I'm descended from illegal immigrants

[wcast]

My great-great grandparents(both sides)were illegal immigrants. My great-grandfather, who was a child at the time, was an illegal immigrant. My great-grandmother was born from her illegal immigrant parents just after they crossed the border. She spoke nothing but her parents' native language until she went to school. Always spoke with a thick accent. The border they crossed was Canada, couldn't get a visa, and they were all from Italy (Parma) around 1910 or so.

The problem with blaming the individuals as common criminals, or "they should have known better" is that this system has been in place for a long time(as noted by my personal anecdote above)And it's continued to be in place as big business wants it so. And so do Americans!! People want their $5 pair of pants from wal-mart. They want cheap meat, produce, etc. regardless of who is picking it, raising it, butchering it. Most Americans put out of their mind the conditions that these people work in, the little pay, no benefits, abuse, etc, whether it's on this side of the border, or in another country. Republicans love it as it's another whipping boy they can use to rile up the electorate, as with abortion and gay marriage, with no real plan to ever stop it.

Cesar Chavez said, “. . . when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration Service has removed strikebreakers. . . .The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking . . .” Is that any less true today?!

It's been this way since slavery was outlawed. Every new wave of immigrants are used as, basically, slave labor. And Americans have always railed about it, just as we rail about taxes. I think it's in our DNA. Ben Franklin was worried that we would all be Germans! America has always been a beacon to the oppressed around the world. And I'm proud of that!! Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

We could stop most illegal immigration if we really wanted to, and people know it. Fine the employers and be willing to pay higher prices for goods and services. Let Americans work those jobs for minimum wage. But we don't stop it, and I doubt we ever will. And I'd be willing to bet that if most of these people were light-skinned, and could assimilate in a generation or two as my ancestors did, there would be a lot less outcry.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Me too

Welcome to DU :hi:

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Same here!

[sarge43]

3. Welcome to DU

You summed up the situation perfectly. Thank you.

A fair share of my ancestors didn't have a green card either.

[Uben]

4. I'm a native American

I remember when those illegal white people came to America in 1492 on those big boats. We shoulda sent em packin back then! Bastards took our land and gave us some damn trinkets and shit, like that was fair or something. Oh, they were nice in the beginning, offering us a few of our own damn turkeys for a peace offering and showing us how to grow tobacco. How did that work out?
Just goes to show ya, let them white male europeans get started and the next thing you know, they act like they own the damned place!

[NNN0LHI]

9. You had Tonto so it ain't all good

[Bitwit1234]

5. I can say that because

my ancestors on the maternal and paternal side came to this country in the early 1700's. They had no visa, they did not apply to be citizens the just came. In fact goodness knows what our original ancestor on my father's side's ancestors came from. He took the name from out of the blue. 50 years of research can not find that name the world over except in this country. So maybe they were criminals kicked out of Merry Old England.

So I think just about most of us have these type of ancestors. Huh folks.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

6. Heck I was an illegal immigrant

for about two years.

[Bigmack]

7. All four of my grandparents, too....

snuck in from Canada.

Irish Catholics and French Catholics. You know how popular they were around the turn of the 20th century? Vermin.

The French ones never learned English.

We all worked hard and became the typical overfed, overworked, over-extended Americans that we are today.

Mexicans? I guess they are different somehow. Those Mexican "Illegal alien" guys I know in our tiny winter hometown with the two jobs and always hustling to pick up a few bucks must somehow be different. They must be Bad People, whereas my ancestors were Good People. Jeeezus!

Your last paragraph says it all.

[slackmaster]

8. I'm not

All of my ancestors came legally.

[Go2Peace]

10. Mine too, where do we get this myth that most people came here illegally?

Most people came here through the "front door", signed a docket and paid an entry fee. A lot of them did not become citizens, because for a long time we did not require it. Their childrens did become citizens though. But most immigration has been *legal* and was orderly.

There has also always been a stigma about people "without papers". Anyone else heard the old term "WASPS"? That is what they used to call them. But even so, most of the people without papers (without citizenship) came here legally through the front door.

[meow2u3]

17. Regarding "without papers"

They were known not as "WASPS" (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), but "WOPS"! It's still an ethnic slur aimed at Italian-Americans.

My grandfather (mother's side) came to the US legally, so he didn't mind being called a wop. That's because it wasn't true of him.

[Go2Peace]

18. Yes, thanks for correcting that.

[emilyg]

12. Same here.

[Richard Steele]

20. BULLSHIT. "Legally" according to whom?

If I chase my neighbor out of his house at gunpoint,
and then sell the house to you, it's not really your house
no matter how much paperwork I prepare to record
the financial transaction that ocurred between you and I.

Your ancestors were no more 'legal' than mine,
they just didn't get their hands as bloody.

[treestar]

25. I don't think anyone could really prove that

Unless they were recent immigrants, relatively.

But so what? OP is just as valuable a citizen as you.

[11 Bravo]

11. So am I (mine came over on the Mayflower).

[pipi_k]

14. Mr Pip's came over on the Mayflower too

descended from Mary Chilton


:)

[11 Bravo]

22. George Soule, here.

[treestar]

24. All of them? You're surely descended from somebody who came

illegally. I don't believe there could be anyone with a pure Mayflower only blood line.

[pipi_k]

13. Yeah, me too....although

the "crime" goes way back, in most cases, to the late 1500s/early 1600s when many of my ancestors came over from France and settled in Canada without asking the Native Peoples for permission.

Although there were some intermarriages with the Aboriginals (M'ikmaq for sure, Penobscot maybe) in some cases, so I guess there weren't too many hard feelings on that score.

;)



As for how my ancestors got to the US from Canada, I'm assuming they went the "legal" route and got the proper papers and all.

That's my dad's side.

On my mom's side, some of them were French Canadian, some were English. All arrived in North America without consulting the original occupants.

[Daninmo]

15. Some of my people

Some of my ancestors (Cherokee) came south through what is now Canada to the now USA. Don't know who was here before them. Maybe the Mayans or Incas, Aztecs, before they migrated further south. I don't think there was much written history or documentation back then. Some of my ancestors came in the front door, back in the 1800's from Europe.

Times have obviously changed.

[Obamanaut]

16. But if one of the subsequent generations was born here, doesn't

that make them 'legal', thus becoming 'anchor babies'?

[Richard Steele]

19. My family is descended from 2 Steele brothers who arrived here around 1715.

No one gave them any sort of permission to come here.

[MellowDem]

21. The outcry...

is because of the numbers. It's not the light-skinned thing. It's the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants annually thing. That's never happened before from any other immigrant group. As it is, Hispanics do assimilate in a generation or two, as other immigrants do.

[treestar]

23. "Every new wave of immigrants are used as, basically, slave labor."

Exactly. And adding in "you are illegal" is just so mean and rotten. It's like you're supposed to be here and work without legal protection for crappy wages and we'll benefit from cheap prices but we'll also go around with our noses in the air that you're not legal.