America’s Melting Pot is in Meltdown by Gayle J. Greenlea
My roots in America go deep. From my mother, I inherited indigenous American and Scottish blood. My ancestors go back generations and some of them walked the Trail of Tears. My father was Finnish. His mother sailed on a ship to Ellis Island when she was 13-years-old. She met my grandfather en route to America. Sofia Heikkila and Justus Adiel Kivikko married and settled in Wisconsin.
With a stroke of a pen, Trump shattered our heritage and cultural identity as a nation that welcomes immigrants. Politicians in Washington said the Statue of Liberty, symbol of the compassion we have historically offered strangers, is weeping over Trump ‘s ban on refugees, specifically Muslim refugees and anyone fleeing Syria.
In week one of Trump’s presidency, we have lost slivers of our humanity. Trump slices away at us as if we are a cake he cannot consume fast enough. His administration lacks the grace and dignity of the Obama administration. The direction he intends to take us is dark, cold and cruel. Our new president lacks empathy for anyone whose appearance, skin, religion, ability, mobility, gender, or sexual orientation is different from his own. The deconstruction of the White House Web page hints at the dystopia he plans for us, devoid of history and human rights. White supremacy, “alternative facts”, suppression of free speech, and denial of science are being coded into a new American story, and it is not the rich story of immigrants striving together in the pursuit of happiness to achieve equality and defend unalienable rights and self-evident truths. The story embedded in American memory, extolled in our schools and houses of law, the rights enshrined in our Constitution, are being swept away by the arm of a tyrant as carelessly as he might sweep the clutter from his desk.
Trump does not like America, certainly not the America that produced Martin Luther King, John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. His eagerness to blow up Obamacare is more about sticking it to a Black man who dared ascend to power than it is about making the lives of Americans better. Far from building on the promises of our Constitution, Trump is dismantling government as we know it, removing freedoms we take for granted, playing to the hatred of his supporters, the rest of America be damned. He does not care that 20-million people will fall through the cracks when the GOP repeal the AFA; that 36,000 will die each year from lack of health insurance; that more will suffer from the demolition of Medicare and Social Security; that women, Black and Brown people, the disabled, the elderly, and the LGBTQ community are afraid for their safety.
As Trump reeled off another executive order to close the doors of our country, I wept like the Statue of Liberty. Were it not for a kinder, gentler America that embraced those who sought her promises and protection, I would never have been born. My grandparents would have been turned away from Ellis Island. It’s challenging to contemplate ontological being and realize I might never have “been” at all. How many other Americans owe their existence to our country’s hospitality to immigrant or refugee relatives?
We are not a perfect people, nor do we have a perfect history. Our ancestors have struggled, fought and died, survived persecution, starvation, drought. My Cherokee family knew an America that was wrested from them, and became a power that was not kind. As our sisters and brothers at Standing Rock can testify, many Native Americans experience occupiers of their land as hostile and dangerous.
Still, we strive to create a more perfect union. We strive to be kind and inclusive. We strive for equality. We strive to be the great melting pot in which people come together for a common purpose, to create a living democracy in which every voice is heard.
All that is good about America is under threat. Our melting pot is in meltdown. If we want to save ourselves, it’s crucial that we stand up to bullies who bar our doors to those who seek a better life; who like us, value freedom for themselves and their children. We outnumber the bullies. Our voices are powerful if we only speak. Our bodies can “get in the way, get into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble” (John Lewis).
The threat level is high, but it’s not coming from the tired, poor huddled masses at our gates. It’s coming from the heart of our government, from the center of power: the Oval Office. For the sake of decency, our immigrant ancestors, our children, our planet, our hearts, we must oppose Trump. There are people on our “teeming shore” who in their very differences are like us, yearning to breathe free.
