My take on Immigration

While I shy away from any sort of 'American Exceptionalism' I can't help but think that being a nation of immigrants has, in a very real way, been good for us.

My great grandparents, who I was lucky enough to know as a child, picked up and left everything they knew, their friends, their family, knowing that it was unlikely that they would ever see them again. They did this because they didn't want their children to work the coal mines of Wales.

My Great Grandparents never saw their mother or father again. The never returned to their homeland. My grandfather, who was six when he came over with his mother (my Great grandfather had come over a year earlier, looking for work) and didn't see any of the family he left behind for over 40 years.

My family's experience is not unusual. Millions of other Americans either lived that story or are descended from people who did.

To uproot yourself and your family and leave for a foreign land takes a special kind of bravery and determination. Without a doubt, America is better for having millions of people with those qualities.

When Right Wing xenophobes talk about immigrants (and by immigrants they mean Mexicans) being the worst of the society they're leaving, they're wrong. The idea that America is an escape valve for Mexico's dregs is a myth. Would-be-Immigrants are some of the most motivated, enterprising people in their societies. It takes money, determination and bravery to come to the U.S. from Mexico. Many people that try it die in the process.

The risks and the sacrifices, though, are not enough to deter people from coming to this country to work very hard in the hopes that their children will have a better life.

Immigrants are the American Dream.

Any attempt to color immigrants as less than American is about just that - color.