Our Four Ring Circus - Coming to America

Our Four Ring Circus

May. 30, 2006

Coming to America

Disclaimer: This piece appeared earlier this year in a few of my 'borrowed' blogs. Some may consider it to contain offensive generalizations - it is not my intent to offend anyone. I don't have the answers, these are just my observations.

It’s 5 AM and I should be asleep but as I’ve had this song running through my head for 2 hours now, I know I won’t be able to put it aside until I get my thoughts on paper.

A few days ago I was channel surfing when I happened upon a Ronan Tynan concert on a public access channel. He has a pretty amazing voice so I paused and listened for a minute. The song he was singing was the story of the first person to get off the boat at Ellis Island. With it was a slide show of photos taken during that era of the immigrants being processed there - a teenaged girl in full 19 century attire trying to catch a nap on a wooden bench - families with several small children standing in long lines - a dining hall filled to capacity with people sitting elbow to elbow, plates set rim to rim.

The first to disembark there was Annie Moore. She was 15 years old and had just accompanied her two young brothers on the 12 day journey from their aunt’s home in Ireland to their new home in America where their parents and older brother had come three years before. It wasn’t her story in particular that got me thinking but that her courage was representative of the millions more just like her who immigrated to this country.

100 years ago, people who came here left all but what they could carry to pursue the dream that was America. They did so knowing that realistically they would never see their homeland, or the friends and family they had left behind, again. Obviously they had their reasons for wanting to leave, but that doesn’t nullify the sacrifices that it took to pursue the dream of a better life. To endure the poor conditions on a crowded ship, on a one way ticket to a country that often times didn’t speak your language, in order to show up a million miles from home with little more than the shirt on your back, and in many cases, a family in tow, took courage. Courage that speaks to the enormity of the dream. With that enormous dream came an enormous will. A will that would forge a great life from no more than you could fit in a suitcase.

In addition to courage, these people had faith. Faith in a God that would go with them and sustain them through all the difficulties. Faith in a God they would be free to worship as they chose on the other side.

Millions of these courageous people of faith, with their enormous dreams and their unstoppable will, made an already great nation even better. They were willing to earn the privilege to be called Americans and they were thrilled that their grandchildren would be born with it. They thirsted to be part of our culture, they pursued it, they enriched it. What a stark contrast to the immigrants of today.

Living in the city Time Magazine dubbed “Most Diverse City in America”, we have large populations from just about every corner of the globe. We have a large Slavic community, a large Laotian community, a large Sikh community (they hold something akin to a national convention here every year), in addition to our large Mexican/Asian/Arab/Black/White/GLBT communities.

The group that probably most closely resembles the immigrants who came through Ellis Island in the early 20th century are the Russians. These people, though white, are extremely easy to spot and we have a ton of them here. They are typically religious. They all speak some Slavic language (in addition to English). They seem to have high employment and they don’t cause any trouble. Sadly, even they don’t seem to assimilate. They have their own churches. When you see them at the grocery store, they are speaking their own language. You don’t typically see them mixing socially with anyone besides themselves. They appear to marry within their own community.

My daughter’s piano teacher immigrated with her family from Uzbekistan in 1993 at the age of 14. She graduated from a public high school here and is a nice enough lady. Though she has been here for nearly 13 years, she still has family in Uzbekistan and she flew back there for a month last March. She is still as connected to her family in Uzbekistan as we are to our family in Virginia.

This would not have happened 100 years ago. There was no going back. While it is very nice that they can stay connected, it is well known that you don’t appreciate what you don’t pay for. The level of sacrifice that was once required to come to America has vanished and with it, the value of becoming an American and the pride of being one. The value one places on being an American seems to be proportional to the courage it took become one.

These are not bad people, they aren’t even bad Americans, but there is just no comparing them to Annie Moore. What was once a thirst for our culture has become an aversion to it or at the very least an apathy toward it. We are now so flooded with immigrants and nationals alike who pride themselves in resisting traditional American culture, even if we were to stop the flow completely, I don’t know how we could stem the tide.

In stark contrast to Annie Moore, a very close friend of mine recently had a lady in her employ who was here on some type of asylum. I believe she was from Honduras, but some Central or South American country at any rate. This woman entered this country legally but her 4 or 5 children, all boys, were not allowed to come with her. I don’t quite understand a system that would allow a woman refuge but not her minor, dependent children, but apparently, that was the case. She was distraught about leaving her boys (ages 4 to 15) behind and she came to my friend with her dilemma. Being compassionate Christian people, my friend and her husband gave this woman money to have her kids smuggled in.

I’m sure Annie Moore and her brothers had a pretty miserable 12 days on that ship, but it can’t be the hell that these young boys went through in the custody of the coyote. One or more of them witnessed a rape in addition to other horrors but in the end, they made to America.

In America, we welcome all children into our schools, regardless of immigration status, and so the boys went to school. The teenager, being illegal, couldn’t get a driver’s license like all the other kids, so he just drove illegally. Before long, he did something stupid and got caught. Now he had to pay a fine. Being illegal, he couldn’t get a job to pay the fine, so back he came to my friend, who gave him the money on the condition that he do work at her house in exchange. Dates were arranged for the work. Always an excuse was found to avoid it. Finally, when he did show up, he failed to complete the tasks assigned with more excuses as to why. Before long, he got caught again, this time he was in even bigger trouble. He was given a court date. My friend consulted her lawyer who advised her that he should just fail to show up in court as it may result in his deportation.

Eventually, this immigrant woman and her problems became such a burden to my friend and her husband, that they felt they had to let her go (fire her) and terminate all dealings with her. We won’t know the end of the story but it can only be a matter of time before that kid gets caught again. This time there will be a bench warrant for his arrest for failure to appear. Maybe he will get deported – who knows. The thing that really bothered my friend about the situation was the attitude of entitlement that the woman and her kids evidenced. Out of the goodness of their heart, they had done everything for this woman and yet she just kept coming back wanting more, more, more.

When Annie Moore’s parents got off the boat, they too had left their children behind. Did they set off in search of a Good Samaritan to finance their way out of their troubles? Not likely. They took full responsibility for themselves and set out to make a life - earn the money - find their way through the system, so that they could eventually, legally reunite their family. It was a sacrifice. A sacrifice that far too few are willing to make today and yet they believe they are entitled to all the benefits of those who made the sacrifice and more.

I don't mean to insinuate that it is easy to become an American today. This same friend is a naturalized citizen herself, having emigrated from Guatemala. I have known her for 20 years and her journey through the citizenship process was a complicated one. Unfortunately, it is a journey that too few of our immigrants bother to make today, opting rather to just live here legally or illegally. Another associate of hers has currently processed all the paperwork required to live and work here but is on a 5 year waiting list for a Visa. Though it isn't easy, maneuvering through the bureaucracy toward citizenship today requires persistence more than sacrifice.

I’ve never been to Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty despite being in NYC twice. I’ve always regretted that and I hope to get back there someday. Apparently the author of the song Ronan Tynan was singing had visited Ellis Island. He was able to understand the sacrifices of those who came to America and the dream they were following despite the fact that he is not an American - he wasn’t born here, he doesn’t live here. Ronan Tynan himself understands and appreciates what it meant to become an American then and what great things being an American affords us now though he also wasn’t born here and only lives here part of the time. There are still people who do appreciate our culture, the blood that bought our freedom, and the sacrifice of those who entered into that freedom after the fact. It isn’t that people can’t understand it, it is that we no longer require that they do and since it takes so little sacrifice, too many people are coming for the wrong reasons.

Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears Ronan Tynan

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My name is Tiffany. I am a 40 year old mother of 4. My husband, John, and I planned to homeschool even before we married 18 years ago but it would be several years before our oldest would be ready to start on this journey. We had our children in alphabetical order, quite by accident at first, but once we got started, we figured we had to keep it going. They are Alyssa 10, Brendan 9, Chase 6, and Emily 4. Our 4th baby, D, miscarried at 13 weeks. We have no intention of making it to Z.

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