Surname 1 Name of Student Name of Instructor Couse Date Is America a Nation of Immigrants? What does it mean to be called a nation of immigrants? Feedbacks may vary, but one can make out that the statement means that the nation referring to itself a nation of immigrants should openly and wholeheartedly receive immigrants from different nations who have made the decisions to leave their homes forever and establish new opportunities for themselves. Therefore, is America a nation of immigrants? Well, that is not entirely true. Yes. America welcomed hosts pf immigrants before. Today, reforms are made to make sure that immigration is a headache to whoever wants to take citizenship of the United States. The first use of the phrase can be dated back to the year 1874 when The Daily State Journal of Alexandria was published in Virginia. The editors of this journal said that America is a nation of immigrants and their children. This statement was made as a technique of praising the Virginia state bill that was passed to encourage immigrants from European countries to move to America, and in particular, the state of Virginia. Therefore, referring to America as a solace for immigrants is inaccurate because while it grappled from the ashes of the 9/11 attack, America vowed to make it tough for immigrants, especially Muslims to find reliable passages and papers to get inside America. In 1938, the 32nd president of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the Daughters of American Revolution where he stated that the people of America should always remember that they are descendants of immigrants and revolutionists. Years later, in 1963, the
Surname 2 35th president of the United States used the term to refer to the United States hospitality in open heartedly welcoming millions of people who left their motherlands and travel to America to create new opportunities for them and their families. This was an address by John F. Kennedy to the Anti-Defamation League. This statement became popular a year later when the president’s unpublished book was published after his death. The title of this book came to be known as A Nation of Immigrants. Shortly after J. F. Kennedy’s speech, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) included this phrase as one of its core values. The mission statement read that the USCIS will secure America’s Promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to their customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of the immigration system (Mission Statement). However, these statements by honorary American personalities became a story of the past and America stopped being the nation for immigrants. In 1958, even after the publishing of Kennedy’s book, the concept was not taken into much sought. In his address to the Senate in 1965 during the debate about the Immigration and Neutralization Act, Ted Kennedy said that the cities of America would not be flooded with millions of immigrants every year. He wanted to raise a motion that would put an end to immigration or at least reduce the numbers down to an optimum value. However, his words did not come to live since America receives hosts of more than a million new immigrants every year (Camarota and Zeigler). During the same year, Ted Kennedy promised that the Immigration and Neutralization Act would not upset the ethnic mix of different societies in America, nor will it relax the standards of admission of the same immigrants (Chaddock). However, this promise would not be
Surname 3 long-lived as at 2014, the number of people of Latin descent living and working in the state of California exceeded the number of whites by a wider margin (Panzar). These two statements illustrate how Ted Kennedy failed the American people when his promises were not fulfilled. J. F. Kennedy also does not use the phrase “a nation of immigrants” in his book, A Nation of Immigrants. The statement, “a nation of immigrants” also is no longer present as part of USCIS mission statement. Looking at these reasons, one can associate such decisions to make immigration almost impossible due to the 9/11 attacks which involved terrorist militants, particularly from Muslim based nations. America feels that it has to protect its borders from similar extremisms by keeping such personalities away from the country. These new policies are aimed at wading off prospective terror attacks and regain the glory that was before the attack. Before the attacks, America had made a name for itself to be the epitome of security. The attack caught them unaware since their defenses had been breached. Since these new policies target America’s push to boost its security, it is clear to say that they will have an impact on the immigrants, particularly those coming from Muslim nations. Before the attack, America was considered a haven for Muslims who wanted to leave their wartorn, and politically unstable countries. The women wanted to be free from their strict rules and live freely. However, all this changed after the attack. It saw vandalism of mosques. Thousands of men got deported following the attack. America was no longer the haven they had hoped for. It was a crime to live in America if you were a Muslim. Thousands even changed their names to look similar to American naming systems. A Muslim named Osama would adopt a name like Sam while Mohammed would adopt Moe. They now lived in constant fear (Hanes and Stephen 248).
Surname 4 America had waded a fully-fledged war on them. They had no say about it since the terror wing, Al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack. Al Qaeda is mainly comprised of Muslim extremists. America’s policy against terrorism is clear. They do not negotiate with terrorists. However, the attack not only made Muslims in America fearful. They rose up to themselves that they should not be punished for the actions of a few individuals clad in masks. They even became social and politically active. They wanted their voices and plights to be heard and not to be treated as outcasts. Bodies like the American Muslim Task Force (AMT) were established to mobilize more Muslims to stop living in fear (Abu-Ras and Zulema 49). However, the effect was still clear. Muslims were still considered to be a threat. To protect themselves, they had to adapt to changes (Morgan et al. 447). For example, women were warned against wearing their headscarves when they are outside. That’s not all. New arrivals are kept for extremely long waiting times at airports where they are held to be questioned even though they are innocent. These effects are clearly against the idea that America was indeed a nation for immigrants. Such implications should not exist. Muslim immigrants should be allowed the freedom that they hoped for. This makes America not to be regarded as a nation of immigrants because the Muslim is not living in peace. Therefore, it is not a nation of immigrants as implied by different personalities. According to the USCIS revised mission statement, it is clear to say that the freedom and quick approval of new arrivals in America will not be the same as it was in the earlier system where immigrants were offered quick and elaborate assimilation services. On top of it all, the Supreme Court of the United States reported that when illegal immigrants are arrested for living in the country wrongfully and illegally, they are to be held in detention without being given a
Surname 5 chance to pose for bail. All this came to effect after a heated debate inside the Congress regarding who has the right of coming to live, work, and enjoy the privileges of an American citizen. Today, portraying America as a nation of immigrants is not correct. America stopped being the haven for immigrants immediately after the 9/11 attack. Today, it is a commonplace where political classes roam and make decisions on behalf of all the citizens of the country. It may be right to say that the decision to scrap the statement from the USCIS mission statement can be traced back to the statements above by Ted Kennedy, J. F. Kennedy failing to mention the phrase in his book and not following up to back his claim when the phrase was being tarnished by policymakers. Franklin Roosevelt also did not follow up on his claim when the Daughters of Revolution took a different direction. One can argue through Ted Kennedy’s remark on the impact of immigrants on the wellbeing of indigenous Americans based on work wages and employment since immigrants are known to be able to work for low pay. This effect would lead to the immigrants taking jobs from the Americans because employers would rather hire an individual who has the skill but provides it for a low price than an equally skilled individual who asks for much pay. Today, breaking the law as an immigrant in America bears a huge price on the immigrant. This is because the immigrants of today do not have the privileges that were mentioned by Patrick Moynihan when he said that the immigrants were not wretched refuse that was left on the shores to rot. Moynihan used the term shore and wretch to imply the kind of immigrants who got into America during the early 19th century. These immigrants were tailors from Israel, shopkeepers from Germany, craftsmen, and artisans who were suited for handy jobs. This rule was recently passed that an immigrant who is found to be guilty of any act against the
Surname 6 constitution of America will be held in detention without being given the option for bail whatsoever. As such, immigrants, either new or the ones who are already citizens of America face a possibility of being stripped off their citizenship and being deported back to their motherland and facing a ban from ever setting foot back in America. As such, it is clear to say that the law has been changed to show further that America can no longer be referred to as a nation of immigrants. Even though there are still numbers of immigrants making their way to America, policies have been revised such that the new immigrants do not get the privilege of enjoying what Moynihan talked about. The policy is being altered as days go by to make sure that the immigrants feel the difficulty in obtaining legal papers to set foot from the immigration agencies and to their country of choice. In many cases, such processing takes longer than before. This makes the immigrants spend long days commuting between their allocated places of shelter and the immigration offices on the hope that their documents have been finalized. This particularly applies to the immigrants who have no other means of going back to their country since they moved to America to look for opportunities. The well off immigrants who feel that the processes are long and uncalled for are going back to their countries. Going back to the claim by Harris that the founding fathers of America were immigrants, we may be forced to trace back when the word “immigrant” became formally used. According to Samuel Huntington, the term “immigrant” received its first usage in the 1780s (Huntington 188). This was a strategy used by many writers back then to distinguish new entrants into America and the settlers who were already living and working in America. Before the American Revolution, Europeans who moved to work and live in America, particularly the English and the Dutch thought of themselves as founders, settlers, and planters – and not as immigrants. They argued
Surname 7 that they exhibited politeness, had an established language, had decent working habits, and exhibited many other habits which immigrants did not exhibit. This implies that the Europeans would equally be as surprised if the founding fathers of America were indeed immigrants because early European “immigrants” did not consider themselves to be immigrants. Before being established as a nation, America, like other nations had to have had a presence of settlers and founders. These individuals had the responsibility of establishing boundaries and claiming lands which will form the 50 states that America is made up of today. According to Michael Anton, America is a nation of settlers, and not that of immigrants. This statement was made by Michael Anton to expound much on Bret Stephens’ remark about the same opinion in a New York Times post. In his words, Anton said that America was a nation of settlers, not a nation of immigrants. This statement supports Samuel Huntington’s remark about America being a nation of settlers who played an important role during the 17th and 18th centuries. These statements claim that America started in the 1600s and not in 1874 (Anton). Anton’s statement also got a backing up from Bien and colleagues (1978) when the group said that when studying the political changes in America, it is important to keep in mind that the United States is a product of settlers (Bien). According to this statement, the mention of the term settlers alone as the founders of America removes any possibility that America is a nation of immigrants. The phrase “a nation of immigrants” also means that the immigrants are supposed to be allowed to keep their beliefs, customs, values, and traditions which they practiced in their mother nations. However, this is not the case in America. These immigrants are automatically Americanized the moment they move into a society which already has settler policy and starts to wear the clothes, starts behaving in the manners set by the society, and adopts the customs that
Surname 8 are already existing there. The immigrants also replace their native languages with the English language. These options may not necessarily be the decisions of the immigrant. They only do this so that they may be considered to be “American” enough so that they can have the same privilege as the indigenous Americans when competing for the same chances and opportunities in the American economic sphere. If America were a nation of immigrants, the immigrants would not be going through all these lengths to feel American or to protect themselves like Muslims do today. They should be left to keep the choice of whether or not to become Americanized. Instead, they are forced to adopt the American lifestyle to socialize normally among the indigenous Americans. To be considered a nation of immigrants, America has failed to live up to its promise to the masses of people who move there annually. The statements against the immigration policies mean that the immigrants are not patriots. This is because they are regarded as individuals who have altered the history of America by bringing in customs and principles which are against the ones which were established by the settler. Muslims are considered a threat to the security of America. They do not bring anything but suspicion among the eyes of Americans (Livengood and Monika 184). To be considered important in America, the immigrants have to provide something that will propel the current American status to a higher level than it already is. Immigrants only come to find better opportunities for themselves and their families. The Americans consider immigrants, especially those from the Middle East and other Muslim nations as a threat. Take the example of Rubab Razvi, A 21-year-old Pakistani woman who traveled by bus to Brooklyn while wearing her hijab. People on the bus kept staring at her all the way. This drove elements of suspicion among the Americans. This implies that these immigrants are agents of destruction. In a nutshell, they argue that America belongs to nobody else but Americans. It is
Surname 9 not a property of foreigners who leave their countries to find greener pastures in America. This statement coincides with the phrase that America is a nation of immigrants. According to me, I think it should be the contrary. That is, America should not be considered a nation for immigrants following up on the arguments that are discussed in this paper.
Surname 10 Works cited Abu-Ras, Wahiba M., and Zulema E. Suarez. "Muslim men and women’s perception of discrimination, hate crimes, and PTSD symptoms post 9/11." Traumatology 15.3 (2009): 48-63. Anton, Michael. “America is Not the Common Property of All Mankind.” American Greatness, Social Tech Consulting. 2 July 2018 amgreatness.com/2018/07/02/america-is-not-thecommon-property-of-all-mankind/ Bien, David D., et al. Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United States. (SPD-9). Edited by Raymond Grew, Princeton University Press, 1978. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x15xd Camarota, Steven A., & Zeigler, Karen. “1.8 Million Immigrants Likely Arrived in 2016, Matching Highest Level in U.S. History.” Center for Immigration Studies, 28 December 2017, cis.org/report/18-Million-Immigrants-Likely-Arrived-2016-Matching-HighestLevel-US-History Chaddock, Gail R. “Kennedy, and immigration: He changed the face of America.” The Christian Science Monitor, 28 August 2009, csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/0828/kennedy-andimmigration-he-changed-the-face-of-america Hanes, Emma, and Stephen Machin. "Hate crime in the wake of terror attacks: Evidence from 7/7 and 9/11." Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 30.3 (2014): 247-267. Huntington, Samuel P. Who are we?: The challenges to America's national identity. Simon and Schuster, 2004. Livengood, Jennifer S., and Monika Stodolska. "The effects of discrimination and constraints negotiation on leisure behavior of American Muslims in the post-September 11 America." Journal of Leisure Research 36.2 (2004): 183-208. Morgan, G. Scott, Daniel C. Wisneski, and Linda J. Skitka. "The expulsion from Disneyland: The social psychological impact of 9/11." American Psychologist 66.6 (2011): 447.
Surname 11 Panzar, Javier. “It’s official: Latinos now outnumber whites in California.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times. 8 July 2015, latimes.com/local/california/la-me-census-latinor20150708-story.html