Pastor Scott's Spot
As the grandson of poor, uneducated, Italian immigrants from Sicily, I have always been proud of my both my immigrant heritage and this country that welcomed my grandparents. My grandfather worked in the steel mills in Johnstown, Pennsylvania until his untimely death. My grandmother spoke no English and with 7 children to raise and no means of providing for them, she made a very difficult decision. My father and his siblings were divided up among family or in my father’s case, placed in an orphanage. My last name is Wheeler after the family that raised him. My father eventually re-connected with his Italian family and through them we came to learn our family’s immigrant story.
Growing up I loved hearing my family story. I came to cherish it and this country for welcoming them. I also felt a great sense of pride in places like Ellis Island that welcomed my grandparents as it did many other immigrants to this country. I loved learning Emma Lazarus poem, The New Colossus, that is engraved on a tablet within the base of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Unfortunately, I also learned that many people like my immigrant grandparents were not always as welcomed by this country as the Statue of Liberty promised. Growing up, I was aware of a slang term used for Italians was “WOP” as in “You dirty Italian WOP.” It was only later that I learned that “WOP” was an acronym for “WithOut Papers.” It was a term used by the authorities at Ellis Island to separate immigrants who had legal papers and those who did not have legal papers.
I have no idea if my grandparents were legal or illegal immigrants. What I do know is that they passed through Ellis Island, settled in Pennsylvania, started a family, worked hard, suffered much, and contributed to the story of the world’s Melting Pot. I believe that our country is stronger for their presence and their contribution as it is for every immigrant who has ever come into this country with or without papers.
That is why it saddens me today as we continue to debate immigration reform to hear people criminalize, if not demonize, the millions of hard working immigrants who continue, like our own immigrant families, to contribute to America’s story. It saddens me to learn that our immigration policy is written to favor the educated and wealthy from other countries and not the poor, hard-working, uneducated immigrants like my grandparents and perhaps yours.
With this in mind, I would like to share a new version of Emma Lazarus poem that perhaps we ought to place at the base of Lady Liberty. Tom Eckhard is the author. His poem is called: The New Statue of Limitry:
Not like the copper stained goddess of former American fame,
With limbs chained from hand to hand;
Here at our whitewashed, closed gates shall stand
A sorry woman with a torch, whose flame
Is extinguished, and her name
Mother of We’ve Got Ours!
From her stopping hand Signals world go-away; her flashing eyes command
The Berlin Wall that separates the game,
“Keep, other lands, your riff-raff!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your relaxed, your entrepreneurs,
Your upper classes yearning to buy an SUV,
The rich who refuse to protect the shore,
Send these, the European (World’s), well-educated to me,
I lift my foot to crush the rest to the floor!”
In the midst of our debate on immigration reform both in Washington DC and in our own community, we seem to be on the verge of forgetting our nation’s story is tied directly to each of our own immigrant families’ stories. It is time we remember who we are and were we have come from, and welcome the millions of immigrants even as our families were welcomed, and reclaim with pride the feelings expressed within the Statue of Liberty.
Scott