The Pilgrims Were the First "Illegal" Immigrants

Last week's New Americans Agenda report has already received a very non-traditional reception in Massachusetts.

Did you expect anything else? After all, it is not like we have leaders like Massasoit around anymore who understood that the poor people who arrived on his shores without papers, without languages skills, or the skills to survive are human beings. He denied no children of the undocumented parents who came here from learning how to plant, how to fish, how to hunt or prohibited their ability to provide for their families.

It was that spirit of welcoming and pure Americanism that we celebrate at Thanksgiving. Or not?

Massasoit clearly began the tradition of helping out one's neighbor even if he or she was different. Perhaps it should be stated loudly and clearly that the Pilgrims were the first illegals here. They were the first to receive government assistance via the Wampanoags.

But then again, never confuse the nobility of the Algonquin-speaking peoples to that of those word warriors of today who use their pontifications to build a wall of false perception which can turn normally-kind adults against children.

Take Howie Carr [a Boston Herald newspaper columnist].  He posted a column on Friday [Nov. 20, 2009] in which he tells his readers that in-state tuition for the children of people who broke a law, but have not been convicted, should be read as "free tuition."

Really, Howie?

That phrase itself may seem odd if you took journalism 101 which states that you never refer to someone in a story as having done something illegal until you hear a judge say it in court. But why should that matter?

In an editorial in the Patriot Ledger, there is support for programs that support legal immigrants, but the last paragraph puts the children of parents who have allegedly committed crimes, under the bus.  "But when immigration advocates and political leaders tout measures that undermine immigration laws and benefit those here illegally, they have crossed the line."

Really? So we are to blame the kids for the decisions their parents made to come here? Where does it end? We want them to stay in school, stay out of trouble, but we are like Lucy, who takes away the football from Charlie Brown.

The problem is that unless there is a certain degree of balance in the presentation of immigrant life, hardships, contributions, risks, viewpoints, people end up building an impression fed by words like "illegal," free tuition," and "handouts."

It sounds great. Let's get tough on people who committed misdemeanors and hold them up to standards for which we do not hold up others in the state where illegal immigration began.

It is really sad. In 2003 when Mitt Romney rode into the governor's office by way of stepping on the backs of immigrants, he also pushed forward a plan to end bilingual education. It sounded good on the surface, but in reality it set back a generation.

Surprised? Can you learn a language in a year? Few can. Few have. That was in the report too. But that doesn't matter.  As a society in Massachusetts and elsewhere, we have let a mass mentality stoked by sometimes false perceptions that shape our thoughts. We see the Pilgrims as nobles, not illegals, but we see kids of people who have committed a misdemeanor as devils.