A Young Immigrant’s Poem to America

American Thinker ^ | 7 Sep, 2026 | Luis Gonzalez |

[MtnClimber]

In the late 1960s, a boy left Havana in the middle of the night, and days later, he was standing on Merritt Island, Florida.

I was that boy.

I didn’t know anything about American exceptionalism, about the great argument over liberty and government. I knew I had come to America, and almost immediately America began showing me things I had never seen: a new bicycle, chewing gum, Superman comics newer than 1960, ordinary pleasures that felt like evidence of a larger freedom.

And there were rockets. They rose almost every night. I didn’t understand the science. I only knew something extraordinary was happening, and that the future had been waiting for my arrival before roaring across Merritt Island on columns of fire.

For thousands of years, the world was an old place. Human beings walked, rode animals, sailed with the wind, cooked with fire, and lit the darkness with candles. Civilizations rose and fell, but the basic human experience remained stubbornly familiar.

Then, in 1776, the world roared.

America was where the Age of Discovery, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment became a living experiment. And with America came a question that changed the human condition: What if?

What if the old limits were not limits at all? What if a human being were free to wonder, experiment, invent, fail, and try again? What if a person could look at the world as it was and imagine it as it could be?

America didn’t invent curiosity. It created a place where curiosity could run. A thought became an experiment, an experiment became an invention, an invention became an industry that transformed the lives of millions. Someone looked at darkness and asked, What if we could make our own light?

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: refugee

[MayflowerMadam]

“The migrant farm workers came, did the job, and LEFT.”

Same thing for us in rural western NYS. Puerto Rican “pickers” came for the season and then left.

[Fledermaus]

Those laws are still in place. But now ignored like most are by Both parties.

[Fledermaus]

How is the heat in your part of TN. Pushing 100 daily in Franklin.

[Chgogal]

Give the Lefties a choice:

Welfare allowed; no immigration allowed.
No welfare; immigration allowed.

[MayflowerMadam]

Today is actually cooler than it has been. The highest was around 92. Before today it got to 100 or above. The “feels like” got to 108 as far as we saw.

[Prov1322]

thanks

[Fledermaus]

Same here