The famous quote from Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Except now, many American people and politicians are advocating a caveat: no Muslims need apply.
Why is that? Because of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other terrorist groups that act out violently against the American people and claim to speak in the name of Islam. We will never forget September the 11th, the Boston Marathon, Fort Hood, and the recent event in San Bernardino, California, among others. These American people and politicians believe, as the Islamic State also believes, that there is a war going on between Islam and the West. Therefore, according to their belief system, all Muslims are the enemy. Therefore, we should keep them all out of our country.
In order to support such an idea, Donald Trump, a Republican candidate for president, recently invoked, as a precedent, the decision of Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II to place tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps. This inspite of the fact that not one single act of sabotage was committed against the USA by any one of these American citizens. This decision was one of the most shameful enacted by any US president. But, Donald Trump seems to like it.
This anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim hysteria is not a new circumstance in the history of the United States. One hundred years ago, more or less, it was the Italian immigrants that greatly concerned some American people and politicians. A number of such immigrants were violent anarchists (for example, Sacco and Vanzetti) and gangsters (for example, Al Capone). They were responsible for the murders of many Americans. As a result, there were a number of protests against the Italian immigrant. Should the US government have used these violent acts as an excuse to bar all Italians from entering our country? I'm glad we didn't. Yesterday was the 100th birthday of Frank Sinatra, a son of Italian immigrants.
In 1891, nine Italian immigrants were tried for the murder of the New Orleans Police Chief. In spite of the fact that they were found not guilty in a state court of law, a mob dragged them from their jail cells and lynched them. A newspaper editorial the next day stated that the "Lynch law was the only course open to the people of New Orleans." In 1911, the governor of Louisiana stated that Italians were, "filthier (than Blacks), in (their) habits, lawless, and treacherous." It's difficult today to imagine such blatant anti-Italian prejudice so openly expressed.
In 1924, US Congressman Grant Hudson said, "Now, what do we find in all our large cities? Entire sections containing a population incapable of understanding our institutions, with no comprehension of our national ideals, and for the most part incapable of speaking the English language. Foreign language information service gives evidence that many southern Europeans resent as an unjust discrimation the quota laws and represent America as showing race hatred." Hudson, of course, believed that America needed to protect itself from a foreign enemy.
Let us Americans act, not out of fear and hate, but with reason and compassion towards the current flow of Muslim immigrants who are, after all, only part of the same continuous flow of immigrants who have been coming to our shores since the beginning of our nation. I believe, like the Italian before them, that nearly all of such Muslim immigrants merely want what America offers, a land of opportunity and the freedoms guaranteed in our Bill of Rights. A good example is Abdulfattah Jandali, an immigrant from Syria, who is the biological father of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Inc.
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