My father was an immigrant. He did it legally; he got citizens to guarantee a job, filled out all the necessary paperwork and waited for approval. He came to this country with hopes, a job to earn his keep, and a desire to make a life for himself and to help his mother (a widow) and his sister.
He also came with a vision of America. He often told me that he knew people here were different... from many parts of the world. But he also said they (and He) came here to become a part of what America was... a blending of many nationalities that came with a common desire to become "better" than they could in their "home" country.
Dad respected his birth country, Norway, and honored the people there. BUT he always pointed to his citizenship papers and was proud to say he was an American... not a Norwegian-American, but just... American. He came here not to reproduce Norway, but to become a part of what America is all about. And he saw people joining in pride to be part of that whole.
Sure, many nationalities upon arrival banded together to make their adjustment easier, even as their children went to school and became proficient in English, history, and learned how to succeed in America... and to be proud of belonging.
My father loved music and he often made the analogy comparing America to an orchestra. All classes of instruments are different, and the players have different abilities as well as individual attributes. But they come together knowing the purpose is to advance the performance of the orchestra. They are segregated by instrumentation, they play different parts, they interpret music in varying ways. But all that individuality is voluntarily subjugated to the conductor's direction and interpretation to create a whole... a whole musical offering that sees the beauty of the unified effort and vision.
THAT was the America that welcomed (well, mostly. Even "square heads" were joked about and not always welcome in the beginning) his presence and his willingness to "take a chance" and depend on his own self-worth and the quality of that effort.
Today, many in America want each instrument to not only "be in charge" of their music, but to declare that to not get their own way was an insult and a lack of respect. That seems true within the instrument category and withing all of the instruments in what used to be an orchestra. That "orchestra" has turned into a group of anarchists producing chaos instead of music and not even being in the same room without throwing words (or worse) at each other. The Conductor has been "cancelled" and two attitudes have taken over:
- victimhood, and
- tribal narcissism
