I am an immigrant. I came to this golden land of opportunity in 1949 at age 3 1/2. My parents survived WWII in various parts of Russia. Unlike the doctors and lawyers who came to America needing both language and credentials to work, my father, z”l was a tailor. He hit the ground running — he worked long days for a dry cleaner and later a fine men’s clothing store — and he worked nights at home doing alterations for neighbors.
My mother, a”h, had an ear for languages. She quickly learned conversational English and worked as a clerk in a bakery. Like our contemporaries we spoke Yiddish at home — and I was the interpreter whenever an English language document showed up. With the kind generosity of family who had immigrated to America in the 1930s, within a decade we were able to purchase a home. The American dream.
Many of my classmates, “greenhorns” like me, went on to become physicians — these were the “B” students who listened to their mothers — something I tease my physician friends about.
I was fascinated by computers and physics; quantum mechanics was just a language to me.
I eventually got my Ph.D. Oh, and I was drafted — long story short — I retired as a colonel after 31 years of active and reserve duty. I’m not tooting my own horn — many of my “greenhorn” contemporaries have similar success stories: doctors and lawyers and teachers.
I studied French in elementary school and again in high school; I wish Spanish had been offered. Many of my neighbors are Spanish-speaking immigrants and I cannot communicate with them as well as I’d like to. Some take menial jobs that others don’t want. Some brought skills with them like my father did and they work accordingly. They are an important component of our community and our nation. I empathize with them — I see their struggles in what for them is a strange, new environment with a strange language. I know their children and grandchildren have and will become contributing members and leaders of American society.
We are a nation of immigrants. Leadership which blocks immigration is shortsighted, hateful and forgetful. Go back two or three generations and their parents — not to mention their spouses and other family members — were immigrants, too!
God Bless the United States of America.
