Artwork by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
We’re planning on taking a trip soon, driving out west through the rolling plains of Iowa and Nebraska, land of the eternal horizon, past the spectacular Colorado skyline and into the beautiful—and sometimes surreal—landscapes of New Mexico. It’s a long drive but a beautiful one. The first time we traveled it, I was impressed by the vastness and variety of the land, and—particularly out west—the emptiness of it.
When we were last in New Mexico, we visited the Bandelier National Monument, a valley once occupied by indigenous peoples. Remnants of their cave dwellings and adobe houses still survive, a reminder of not only how old this land is, but how recently it was settled—or invaded—by European settlers. These “settlers” brutalized and massacred the indigenous peoples. The Cherokee, Iroquois, Pueblos, Comanche, Apache, Sioux, Navajo, and more, dozens more, were uprooted from their homeland and shipped off to reservations hundreds of miles away, usually situated on poor land.
This is our land only because we took it by force. We stole it. Yet we tend to conveniently forget our former status as immigrants/invaders, especially when it comes to the way we treat people trying to immigrate to America today. We act as if we’ve owned this land forever and that it’s our God-given right to decide who gets to live here. The Native Americans who occupied this land before the arrival of the Europeans did not think of land as private property, as illustrated by a quote from Crowfoot, Chief of the Blackfeet in 1885:
“Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever…We cannot sell the lives of men and animals; therefore we cannot sell this land. It was put here for us by the Great Spirit and we cannot sell it because it does not belong to us.”
Needless to say, these noble sentiments—even if they were listened to—were summarily dismissed by our European ancestors. The idea of communal land seemed absurd. After all, who can make a profit by sharing the land? The earth needed to be farmed, the great buffalo herds needed to be culled, and the vast forests needed to be mown down to make way for the European way of life—a culture centered on individual profit.
Today’s immigrants are coming to America come from across the globe: Albania, Nigeria, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Mexico—nearly every country in the world. Many come for a better life or freedom from persecution, just as our own ancestors did. Yet, instead of empathizing with these newcomers’ desire to become part of the American dream, some seek to slam the door in the faces of those who want to be free. America has beefed up border security, built walls, and placed refugees in detention camps, sometimes deliberately splitting families apart, all in the name of national security and inscribed in the code of cultural hegemony, all the while singing a verse of “This Land is Your Land”.
Granted, these immigrants will be bringing new cultures into our lives—much as forefathers did for the Native Americans—but they are hardly as dangerous or ruthless as the original European settlers.
Yet the last presidential administration attempted to build a wall to protect our border—a structure that would have been 1,951 miles long. Only 458 miles of wall, at an expense of $15 billion dollars, was completed. And, according to an article in The Cato Institute, illegal entries actually increased after the wall was constructed. “Even before Biden assumed office, the Border Patrol was making more arrests and witnessing far more successful crossings after the wall went up than most months before the Trump wall.” (The Cato Institute). The wall was, in fact, nothing more than an expensive exercise in the art of marketing—the easy solution looked good.
Not that everyone was interested in keeping out those seeking to enter the country. Undocumented Mexican workers seem to have no trouble finding work in America. According to an article in the Texas Tribune,thousands of Mexicans enter the US each year precisely because there are jobs waiting for them. Because they are paid a fraction of what American workers would make and are willing to engage in grueling construction work, companies find them an attractive and economical alternative to hiring their fellow Americans. Many illegals have to pay exorbitant fees for fake Social Security cards, and many others are paid cash under the table. They are so eager to partake in a piece of the American dream that many of these Mexicans risk exploitation by ruthless and cruel employers. And yet they still come.
Facing a major teaching shortage, many public-school districts are turning to international teachers to help fill that void. Some come here with little more than the clothes on their backs, willing—and more than able—to take on the strenuous task of educating our children. Some are Muslim, some are Christian, and some are Hindu. They are well-educated, experienced, and dedicated teachers who deserve to be welcomed with open arms, but with the current xenophobic paranoia sweeping the country, some feel are treated like interlopers by the people whom they serve.
We can’t afford to forget our own beginnings. Many of our forefathers, like these laborers or teachers, only wanted a better life for themselves and their children. Many, like today’s immigrants, were spurned by those who had arrived only a few years before them. Seeing signs like “Irish Need Not Apply” or relegated to working the most dangerous jobs constructing the transatlantic railroad, these people fought for a better life with courage, determination, and hard work, sometimes sacrificing their own lives. These were our own ancestors.
Our ancestors dismissed the prerogatives of other cultures summarily; they swept the Native Americans out of their paths, scorned many of the new people coming to our shores, and—when they did hire them—used them only for the most dangerous and back-breaking tasks.
Manifest destiny was a mistake. So was slavery. So is discrimination. If America is everything we say it is, if it is truly a bastion of democracy and a champion of freedom, then we cannot keep treating our own citizens, and those who would be citizens, as chattel. We need to stop fearing and hating the immigrants, those who come to our shores. They’re no different than we are. They want the same things we want.
Capitalism is the foundation of America, a foundation built on the bones and blood of thousands we didn’t consider good enough to be one of us. The truth is that the determination, courage, and sacrifice needed to come here, to strive here, and to succeed here is something all Americans should admire, praise, and emulate.
They’re not just as good as we are. They’re better.