Posted on 07/18/2014 10:18:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
I recently met a man in his mid-fifties who told me he came to America as a very young person with less than $25 in his pocket and made a pretty good life for himself here.
As the son of Albanian immigrants who came here with just the clothes on their back, I love such stories about the people who come to this country, filled with hope for a far better future and a willingness to toil long hours to achieve the American dream.
This gentleman told me how he worked 18 or more hour days, six days a week, on his feet, for decades, gradually climbing the economic ladder. He married, raised a family, saved his money and bought a home that he proudly said he owns "free and clear."
At a time when immigration has become a fierce political battlefield, particularly as it pertains to illegals, but even to those who come here legally, we need to remember how our parents and grandparents came here to make a better life for themselves and for us. And, in the process, helped to build this country into the largest economy on the face of the earth.
And it is during this debate that I most look back on my father's inspiring story, overcoming huge odds against him to become a businessman, employer, homeowner and an investor in our country's future.
He emigrated from poverty-stricken Albania as a very young boy, alone, and barely 12 years old, in the 1920s -- sent here by his widowed mother in the hope for a better life than faced him in post-World War I Eastern Europe.
Carrying a small bag of belongings, with his boat and train fare carefully sewn into the lining of his native clothes by his mother, he set forth on a perilous journey to the New World in July 1923.
Starting out on foot across treacherous mountains and farm fields, he made his way, often with the help of people his mother had painstakingly arranged to escort him along portions of his trek into Greece, then across the Adriatic Sea on a small boat to Italy, and then by train to Naples, where he boarded a passenger ship bound for America.
He once told me how he was taken down to the lowest, cheapest level of the vessel, known as "steerage" back in those days, where bearded, menacing men frightened him and made fun of his clothes, sometimes poking him.
My father began to cry until a passing woman came by, comforted him and took up to her room where he stayed until he had reached the port of immigrants, New York's Ellis Island.
Somehow, often with the kind help of other strangers, he managed to find his way through the confusion and chaos of immigration officials and medical inspectors. He was put on a train to Fitchburg, Mass., where a cold and uncaring uncle took him in.
He immediately was put to work as a laborer to earn his keep, putting in long hours. He eventually went to night school to learn and write the language, and later went to a trade school to learn barbering.
He became a U.S. citizen and was employed by barber shops from Boston to Philadelphia, moving up the income scale and dreaming of one day opening his own shop and becoming an employer himself.
He saved his money, though he was fastidious about his clothes, and had a reputation among fellow immigrants as a well-tailored gentleman. So much so, he caught the eye of a beautiful young Albanian immigrant who lived in Worcester, Mass. and married her.
My dad liked college towns and often took the train out to Wellesley, a suburb of Boston, a lovely town with a large and prosperous professional clientele where he believe he could make a good living.
He opened his own shop, worked hard from early in the morning to the evening hours, and at one time held two jobs, serving as the only barber at a military training facility during World War II.
Over time, his business grew, requiring him to hire other barbers, and he expanded it into electric shaver sales and service and hair care products.
He saved and invested his money, particularly in a fast-growing, commercial aircraft company called Boeing. He bought property, built a handsome colonial home, and with my mom, an industrious and frugal homemaker, raised three children.
For my father and mother, both of whom have passed away, the United States kept its enduring promise as the "land of opportunity." Their story perfectly embraces the essence of America, told and retold from generation to generation of ambitious, hardworking immigrants and their offspring who built America into the great nation it has become.
My parents' belief in hard work and in their endlessly repeated plea to "make something of yourself" has deeply and profoundly shaped my life and belief in the work ethic, American enterprise and economic freedom.
Multiply my father's immigrant story with tens of millions of immigrants who came to our shores, facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and it is clear who turned this country into an economic colossus over the past century.
We seem to have lost sight of all this in the battle over immigration that has for all intents and purposes come to a standstill in Washington.
We surely need to control our borders. We also need to modernize a system that most Americans agree is broken. But we also need to recognize and appreciate the value of immigrants who come here legally to work, build a new life and become a citizen of our country.
Ronald Reagan said he once got a letter from a man who said "you can go live in Turkey, but you can't become a Turk. You can go to Japan, but you cannot become Japanese -- or Germany or France.... But he said anyone from any corner of the world can come to America and become an American."
My father asked for no special privileges or handouts when he stepped onto Ellis Island. "In Albania, we heard that the streets here were paved with gold," he once told me. They weren't, of course, but in terms of the freedom and opportunities America gave him, they really were.
Times have changed and the world has changed. The American Dream has morphed into a giant piñata. Immigrants used to come here for the opportunities. Now they come here for freebies, handouts and celebrity status as a “minority”. Lots of lawsuits in that.
Like all the others, the author misses the fact that we don’t have an expanding frontier or a growing industry to provide opportunities for semi- and un-skilled laborers.
We don’t need to import further burdens on the taxpayer and our bankrupt government.
The only question when it comes to admitting immigrants should be “What is in it for the United States and its citizens?”
And he conveniently failed to mention anything about the gargantuan welfare state that is drawing most immigrants these days, as well as the political and bureaucratic stewards of the welfare class in who's interest it is clearly in to invite more and more basket cases into the country for taxpayers to support.
And its time to drop all the pollyanna crap about noble immigrants of all stripes - its burying us. Face it, some immigrants coming here today are desirable, most are NOT.
*rme*
More liberal claptrap. Yes we are nation of immigrants. No I have not forgotten or lost sight of thIS history. The history of immigrants of the past has no relation to the illegal alien debate of today.
The immigrants who “founded” this country weren’t welfare queens who wanted Food Stamps.
The founding fathers weren’t immigrants, they came much later. Do a search
And the writer is wrong.
Paid for by the legal residents of the US.
......52,000 unaccompanied illegals crossed the south Texas border this year.....as the political debate focused on immigration enforcement, a key economic factor has been lost in the clamor. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which are supplying three-quarters of the latest cross-border flood, and are dependent on their diaspora in the US to prop up their own woeful economies.
Immigrants send back billions of US dollars to their families (disposable income from riding the US gravy train---possibly falsifying documents to show "need.")
Remittances have risen to 16.5% of El Salvador's GDP, 15.7% of Honduras' and 10% of Guatemala's, according to World Bank data. Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia rely on remittances for 4.1% to 9.7% of GDP.
But the figure drops precipitously for every other country in Latin America. Mexico, with the largest immigrant population in the U.S. with as many as 13 million people, now relies on remittances for just 2% of GDP.
Migrant remittances to Mexico were $22 billion in 2013, 29% below their 2006 peak.For Colombia, once a locus of drug-war violence, that has turned itself around, remittances are only 1.1% of GDP. Free-market star Chile's figure is 0%.
It's not surprising to see Central American leaders urging the U.S. to let the newest arrivals stay. Those migrants' remittances offer a lifeline to desperately poor countries.....it helps the broader Third World economy......and ultimately fills government coffers....(and the pockets of greedy govt honchos).
A 2008 Pew Research Center survey found that 54% of foreign-born Hispanics send remittances to their home countries, compared to 17% of U.S.-born Hispanics. Undocumented immigrants are believed to send more cash home than either. Virtually all the cash received by the three remittance outliers is from the U.S. (Guatemala 89%, El Salvador 90%, Honduras 87%).
NOTE WELL---billions in remittances doesn't include the tens of hundreds of billions annual in US foreign aid tax dollars......
US taxpayers handout billions in foreign aid to these do-nothing Third World hellholes--specifically earmarked to subsidize their poverty populations.
US Aid figures do not include military aid and millions in aid from other US agencies:
El Salvador: $280.4M Honduras: $680M Dominican Republic: $223.7M Mexico: $958.2M Guatemala: $391.8M
SOURCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_aid_received
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This report shows US aid $’s for the past few years (see page 9 (US Assistance) and pages 25-30 show various other agencies providing aid (DOD, etc.) (needs more research)
LINK http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42582.pdf
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THE FOREIGN AID MODUS OPERANDI---Former Guatemala Prez used US banks to launder millions (swindler was elected to "redistribute" the nation's wealth) An ex-president of Guatemala faced charges in NY that he used US banks to launder millions looted from his impoverished nation. Alfonso Portillo took office in 2000 pledging to redistribute Guatemala’s wealth.
Portillo, 61, allegedly ran scams to drain the impoverished country's coffers. The feds say Portillo embezzled about $2.5M provided by the Taiwanese embassy....$1.5 million was earmarked for “Libraries for Peace”....books for school kids.
Portillo personally endorsed three, $500,000 checks issued against an account at the Intl Bank of China in Manhattan, then deposited the cash in the Miami bank account of a Guatemalan bank controlled by “a close associate and political supporter” .....the money was funneled to bank accounts in Paris in the names of Portillo’s ex-wife and daughter.
Portillo swindled nearly $4M defense funds ...and plundered the national bank run by his alleged co-conspirator through overdrafts financed by public reserves -- stolen money paid for expensive watches and cars, for himself and his associates, according to the indictment. (Source: NY POST news report 5/28/13.)
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Time to cut off US aid to these corrupt, do-nothing governments. US aid should be suspended until the countries tell us where the aid money is going......and demand they put out appropriate messaging to counter the ads said to be fueling the horrendous surge at the border from Central America.
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