(edited from original version of 2014 – I thought it was important to post again)
In these times of ICE raids and prejudice and terror against many non-White Americans, I find myself thinking about immigrants a lot, and the trend of many Americans to dislike and distrust immigrants. To Donald Trump and all the Americans who think we would be better off without immigrants, I want to shout, “What?!! You were once an immigrant, too!”
We Americans are diverse and multicultural. It seems that some people have forgotten that, want us all to be the same, want everyone to be the same, act the same, speak the same, probably eat the same! What a boring, uninteresting and static society that would be! When I lived in southern CA as a young adult, I was surprised to meet people who had no clue what nationality they were – when and where in their genetic past they had been immigrants. With this trend toward authoritarianism by our president and the national focus on immigration, I have been told that many more Americans (maybe even Southern Californians) are interested in finding out where their forefathers came from.
I once lived in Austria. I was married to an Austrian doctor, and I worked in the hospital with him as a neuroscientist working on a new treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. Austrians loved me. I looked like them, spoke German (pretty well, I was told), was the type of foreigner the Austrians had no qualms with. Every year or so I had to go down to the Polizei and apply for a new visa , which at the time involved buying many Stempelmarken (a type of stamp issued by the government for fees one needed). The visa process involved standing with a large group of foreigners outside the Polizei until it opened its doors for an unreasonably short amount of time. I recall being the only blond standing there amid mostly Turkish immigrants. We had to pass the time waiting in long lines, and I thoroughly enjoyed that time! My fellow immigrants were friendly and accepting. Telling my Austrian friends about the experience, they would always comment negatively about the immigrants. I would respond, “I am an immigrant, too!” I felt a bond with my dark-haired, fellow immigrants.
Currently, I work with non-native English speakers from all over the world, some who have been Turkish. We work together on making their English communication more effective, understandable, and easy for impatient Americans to understand. I do this to help them achieve better lives. It seems to be a calling for me. I feel that I am fighting for a better America, one individual at a time. For if one of my amazing clients – an individual who has learned skills and a foreign language, traveled 1000’s of miles away from home, found a job in which he/she speaks a foreign language amid millions who do not – can learn to speak English clear enough to not incite the impatience or wrath of the typical American, I feel I have done my job.
