|Great-grandparents Erik and Johanna and Grandmother Freda|
© 2015 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. "It's a bit of a sore spot, Thanksgiving in Indian country." Robbie Robertson whose mother was Mohawk raised on the Six Nations Reservation in Canada
The Pilgrim immigrants and the Native Americans who resided in America around the year 1600 died centuries ago. We are the descendants. Americans are divided on the question of immigration because it has such political gains and losses.
For much of our history immigration was a benefit for both political parties. Then in 1914 something happened that changed our view of immigrants: the first year of our federal income tax.
It passed in 1913 and in 1914 politicians had a wave of money to buy votes thanks to the people who worked. It was and is a tax on productivity therefore those who are productive like it less than those who get the benefits without working.
Before 1914, immigration was open and appreciated. It brought workers to our country that had to stand on their own feet or suffer the consequences. Our transcontinental railroads were built by immigrants.
The immigrants who came to America from the time of our founding until 1914 were people who could and did stand on their own feet. They added to our country's resources rather than taking resources. My relatives came from Germany, Ireland and Sweden not for American charity but for a chance to live a better life.
My Great-Grandfather Erik Greenberg came from Sweden in 1867 and worked on the railroad. My grandmother was born in upstate New York in 1891. In 1908 the family moved to New Mexico and homesteaded land near Three Rivers. He is buried in Alamogordo.
These days we frame immigration as our charity to the world where we take care of people from other countries. Americans support them with our productivity. This is also the debate about people who come to our country without legal status or stay illegally.
The prime objection is that these people take our charity without giving us in America anything of value. While that is painting with a wide brush, it is the argument against allowing illegal immigration in our country. I think America should always be open to those who bring us something and follow our laws.
I have a world view from having lived some years abroad and with the ability to speak several languages. I appreciate other cultures and especially appreciate the melting-pot aspect of America where for generations people of other lands came and made America stronger.
This Thanksgiving I am most thankful for this wonderful country. I know Americans took by force the lands and ways of life of the inhabitants already in North America. I cannot do anything about that other than tell the truth. The Thanksgiving story is revisionist history since it happened around 1620 and the story of Thanksgiving we know came out during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars when the image of Thanksgiving was used to bolster American spirits.
We should go out of our way to enable the current generations of Native Americans to live their lives as they wish because we know the truth of their loss. As to people who wish to come to our land without legal status or stay beyond their legal permit, I must oppose this for a reason not in public dialog currently.
If in the year of my birth, 1950, President Truman wanted to spend money on refugees that might be fine. So what is different today? Truman would have been spending that generation's money.
Contrast that to now when people coming to our country both legally and illegally with the intention to take our charity are not taking it from us Americans. Rather, they take it from our children and grandchildren's wealth. We Americans have already spent our wealth, and now are spending the wealth of future generations.
Future generations should be allowed to be charitable if they so desire and not forced into it by us already spending their wealth before some of them are born. We cannot change what was done to the native populations centuries ago in what is now our country, but we can stop abusing the next generations.
That is my prayer for this Thanksgiving.