For perhaps the first time in American history, three parents of the two major presidential candidates were born in other countries. Former President Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born in Scotland. Donald J. Harris was born in Jamaica and Shyamala Gopalan was born in India. They immigrated to the United States searching for a better life.
Immigration is part of the DNA of the United States, a series of links between Americans across generations. According to the Pew Research Center, tens of millions of people have immigrated to the United States since 1840. As of 2022, 13.8% of the population is foreign born.
The federal government should establish International American Roots Day to recognize the long arc of immigrant history. Together with Juneteenth and a new Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the three holidays will place America’s diverse roots at the center of our national identity.
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Since 1607, immigrants have escaped persecution, famine, poverty, and war by coming to the U.S. By the first census in 1790, the country was home to English, Scots-Irish, German, Dutch and other northern Europeans. Starting in the 1840s, waves of immigrants have come here searching for a better life, including the Irish escaping potato famines, the Chinese fleeing the Opium Wars, southern Italians displaced by land reforms, and victims of the Russian czar’s anti-Jewish pogroms. Also, Asian, South American, Caribbean, African and Middle Eastern people came searching for a better life here. In 1848, the U.S. acquired an indigenous Hispanic population through annexation of land in the southwest. Since then, millions of Mexicans and other Latinos have emigrated north. These roots should be recognized.
In 1790, the first census recorded 697,624 slaves living here. It took the Civil War and 150+ years of activism to bring freedom to descendants of those brought here and enslaved. This history is recognized on Juneteenth, the day when the poisonous tree of forced migration was uprooted forever. It is a day for celebration.
A new holiday should be established to recognize the 574 nations of Indigenous people, such as Comanches, Sioux and Iroquois nations. Their history precedes the establishment of the U.S. and continues. These roots should be recognized.
From many roots, indivisible. That is America, now and forever.
James D’Archangelis, Uptown/Buena Park
Money shouldn’t determine who is college material
I take exception to the letter from reader Ronald Hameetman, of Fox River Grove, complaining about student loan forgiveness. I went to college decades ago when it was affordable. Now, tuition and room and board have skyrocketed — much more than most parents’ salaries.
If one qualifies for entrance to college, he or she should not be punished for not having the financial means to attend.
Candy Knippenberg, Naperville
Calling out hate
Thanks for two items items in the Sept. 18 Sun-Times that made neat bookends highlighting racial prejudice in America. Neil Steinberg gave us a look at some of the origins of prejudice, pointing out that, contrary to Donald Trump’s stated belief, Haitians prefer to eat plantains rather than household pets.
Then, Lynn Sweet reported on the finished product of racial prejudice in the person of the hideous Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. This hate-monger apparently believes that all Arab Americans and/or Muslims support terrorism, loudly suggesting that an Arab American Muslim witness at a committee hearing “should hide your head in a bag.”
All this makes a reasonable person want to take a couple of bags, fill them with plantains and shove them down the gullets of both Trump and Kennedy. It might muffle their hate speech.
Jim Bruton, Avondale