US rediscovers its immigrant roots
Jan 31, 2013 1:31:12 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2013 1:31:12 GMT -5
'The Financial Times' leads this morning with some editorial comment that the US rediscovers its immigrant roots: an opportunity for comprehensive reform must not be lost. It is a sign of how unrecognisably the politics of US immigration has changed that a bipartisan group of senators hurried an announcement of legislative principles to get their word in before President Barack Obama’s speech on the same subject on Tuesday. This suddenly blooming opportunity to fix a broken system – for the benefit of America’s economy, society, and people – must not be left to wither.
President Barack Obama’s decisive victory last November meant that, for the first time in years, the business-friendly pro-reform wing of the Republican party has the upper hand over Tea Party nativists. Hispanics, a fast-growing group to which many undocumented immigrants belong, disproportionately voted for Barack Obama. Republicans cannot expect electoral improvement by limiting themselves to a shrinking demographic constituency of Protestant white men. Remove the irritant of a callous stance on immigrants, and Catholic Hispanic voters may find much to like in the GOP’s socially conservative platform. The salmon pink newspaper concludes thus:
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3fc74c38-6aee-11e2-9670-00144feab49a.html
Over many millennia, my ancestors have emigrated out of Africa, and back again, and around the world. Many of them have gone to the Americas. We are all, in a profound sense, a human family. To be human in the twenty-first century, Sydney Grew, is simply the end product of many millennia of labour by our diverse ancestors. It is a heritage which we spurn at our peril and of which it would be a crime to deprive future generations. Rather, it is our task to preserve and renew it. When I leave the United Kingdom (UK), for any extended period of time, I become an emigrant, an immigrant and a migrant. Even if I can trace my roots back through the millennia, my identity is ultimately in my imagination. I am, ultimately, no more than kleines c.
President Barack Obama’s decisive victory last November meant that, for the first time in years, the business-friendly pro-reform wing of the Republican party has the upper hand over Tea Party nativists. Hispanics, a fast-growing group to which many undocumented immigrants belong, disproportionately voted for Barack Obama. Republicans cannot expect electoral improvement by limiting themselves to a shrinking demographic constituency of Protestant white men. Remove the irritant of a callous stance on immigrants, and Catholic Hispanic voters may find much to like in the GOP’s socially conservative platform. The salmon pink newspaper concludes thus:
" ...A rational, liberal immigration policy befits and benefits a country whose economic greatness and soft power owes so much to its genius for absorbing people from anywhere. Enforcing the system properly is a political sine qua non for earning such a system broad support. But the senators’ proposal to make reform conditional on enforcement is a bad idea. The job of securing the border and expelling criminal migrants has already come a long way. Requiring further improvements to be vetted by future bipartisan consensus is a recipe for letting things drift.
“What is America to me?” asked Abel Meeropol in “The House I Live In”. “The people who just came here – or from generations back” was one of the song’s answers. It is a vision US leaders should reclaim while they can."
“What is America to me?” asked Abel Meeropol in “The House I Live In”. “The people who just came here – or from generations back” was one of the song’s answers. It is a vision US leaders should reclaim while they can."
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3fc74c38-6aee-11e2-9670-00144feab49a.html
Over many millennia, my ancestors have emigrated out of Africa, and back again, and around the world. Many of them have gone to the Americas. We are all, in a profound sense, a human family. To be human in the twenty-first century, Sydney Grew, is simply the end product of many millennia of labour by our diverse ancestors. It is a heritage which we spurn at our peril and of which it would be a crime to deprive future generations. Rather, it is our task to preserve and renew it. When I leave the United Kingdom (UK), for any extended period of time, I become an emigrant, an immigrant and a migrant. Even if I can trace my roots back through the millennia, my identity is ultimately in my imagination. I am, ultimately, no more than kleines c.