

Vicente Fox, who succeeded Mr. Zedillo and was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, institutionalized the policy of ensuring that Mexican-Americans remained Mexican. In 2002, his government established the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior (Institute for Mexicans Abroad) to promote “a more comprehensive approach” to promoting Mexican loyalty. One method was to invite Mexican-American elected officials to Mexico, to deepen their Mexican identity. In October 2003, for example, the Instituto invited 30 American state legislators and mayors for two days in Mexico City, where they met lawmakers, ministry officials, scholars, and advocates for immigrants. The Instituto had plans to bring 400 Mexican-American officials on similar trips every year. The Instituto also sends representatives to the United States. Jacob Prado, counselor for Latino affairs at the Mexican Embassy, explained to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials that it was in “Latino officials like yourselves that thousands of immigrants from Mexico find a political voice.” He went on to explain: “Mexico will be better able to achieve its full potential by calling on all members of the Mexican Nation, including those who live abroad, to contribute with their talents, skills and resources.” American citizens who hold elective office in the United States are still expected to be “members of the Mexican Nation.” One Instituto official is Juan Hernandez. Born in the United States, and therefore a US citizen, Mr. Hernandez was at one time a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, but made no secret of his real loyalties. In 2002 he wrote that he had “been commissioned to bring a strong and clear message from the president to Mexicans abroad: Mexico is one nation of 123 million citizens—100 million who live in Mexico and 23 million who live in the United States.” On ABC’s Nightline on June 7, 2001, he explained, “I want the third generation, the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’ ” Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, who later became national security advisor to Vicente Fox, wrote in the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreon that the Mexican government should work with the “20 million Mexicans” in the United States to advance Mexican “national interests.” Vicente Fox’s interior secretary Santiago Creel once complained, “It’s absurd that (the United States) is spending as much as it’s spending to stop immigration flows that can’t be stopped . . . .” When he took over in 2004 as the man in charge of border relations with the United States, Arturo Gonzalez Cruz explained that his ultimate goal was to see the border disappear entirely. Mr. Fox himself insisted that any measure the United States took to arrest or deport illegal immigrants was a violation of human rights.

An influx of immigrants also can contribute to the impression among white, working-class Americans that “their” country is being lost. But the right answer is to ameliorate the suffering of those left behind by providing retraining and social welfare benefits—not to shut down free trade and immigration and thereby impose heavy costs on the entire country.

America had been a nation of immigrants. Whether their ancestors had immigrated by choice or by force, that was not the problem, the problem now was the cause of identity against many newcomers that included Muslims who were viewed with suspicion, many as enemies of America. But this was only a partial truth, if you believe me. Many shared an American dream and wanted to contribute to the country with their services.

Perhaps one of the most well-known, and indeed controversial, examples of the global impact of food production is the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA opened the trade borders between the United States and Mexico, making American corn, subsidized by the US government, cheaper to purchase. Subsequently, many Mexican farmers lost their farms (since they could not compete with the low price of corn grown in the United States), compelling these individuals to find work elsewhere and contributing to the rise of illegal immigrants in the United States.19 Likewise, labels such as “Fair Trade” or “Whole Trade” on many foods today highlight the fact that what we choose to eat can and does impact the people and communities that produce our foods.

Diversity, Equal Opportunity, and Success are Core Principals Driving the Mission of the Green Card Organization of the United States of America The Green Card Organization is a reputable institution that provides a service for individuals who have a desire to immigrate by implementing a wide variety of services from basic to the most complex. The Green Card Organization can ensure error-free applications by assisting any individual who requires additional aid to simplify the process and guarantee a complete and accurate submission. Plenty of legal procedures are made easier, and by working with the Green Card Organization, their specialized services can fit the need of any client. The Green Card Organization provides expertise on the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program. This program can be difficult to complete without error, as over 40% of applicants that are self-handled are disqualified due to inaccurate information. This lottery allows only one submission per year, and the Green Card Organization believes their assistance will guarantee qualification and the possibility of obtaining a Green card. “For everyone the process of receiving a Green card is different, however when that amazing moment comes that you will receive confirmation, we will be here to help. Time is of the essence when it comes to the process of a successful Green card applicant, it is important to go through the immigration process according to the timeline and correctly. Delays in the process can result in termination. Here at our organization, we will make sure that everything happens quickly and correctly for you. Our team of immigration experts will keep everything on track and assist you with all the necessary procedures. We provide personalized services and will make sure that no opportunity is missed to help each and every one of our clients achieve their goal. Your success is our success!” The Green Card Organization website provides important immigration information, such as different ways to obtain a Green card. The Green Card Organization explains that one of the most common ways to receive a Green card is through the sponsorship of a family member. The family member must be a U.S. citizen, or a Green card holder themselves. Additional details describe instances on who is permitted to apply for a Green card so the client is able to make certain they are eligible. Another way the Green Card Organization explains how to obtain a Green card is through a job, meaning their professional background and/or business dealings. An employer can petition for an employee to get a Green card, but they first must obtain a labor certification and file Form I-140, known as the Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker. Other individuals who deal in American Investments may apply for the Green card if they have sizeable assets in the United States. Any individual can self-petition and apply for a Green card without a labor certification as long as they are able to prove that they considerably contribute to the American workforce. The Green Card Organization provides a list of special jobs regarding professionals who are permitted to apply for a Green card with Form I-360, known as the Petition of Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant.