“Go back to where you came from.”

"Go back to where you came from.”

While walking through the Seattle Airport yesterday I was struck by the social, racial and ethnic melting pot we have become. We are all from somewhere else. One fork of my family arrived 150 years ago in steerage from Wales. Yours, maybe, from a clandestine crossing of the Rio Grande or in chains from the west coast of Africa. We have a sad history of acceptance.

It didn’t start with one ignorant bigot and his Wall. First it was the Chinese over 120 years ago, who were excluded. Then, the Mexicans. In 1917, a law was passed that a new immigrant had to prove they could read. In 1924 the National Origins Act said you had to prove you can read in English. It cut Italian immigration in five years from millions to less than 4,000 a year. Of course, this was after new immigrants had done most of the hard work of building America.

My Italian side of the family were orchard farmers. They came to America and rooted out the subways of New York City. My ancestors from Wales tunneled deep into the mountains of Pennsylvania to supply a new nation’s bursting industrial expansion with its insatiable need for coal. Chinese immigrants built almost one half a million miles of railroad, dangerous and back breaking work that spearheaded the winning of the west.

Forget the hoax of MAGA. It is a racist dog whistle with no historical foundation. By the 20th century, as the upstart nation of America grew into a world power, they kept coming. Their sacrifices Made America Great to begin with. “Go back to where you came from.” If you cannot see this for the blatant racism it is, then you have forgotten that you as well came from somewhere else.