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| Keynote Remarks at 2009 Dinner - Hon. Rosemary Barkett | February 17, 2009 |
| Hon. Rosemary Barkett | |
| I CAME TO THIS COUNTRY WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD. Although I was born in Mexico, my Father and Mother were both born in Syria in 1900 and 1905 and traveled a circuitous route to finally get to America. They grew up in a small agricultural community in Syria. They were married by arrangement when both were in their teens mom at the beginning of them and Dad toward the end of them. They tried to come to America with my uncles in 1921 or 1922 but because my mom was pregnant they had to wait. When they tried for a visa a few months later, the quota from Syria had been filled that year and they had to wait until the following year– They didn't want to wait - I guess that’s where my impatience comes from- and thinking it would be easier to enter from a closer country, they left Syria with their two young children, crossed Europe, reached Marseille, found a ship bound for Mexico and arrived there somewhere in the mid 1920's when they themselves were only in their 20's. Upon arrival, they were again told they had to wait this time it was even harder for they were in a country where they had little money, no family knew no people except for other immigrants could not speak the language nor were familiar with the customs of the country. But they survived. My father made a living as a peddler - buying goods in the town and carrying them on his back into the mountains (entertaining us when we were little with many stories of his adventures escaping from bandidos by the use of his wits and learning to become a crack shot with a pistol in the process - so he said). They saved and saved and opened a small dry goods store which grew to provide for their then large family. By the time I was born in 1939 they were making an excellent living. But they still wanted to come to America, and finally, after World War 2, after 20 years in Mexico, where my sisters and I were born and partially raised they brought us to the U.S. in 1946. Once again they gave up a life they had come to know - country, family, friends -- to find a new country - a new culture - a new language - and struggled all over again to provide an education for their children and grandchildren. They were immigrants twice.... I look around my family now to see the fruits of their achievement in partnership with this land of opportunity. I watched my sisters and brothers and and nieces and nephews and cousins become doctors and lawyers and judges and businessmen and women - caring citizens of the new world. So, you would think that it is because I am an immigrant that I have a unique affinity for FIAC and its work. Actually, one would think that all of those who have gone thru the immigrant experience would have a greater empathy for all immigrants and the work that FIAC does. Alas, human nature tells us that is not always the case. There is the human tendency that makes us- when we have arrived at our destination -- sometimes forget the journey, and those still traveling behind us — the tendency so aptly caught by the metaphor of “pulling the ladder up behind us”, once we have reached the prize -- which we may secretly fear diluting if it is shared with others. Hopefully, I am not one of those and my own experiences have indeed served to fuel my affinity and love for the people of FIAC. But that affinity and that love does not ONLY derive from an emotional response as a result of my background. It derives MUCH MORE from an emotional and intellectual response, not to being an immigrant, but to being an American. Being an American also carries a most powerful emotional component. But the beauty of America - the attraction of America - the promise of America is in its ideals - and that requires an intellectual understanding and more - a commitment to participate in its grand experiment. It is the ideals of America that draw people here in droves - not simply economic opportunity - but the opportunity to participate in a very unique experiment - one that really runs counter to our lesser human instincts. We all know about our lesser instincts - all of us have seen in some measure the basis of so many cliches: - “to the victor belong the spoils” - or “ the survival of the fittest”. We see these cliches being played out in many communities today. But for a moment in time, America was different - a people did gather together into a community and then a country: - the fittest did gain power; - but for once, - they used their heads and their hearts and not their greed, - and created a plan for a government that quite uniquely - in that time and place in history- proclaimed that its very purpose for being was to establish justice! Our founders acknowledged in writing the “self-evident” proposition that “certain” fundamental and “unalienable” rights are standard issue to all, not upon their citizenship, - but upon their creation. “We the People” made crystal clear that we were establishing our Constitution and government specifically to “establish Justice” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” A posterity that would welcome all who believed in its principles. And we meant it; future generations kept repeating these ideals. I love that the theme used for your programs is Jim Morin’s cartoon featuring the Statute of Liberty and her promises faced by a Haitian immigrant saying “give us your word”. I have often spoken of how I felt when my cultural background intersected with my intellectual embracement of America’s ideals while attending a a judicial seminar at NYU. I would start my morning run at the dorm and end up at the Brooklyn Bridge where I could see Ellis Island and the statue of liberty. It was an exhilerating way to start the day because I would look at the statue and think of the great cases we were discussing that sometimes brought to life for actual people the words of our Constitution and concepts of equality in our Declaration of Independence. It was impossible not to be moved in very different and specific way by the realization that the promise on the inscription at the base of the statute was being being fulfilled daily - the inscription which so poetically rejects any notion that this is a land only for the privileged or the few. We see encapsulated in the beautiful poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the base of the statue of Liberty, the counter-intuitive principles by which we have pledged to live. Unlike others, we were not looking to get – we were looking to give. This country and its ideals were truly different. We were not seeking those who could give us riches - we were seeking to GIVE to others the freedoms and protections we had found. I cannot say it any better than she did. Let me read you all of her words - (with tiny edits). The inscription reads: The New Colossus We are) Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land; (conquering all) Here, at our sea washed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is imprisoned lightning, and her name (is) Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand glows world wide welcome; her mild eyes command the air bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "(YOU), ancient lands (you) keep 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 (for them) beside the golden door!" These are the ideals that this country was built upon and which will, if pursued, continue to be the best place for growing into our personal better and idealistic selves. But, unfortunately, there is another side to our collective nature - the weaker side - the scared side - the greedy side... the side that constantly tries to sabotage the ideals of our founding fathers... We are not always thoughtful; We are not always brave; We are not always good. Our weakness sometimes makes us forget our history and the open arms of the Mother of Exiles and instead lets our immigration policies too often be based on unadulterated racism. Prior to 1882, there was open immigration into the United States. The very first restriction on immigration into the United States was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was supported and advanced by entities like the “Supreme Order of Caucasians,” whose primary focus was to run the Chinese out of the United States for no other reason than that they were Chinese. It passed - notwithstanding the efforts of the anti slavery/ Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts who described the Act as "nothing less than the legalization of racial discrimination”. Next followed the Immigration Act of 1917, which implemented literacy tests for immigrants, the Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924, which implemented quotas by national origin. These measures resulted from the fears of the "older immigrants" from Protestant western Europe who were threatened by the rising tide of immigrants from the more Catholic southern and eastern European countries as well as immigrants from Asia. Thus, we limited immigrants from certain countries, favoring immigration from northwestern Europe and prevented many eastern Europeans from immigrating to the United States during World War II, a time when they sorely needed refuge. These policies were finally repealed by the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which set up a system of immigration preferences and abolished quotas by national origin. We were again trying.... President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledged both our ideals and our reality at the Signing of the Bill saying that, “it repair[ed] a very deep and painful flaw in the fabric of American justice. It corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the conduct of the American Nation.” He acknowledged that, “for over four decades the immigration policy of the United States has been twisted and has been distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system” under which “families were kept apart because a husband or a wife or a child had been born in the wrong place.” (Sounds like Yogi Berra’s deja vu all over again.”) BUT we seem to keep forgetting, as Yogi would say, all over again... Despite the fact that between 1870 and 1900, nearly twelve million people immigrated to this country, primarily from Germany, Ireland, and England, and some forty million since, there has always been tension between those who arrived in America sooner and those who arrived later. Why should that be so? Surely intelligent minds can see beyond the effort to suggest that immigration is the major cause of our economic woes and healthcare costs. Surely intelligent minds will realize the effect of other factors which might have some impact on our economic woes - like wartime spending or entrenched political and corporate interests and stop using this excuse as a proxy for unexpressed and unwarranted discrimination. Surely, we can see that much of what we have is due to pure dumb luck. Any one of us could have been born in Rwanda or Sudan or still be toiling or oppressed in some other place where we would rather not have been. Surely we can see that we certainly have no moral entitlement to our citizenship in this country and can only count ourselves lucky to have been born here or to have obtained citizenship at one point or another. If we truly believe that all persons (not just Americans) are created equal and have the same right to seek happiness and the same right to the opportunitiy to succeed, we must be obligated to share our riches. Novelist Thomas Wolfe said, "Go seeker, if you will throughout the land and you will find us burning in the night. To every man his chance. To every man regardless of his birth his shining golden opportunity. To every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his energy and his vision can combine to make him. This, seeker, is the promise of America." People come here wanting only that opportunity. That desire deserves our respect. Even for those who come illegally. Surely, they do not warrant the opprobrium heaped upon them. Their crossing of our borders is hardly an immoral act - actually, it is not even a crime but rather a civil infraction. Yes, there are legal consequences which must be imposed - but why do so many of us want to impose them with the outrage usually reserved for murderers or child molestors or rapists. What used to be called the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been reorganized. It is now U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. What used to be a bureau for immigration to the US is now the law enforcement agency designed to keep people out. It could not be clearer that the U.S. does not want anyone's "huddled masses," - "tempest tossed," or otherwise no matter what they yearn for. What happened to America - what happened to the “world wide welcome” of the lady with her outstretched guiding light? Why have so many of us been so insistent on cutting off the ladder behind us? Why can’t we intelligently address the failed immigration policies of the last 15 years? Why? In the recent movie “The International” - a character says “I want the truth!” The other says: “The truth means responsibility,” to which the first responds: “Exactly, that’s why everybody dreads it.” It takes work to ferret out the truth and to face it. And once we know it, it takes more work to bear the responsibility for it and it takes even more work to act upon it. I want to return to our ideals. I want us to develop a new and fair immigration policy that reflects our rhetoric and our very history. I want to reduce our fears and focus on our nation’s unique need for immigrants because that is what has defined our energy and our character. Notwithstanding the “birth defect” as someone has called it, in our Constitution’s treatment of African Americans, in no other country could a Barack Obama, with his diverse background, have become President this early in its history. Our entire country was built on immigration patterns and the list of some of the most brilliant contributors to our society would be, and continue to be, derived from the rolls of immigrants. President Johnson said it best when he said that, "Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide. The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.” It is the differences in cultures and peoples that sustain us and preserve the very ideals which sprang from those differences. We should not stem the flow; -- we cannot stem the flow and still remain true to ourselves. In Jim Morin’s cartoon, his representative immigrant says - “Give us your Word.” We already gave our word - we just have to keep it. END NOTES The New Colossus - (unedited) 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 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!" Emma Lazarus (1849 1887) - | |