Posted on 09/03/2007 5:18:38 PM PDT by armymarinedad
After watching a commercial using several celebrities promoting the organization Save Ellis Island I goggled save Ellis Island. Second from the top is a website sponsored by Arrow named We Are Ellis Island followed by the statement “Save This Great National Monument. Help Preserve America’s Birthplace” America’s Birthplace? With all due respect America was here when Ellis Island was built!
Refereeing to the immigration processing facility as the Birthplace of our Country is a huge slap in the face to all of the work, blood, and effort that was put forth during the true birth of our Nation. Forgetting the first two hundred seventy years of our Nation’s history also conveniently dismisses our Christian roots starting with the arrival of the Mayflower.
Coming from a family who debated in the House of Burgess about the birth of our Nation and followed that debate with loss of life, I take great umbrage with dismissing our true roots. Maybe the mindset of dismissing the first century of our Nation is why so many Americans take our constitution so lightly. Forgetting how America was born and then almost split asunder by a Civil War causes one to forget just what so many talk about when we speak of the “American Dream”. What Arrow is promoting is giving taking advantage of a birth and calling it their own.
Ellis Island is an important part of our History but let’s not forget our entire two hundred seventy year history prior to Ellis Island. Our forefathers gave a lot in order for immigrants to blend into American society. We were born for Religious Freedom, to allow our citizens to become successful with hard work, and give us all the right to life, and liberty. Arriving in a ship to a Nation already forged is an honor not a birthright. You are here due to hospitality of a Nation of people who had a dream and made it a reality.
Well lets see. My 4 grandparents ancestors.
1. Irish, family served in the revolution, 1812, civil war 3rd Ark Calvary..
2. Irish, family served in the revolution, arrived 1600’s, Civil war, Spanish Amer war.
3. Scotch, Lt. John Bell served with the Third Virginia Regiment Continental Dragoons.
4. Irish, lived and fought in Virginia in the Rev & civil war.
4. Cherokee, Deer Clan. they met the rest of ‘em when they got here.
Served with Jackson in 1814 Creek war, Civil war Generals,colonels, you name it. One, Nancy Ward and some others even helped the colonists in the revolution though most sided with Britain.
In fact, I haven’t found anyone in my family that immigrated after the 1700’s.
Very good AuntB, then you’re all off the hook. LOL
That’s a very nice accounting BTW. Thank you.
There is one correction, unverified. One grgrandpa was rumored to be an immigrant about 1840. But we can’t find a trace of the guy...probably an illegal! LOL
I’ve really been blessed with stacks of documentation from civil war discharge papers to wedding record the Cherokee kept from the 1700’s and many personal letters during the civil war and before. I’m just about done with the book on these folks.
“”I guess it’s going to take some more violence like ‘the gangs of New York’. “”
Not much truth in the film, in the year of that opening mass death scene with all the impossible to believe hacking and stabbing , there were only 10 homicides that year in all of NY.
The poverty wasn’t real, the Navy firing on the population, the Chinese people, very little real to it the historians say.
I’m no student of the New york immigration riots. What we have today sounds like it’s a lot worse, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. There are streets in LA where legal citizens can’t cross the street or it’s a death sentence by the Latino, mostly illegal 18th st. gangs, etc.
Very good AuntB. Sounds like something I’d like to do some day but probably never will. Kudos to you.
I’m originally from Houston, for 40 years Americans have had to accept ever growing, large areas of our cities where we dare not set foot. We seem to quietly accept our losses, and bury our dead without complaint.
This deadly chaos is worse than anything we have ever had to deal with, with the possible exception of our wild frontiers, on some minor scales.
The correct word is “emigrate”, regardless of how long your or any other poster’s ancestors have been in this country.
Historically, Europeans only left Europe because they had issues with their country of origin. That little factoid might be something everyone should keep in mind. Just a little perspective.
“Historically, Europeans only left Europe because they had issues with their country of origin. That little factoid might be something everyone should keep in mind. Just a little perspective.”
Precisely what perspective does that provide? Are there other cases where people moved because they thought their country of origin was perfect?
Do you really need me to explain it to you?
I’ll try. The fact that certain American’s ancestors have been in the US longer than other American’s ancestors seems to be a point of pride, which is warranted. It becomes a little tacky; however, when there is also an implied sense of being “more American” by someone whose ancestors emigrated say, in the 1780’s as opposed to the 1880’s.
The point being, a big part of the reason many people came to the United States was because they were looking for something better than what they had in their native land. For some, that point came sooner, for some others, later. The timeline is not the deciding factor for a good American.
“It becomes a little tacky; however, when there is also an implied sense of being “more American” by someone whose ancestors emigrated say, in the 1780’s as opposed to the 1880’s.”
What you perceive to be implied might be nothing more than your own interpretation of facts. The more of American history one’s ancestors have been a part of, the more tradition they have as Americans, and the less they have as any other nationality. Just facts.
But, “.. but let’s not forget our entire two hundred seventy year history prior to Ellis Island.”
They don’t even remember places like the Argonne Forest, Chateau-Thierry, San Juan Hill, the Maine. Ask them about King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, Louisbourg, or the Pontiac’s Rebellion and they will look at you with blank faces. Ask them about Stephan Decateur or Daniel Morgan or Alvin York. Ask them about Audie Murphy or John Paul Jones.
People who don’t know their national past, can’t possibly understand their national present. We and our politically correct schools are raising generations of historical idiots. And that is is just what the leftist liberals want..
Whoever controls the past rules the present. Whoever rules the present will inheret the future.
“For some, that point came sooner, for some others, later. The timeline is not the deciding factor for a good American.”
But the earliest settlers came to almost nothing and created, built, and won the independence of what became a new nation that others later decided they wanted to immigrate to. Now newcomers come to the most advanced nation in history with the greatest opportunities for the most people. A vast different in what groups in different time periods came to, what part they played in creating this nation.
Descendants of early settlers should be very proud of that fact, and are justified in tiring of the nation of immigrants, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty mantra that’s ballyhooed ten times as much as the earliest history of Europeans in American because of PCness.
I’m a little miffed by this remark.
My great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents came here from Ireland, Sweden, and Germany in the late 1800’s. While I respect and celebrate my European heritage, I’ve never been to any of these countries and I consider myself 100% AMERICAN. Everyone in my family is AMERICAN, and we recognize no other allegience.
Now if I’m 100% American and you’re more American than I am (by virtue of having had family here longer), then how can you be more than 100% American?
This is baffling to me. Please explain.
The website in question, www.weareellisisland.org, does, as far as I can tell, say nothing about Ellis Island being any birthplace.
Keywords + web search yields websites containing any of the keywords.
My people came in through Ellis Island in 1900. The Jews Italians and Irish that came through have created enough hub bub and bluster and novels and TV shows to make it seem that Ellis Island immigrants created America. This of course isn’t true
I am always disinterested in the Civil War and slavery reparations. Because my people weren’t even here yet
But I am interested in America’s origins and our Revolutionary War
Before 1921, there was no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant because there were no restrictions on immigration. The purpose of Ellis Island was to make sure immigrants had a place to stay, money, a job or trade, weren't communists or anarchists or known criminals, and weren't disease ridden.
By those criteria, almost every single person who has swum across the Rio Grande in the past 40 years would be legal.
My English ancestors left the West Country because they weren't in the line of inheritance, and places like New England and Georgia seemed like a perfectly reasonable opportunity to do something different with their lives. They didn't have issues with England.
“We’re all very different people. We’re not Watusi, we’re not Spartans, we’re Americans. With a capital “A”, huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We’re the underdog. We’re mutts.” - Bill Murray (Stripes)
There should be a point of pride. My ancestors helped settle this country, cleared the forests, built the farms and roads, fought in the War for Independence, and were elected members of the colonial and early American government. They created what you and later immigrants now enjoy. If it weren't for them, this land would still be run by the Indians and have far more in common with Paraguay than England.
My ancestors are inherently more "American" than those of later arrivals, because while my ancestors were doing those things that made America and the American Nationality be something real, the ancestors of the later arrivals were still busy bowing down to Princes and Kings, kissing the feet of Nobles, and fighting in pointless European fratricides.
As a side note to you, there was little immigration from around 1760 to 1820, so your hypothetical immigrant of the 1780's mostly didn't exist. If you read the Declaration of Independence, one of the complaints against King George were his attempts to prevent the population of the American colonies by discouraging migration. For probably 99% of Americans, if your ancestors came before 1820, they came between 1607 and 1760 and therefore were part of the founding generation.
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