Musings: Migrant kids part of our future

At the turn of the 20th century, the Nordic Supremacy Theory was in vogue in the United States. It was predicated on the hypothesis that northern and western Europeans were superior to southern and eastern Europeans.

Those deemed inferior were the Italians, Greeks, Jews, and Slavs. The fear in the United States was that America was losing its whiteness, its racial purity. This resulted in The Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively curtailed immigrants from those countries for 41 years until President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

These immigrants were clustered into neighborhoods of their own ethnicity, worked in different trades and raised large families. The sons of these immigrants would fill all the branches of the military during World War II. They would be among those who stormed the beaches of Normandy and those who fought their way from island to bloody island in the Pacific. They were the heart and soul of America.

Parallels can be drawn between their experiences and those of current migrants. Despite today’s outcries from a sizable portion of the United States about migrants entering the country illegally, the real underlying reason seems to be their skin color and ethnicity. President Donald Trump himself had suggested during a January 2018 Oval Office meeting that our country should have more Norwegians.

Most of the current migrants are desperate people trying to make a better life for themselves and their children. Many navigated through 66 miles of snake-infested jungle in the Darien Gap with their possessions on their backs and their children in tow.

In those children I can see future doctors, nurses, scientists, builders, farmers, law enforcement, and military personnel. We need them as much as they need us. The law-abiding ones should be given a path to citizenship, not deprived of it.

— Vincent Fiordalisi, East Norwich