{"id":27365,"date":"2010-08-03T18:57:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T23:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=27365"},"modified":"2010-08-04T06:10:01","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T11:10:01","slug":"we-are-all-immigrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/we-are-all-immigrants\/","title":{"rendered":"We are all immigrants"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Josie's hands touch the Wall of Honor at Ellis Island, where the name of one lineage of our family is listed. Photo by Eric Francis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took my niece Josie to visit Ellis Island<\/a><\/strong> yesterday. In the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, as many as 5,000 immigrants a day from every corner of the world passed through the Great Hall at Ellis, on their way into the United States. Many endured weeks-long passages traveling with the approximate dignity of cattle. Not all made it in. You could be turned away — literally, put back on a ship — for dozens of reasons, including anything from being pregnant to suspicion of mental illness. The ones who crossed the harbor and joined the mass of American humanity built and became our modern nation. <\/p>\n

Unless you’re one of the few remaining pure-blooded descendants of the Native Americans (some of whom prefer to be called American Indian), you’re an immigrant or the descendant of one. The anti-immigration, anti-alien mania that is gripping some segments of our society denies the basic fact that humanity is transient, and that one of the few actual virtues of the United States is that we are a melting pot society. Yes, it’s easy for me to say that being a New Yorker (where I’ve often walked up to people on the street needing directions and said, “Do you speak English?”), but they’ve even heard of reggae in Alabama.<\/p>\n

Humanity is one family, and apparent differences are often exploited to the benefit of the few, at the expense of many. My family is from Sicily and then as now, my ancestors took the jobs that nobody else wanted, scrubbing floors, working in sweatshops and saving their pennies to buy homes. Later generations served and gave their lives in wars, taught in schools, moved our mail and served society many ways. I suggest that before anyone criticizes people who would take refuge in the United States, they know their own family history, thank their grandparents for their foresight and be grateful for the relative peace and calm that we enjoy here today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took my niece Josie to visit Ellis Island yesterday. In the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, as many as 5,000 immigrants a day from every corner of the world passed through the Great Hall at Ellis, on their way into the United States. Many endured weeks-long passages traveling with the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}