A friend of mine and his wife are immigrants, bright and hard working people who run a successful business. I send him my blogs but we had not had a chance to talk about them. We did today.
‘You’re too optimistic,’ he said. ‘The immigrant coming in these days is not the same as those who came in years ago. Today they come ready to make demands’.
I disagreed with him.
Immigrants come in infinite varieties, so surely there are those who fit my friend’s description, but I differ with him in that no matter what attitude the new arrival brings in, the American environment, despite all its hardships and complexities, will have a transformative impact on most and so engage their competitive drive, something that had been stymied in their countries of origin.
I’ll call this effect, the freedom and economic differential.
A few weeks ago I spoke to a person who came from Cuba. She said, ‘In Cuba, the regime restricts people’s ambitions.’
By contrast, America remains a land of opportunity, despite leaders like Trump calling for mass deportations to satisfy supporters who want immediate solutions to their woes. But there is no such thing and thus Trump’s promises are deceptive.
Closing our borders is a sure way to injure ourselves, for it stifles the creative ferment that comes from people willing to risk all they have to improve their lives and reinvent themselves.
That is what becoming an American immigrant is.
The process, however, takes…
Writer and psychiatrist. Writing is thinking -> integrating -> connecting -> enhancing our being. Though we can think without writing.