The Melting Pot Myth

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!” (Lazarus,1883) The United States has long claimed to be the world’s beacon of liberty and acceptance, with U.S citizens happily rallying behind the New Colossus by Emma Lazarus inscribed upon the Statue of Liberty. The reality is that this fundamental belief that the United States is a melting pot of cultural acceptance is and has always been a myth. In fact, in the incipient years of our nation, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were exclusive to white men. Although Trump and his supporters purport that recent racist and xenophobic policies are making America great again, they are merely escalating a long history of racism and exclusion in our country.

Beginning with the very first immigration law, the Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted the right to apply for citizenship to free white people who had been in the country for two years, immigration policy has been racist and exclusive. Then, in response to the increase in Chinese immigrants entering the United States to join the Gold Rush, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. This act, similar to the Muslim ban, barred Chinese people from entering the United States. In 1902, Chinese immigration was made permanently illegal. In direct opposition to the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, the Immigration Act of 1917 further restricted immigration by establishing a literacy requirement. (History.com Editors, 2018) Then, ironically, despite establishing the Statue of Liberty as a national monument, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act “

By Michael Natrella

of 1924, which completely excluded immigrants from Asia and Mexico and favored immigrants from Northern and Western European countries. (History.com Editors, 2018) In response to these drastic restrictions, illegal immigration increased, and the US Border Patrol was established. At this point, the vast majority of people illegally crossing the Mexican and Canadian borders into the United States were Asian, particularly Chinese. Once the attack on Pearl Harbor took place, the United States Government quickly responded with enacting Executive Order 9066, forcing every person of Japanese descent to register with the government and report to an internment camp.

Once interned, the federal government seized all private possessions in which the families never saw again. This displacement caused an abundance of issues when the families finally returned to their homes and found that other families were currently occupying them. These actions inflicted upon the Japanese community were severely understated at the time, with the government claiming, Japanese Americans were cheerfully filling out the abundance of paperwork and were quickly reporting to their designated facilities. (Milton Eisenhower, 1942). These tragic events were anything but cheerful. The exclusion of Asian immigrants was not formally ended until 1952, and in 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act overhauled the racist quota system. Today, the government continues this legacy of racist and exclusive immigration policy with family separation and the detainment of immigrants at migrant detention centers at the border and throughout the United States. The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement report directly to the President of the United States without the oversight of Congress, making them very dangerous to our

Cartoon by Barry Deutsch from Abagond

democratic process. President Trump authorized them to revamp old Japanese internment camps throughout the southern border and use them to detain men, women, and children in harsh and immoral conditions. Reports leaked by visiting dignitaries reveal the actual conditions in which they are living. These conditions include children and toddlers living in overpopulated cages with concrete floors, and nothing but a silver thermal blanket to keep them warm. . (Eustachewich, 2018) These recent immigration acts have caused the deportation of not only law-abiding residents of our country but also caused the removal of natural-born U.S citizens, including service members in the military.

Regarding these camps, George Takei tweeted, “I know what concentration camps are. I was inside two of them in America. And yes, we are operating such camps again.” (O’Kane, 2019) He also compared the migrant detention centers to Japanese internment in an op-ed, arguing, “At least during the internment, when I was just five years old, I was not taken from my parents. At least during the internment, my parents were able to place themselves between the horror of what we were facing and my own childish understanding of our circumstances.” (Takei, 2018) While every rational human should recognize this situation as immoral, it is justified by the cover of national security. As with yellow peril and the red scare, Muslims and Latinx asylum seekers are portrayed and mischaracterized as the dangerous threat to American democracy.

As in 1893, when the Supreme Court upheld Chinese Exclusion in Fong Yue Ting v. the United States, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of President Donald Trump, forcing the reinstatement and expansion of the Muslim ban and limiting any action of reversing such law. The United States’ expanded ban affects all immigrants from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Somalia, and Libya.

Photo by Ted Eytan

(Kanno-youngs, 2020) This has caused issues to United States military personnel returning home from tours overseas, international students returning to the U.S on a student visa, and foreign citizens traveling to the United States to visit family. (Meng, 2020) Being protected by the veil of national security and legitimized by the Protect America Act, USA Freedom Act, and The Patriot Act, the U.S government, has extended and untethered authority to protect the United States from acts of terror.

Now, Trump has set his sights on the Hmong and Lao populations in the United States. The funding of a reintegration program to help Laos accept nationals with final orders of removal will dramatically increase the deportation of Hmong and Lao immigrants in the United States. (Constante, 2020) According to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, there are 4,716 undetained Lao nationals with a final order of removal in the U.S. dating back to as early as 2001. With this reintegration program in place, these US residents who have been living in the United States and building lives and families for decades may find their lives uprooted. (Constante, 2020)

“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!” (Lazarus,1883) While the beliefs expressed in this poem may be a myth, they are undoubtedly aspirational. We cannot make America great again, but it is past time that we try living up to the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity. With primary season in progress, make sure you are registered to vote and that you are doing your research and supporting the candidate that best represents the values you want to be inscribed upon our nation. The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.