This Fourth of July, I’m thinking about freedom, generosity, and gratitude.
My Paternal Grandparents
I’m grateful to my paternal grandfather, who left Russia in 1914 and worked as a shoemaker in America, earning enough money by 1921 to send for my grandmother and their two sons. I’m especially grateful to this grandmother. I wish I knew how she managed to survive the Russian Revolution as a single mother.
I’m also grateful to HIAS for helping reunite my grandparents and uncles at Ellis Island, where they were welcomed to the US.
My Maternal Grandparents
I’m grateful to my maternal grandfather for eluding the recruitment officers and shipping to America, and to my maternal great-grandparents for uprooting themselves and their children and making their way here.
One of those children became my grandmother. She was about nine when she arrived and started kindergarten, quickly acquiring language and catching up to her age cohort. But her family’s finances required she go to work after eighth grade.
My Parents
Both my parents were born in the US, and came of age during The Great Depression. Nevertheless, they received stellar educations in New York City public schools and colleges. In 1943, as soon as my father turned eighteen, he interrupted his college education to enlist in the US Army. He served as an infantryman in Europe, was wounded, survived.
Me
I am the beneficiary of American public policy that welcomed my immigrant forbearers and educated their children. My parents, in turn, joined the work force, paid taxes, volunteered in their communities, and taught me and my brothers to give back.
Freedom & Generosity
I continue to enjoy the very freedom and public generosity that our government is now systematically denying people very much like my grandparents: poor, non-English speaking, courageous people willing to risk everything for a chance of a better life for their children in America.
I grieve for the children separated from their parents at our border, and for their parents, who have risked everything in their pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I long for a nation rededicated to the freedom and generosity extended to my immigrant grandparents, my parents, and me.
That was wonderful. You brought tears to my eyes. Wishing a very happy Independence Day to all!
Beautifully written and from the heart. I am in despair at what is going on in USA and in Britain. Jingoism, xenophobia, homophobia, racism are all on the rise.
Inspiring history. The most recent immigration in the families my husband and I grew up in was 1850s, from Germany, and we don’t know their reasons.
However, immigration is responsible for our two treasured grandsons-in-law; Juan’s great-grandmother was a citizen–his father came within the last few decades. Gabriel’s parents came sometime before Gabe was born. Both families raised their children to be the hard-working, highly skilled, family-oriented, and loving men who make our Turkish-American granddaughters happy and us, of WASP extraction, happy, and we love being members of those extended families.
We are relieved to be too worn out with extra “stuff” to attend 4th of July fireworks with our retired-Air Force daughter at the nearby base because we want to kneel instead of standing for the National Anthem (but would have to sit with heads bowed because we aren’t physically able to kneel) but don’t want to embarrass our daughter and her friends, who would expect to help us stand up from the bleachers!
We’ve seen news about Jews arrested for blocking detention centers with “Never again” banners. Good for them! We live near the former Manzanar where Japanese were imprisoned (some while family members fought and died for the U.S.). The repetition of those atrocities is horrifying. It’s time for prayer, not pride.
Somewhere, sometime, all of us had ancestors with the courage to look for better lives for their children.