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Immigrant bashing began with The Founding Fathers-- not just with Trump

US Postage Stamp from 1960 

Published: 11/5/2018

By John Freivalds

Does anybody remember that 1960 was World Refugee Year? I do! I was selected by Secretary of State Christian Herter's bodyguard to represent European refugees at a ceremony at the US Post Office which issued a stamp honoring the year. Unlike the President Trump's constant announcements that an immigrant mob is descending upon America, the ceremony extolled the virtues of immigrants. Yep, I was one. A neighbor of ours in Washington, DC where I grew up was a bodyguard of the Secretary of State. He heard about the ceremony and told Herter I have just the guy, a Latvian, to represent Europe. Here's what the stamp's designer said: "The stamp features a family group facing down a long dark corridor towards a bright exit symbolizing escape from the darkness of want and oppression into the brightness of a new life." Yep, that was America then and it will reappear again. 

 

Benjamin Franklin said this of Germans. “Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant and stupid of their own nation...and as a few of them understand the English language and so I cannot address them from the press and pulpit it is almost impossible to remove any prejudices they entertain, not being used to liberty they know not how to make a modest use of it... In short unless the stream of importation is overturned they will soon outnumber us all the advantages that we have will not in my opinion to be able to preserve our language and even our Government will become precarious. The other objection Franklin has according to Dialog International was "their swarthy complexion which was affront to the purely white people which originally settle America."  

Enlightened Americans are continually patting themselves on the back for having an open society. While immigrant prejudice exists in parts it also exits in cosmopolitan America. I am here by virtue of a Displaced Person Act of 1948 (PL80-774) signed by President Harry Truman. He wasn't happy with it as it discriminated against Jews and Catholics but allowed Baltic refugees in. But faced with opposition from Southern Congressman it was the best he could do. 

I was surprised when coming back from an overseas trip I was confronted by a bus driver in Washington, DC (not Fergus Falls Minnesota) who called the police to have me arrested for speaking a foreign language on his bus. By chance had I met a Latvian friend of mine at Reagan airport and we talked Latvian. In any event we were sitting not too far back of the increasingly nervous driver who at once turned back to us and exclaimed "You can't do that?" Perplexed, I asked "do what?"  He replied, "Speak a foreign language on this bus!" The driver was a white Anglo and I was blond (now grey) 6 feet tall and blue eyed so this wasn't racial. But being told that in Washington, DC! He ranted on and on and when we got to our destination he went to a phone and called the police. Two cops appeared and as they approached us he yelled out pointing at me. "There he is, he was speaking a foreign language on my bus and he was speaking it quickly." I wasn't scamming welfare, selling drugs, robbing or raping anyone -- just talking. After this I wrote everybody I could think of including this guy's boss and got apologies and he was fired. Name: J.D. Hicks.  

Today Mexicans and Arabs get yelled at for speaking their language and during World War II Japanese were put in camps. Ted Turner who started CNN forbid reporters from using the term "foreign language." Turner explained "they weren't foreign to those using them." 

As a Latvian immigrant I have scores of other stories but just remember everyone came from immigrants and we came thousands of miles to work and raise families in peace -- not to get welfare and food stamps.

 

 

 

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