Give Me Your Fat And Your Happy, The Prosperous Gleanings Of Your Distant Shore, The Bankers And The Programmers, Yearning To Be Rich, To Come To Wall Street, and Palo Alto, And Make Us Richer.
We may be carving a new poem on that statue, we used to call her Lady Liberty.
Today, officials of the new administration proposed radical new laws that would re-define what a refugee or immigrant is in America. These officials propose that the number of immigrants be reduced by half, and that all new immigrants be required to speak English and also to have marketable skills. In addition, they must be prosperous and show they can afford to live in American without assistance.
This, they said, would protect American workers and their jobs.
I read this news with a heavy heart and felt a lot of sorrow. I immediately thought of the wonderful people – refugees and immigrants – that I have been meeting and writing about: the RISSE soccer team, Francis Sengabo, Devota, Ali, Sakler Moo, Mukwe, and tomorrow, Mawulidi the carver.
None of them would be here under these new laws, and many of them would not be alive.
My grandmother and grandfather would not have been here, either. Neither would my father and mother, and most of the members of my family who did get here would be been slaughtered in their countries of birth.
And of course, I would not be alive. Neither would Maria. The very nature of life her would change.
My grandmother spoke no English. She lived here for 60 years with my grandfather, they worked every day, paid taxes, hired people, ran a business, fed their neighbors, prayed every morning, obeyed the law, became citizens. No judge every turned them away because they didn’t speak fluent English.
Devota Nyiranaza, who I have been writing about all week, walked more than 2,400 miles across Africa to come to America, fleeing the Rwandan genocide that took more than 800,000 lives. She spoke no English, only the Rwandan language called Kinyarwanda. She had no money, no jobs.
She has two jobs here, and has worked every single day that she has been in America. She speaks English now, and is hoping to go to school herself.
The Army Of Good is seeking to help her repay a $10,000 loan she mistakenly thought was a financial aid package for her college-bound son. She has raised four children, all of them the result of rapes and sexual assaults that happened on her walk and her years in horrific refugee camps.
Tomorrow, I am meeting Mawulidi, the carver who lost his tools in Africa. Devota is a U. S. citizen not yet fluent in English. Mawulidi has been here only two years.
As of today, I have raised more than $3,500 towards Devota’s bank loan, which she is paying off at the rate of $125 a month. I would love to pay all of it off, but whatever we raise will be precious to here. I hope to see her again soon, to visit her in her new apartment and hand her the money personally.
If you wish, you can contribute to this Devota Fund by sending a check to Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, ID: [email protected]. And thanks. Please make the donation or check out to Jon Katz and mark it “for Devota.”
Tomorrow I hope to also find out if it is possible to replace Mawilidi’s carving tools.
For the record, this is full text of Emma Lazarus poem from 1883, “The New Colossus”:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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!”
Thank you for writing this. I am horrified by the recent immigration proposal. My father came here from Italy, spoke no English at all in 1921. He fled b/c the fascists came to his family’s farm and were rounding up the young boys + men. If they would not sign allegiance with them, they were forced to drink a glass of castor oil. He left his family farm behind. He had been a tailor’s apprentice + was not wanting to stay on the farm – he was different from his family. He spoke no English but had a skill. My grandparents + mother came also from Italy speaking no English. All learned the language. I wouldn’t be here if not for their coming to America. They each loved this country and contribute. This is so important that those of us born of immigrants speak up and tell our stories.
Thank you for writing this reply Anna…