Someone at the gym: "Our ancestors were immigrants, but they came here LEGALLY!"

[Ardent15]

Yes, I overheard someone say that today at the gym.

And the person was white.

....

[Ian David]

1. They've never seen a John Wayne movie, have they? n/t

[SmileyRose]

2. The Pilgrims had H1B visas?

Who'd a thunk it?

[Duer 157099]

3. Now c'mon, that could be entirely true

Ancestors could be just a couple of generations ago, and most people *did* immigrate legally, through Ellis Island.

Unless he meant the settlers, which he probably did not.

[NWHarkness]

12. Actually, I don't believe that.

Just a thought, mind you, I don't have any stats for this. But I have a hard time believing that a tremendous number of people didn't just get off boats in Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc. and wander away into the country, or wander across the Canadian or Mexican borders without checking in with anyone.

My own family, on my father's side, lived along the St Clair River.Both sides, sometimes in Ontario, sometimes in Michigan. When my uncle, who was born in Canada, married my aunt, who was born in Michigan, he just moved in with her and her family. No one even gave any thought to paperwork. (That was in the 1920s).

I don't think anyone ought to be too sure that their family came here "legally". It defies logic to think that the border was less porous a hundred years ago than it is now.

[FarCenter]

13. A hundred years ago, the trip from Europe to the US was usually one-way

Travel was expensive and infrequent. Many immigrants never visited the relatives left behind.

Given the low volume of travel, it was pretty easy to check on immigrants. They were especially keen on keeping out various communicable diseases, since lots of diseases were lethal in the days before antibiotics.

Lots of immigrants came through the Castle in lower Manhattan before Ellis Island was opened up to better isolate the immigrants until they were processed in. The visit to Ellis Island's museum is worth it.

[NWHarkness]

16. Low volume? We are talking about millions of people!

Do you really think every person who wanted to come to the US debarked for New York? That no one got off a ship in Boston or New Orleans and just walked into the crowds at the docks.

I don't buy into all this "MY people did it the right way" thing. I suspect that most Americans have undocumented ancestors.

[FarCenter]

30. Most immigrants came through New York

"Between 1880 and 1930 over 27 million people entered the United States - about 20 million through Ellis Island."

http://www.ellisisland.org/immexp/wseix_5_3.asp

The other ports were also controlled. You don't just walk off the ship. The rate was about 1500 / day on average over the 50 years. That would be equivalent to only several international airplane arrivals per day. It is easily controlled by a small number of immigration officials using paper and ink.

[hunter]

34. My wife can find immigration papers for all her ancestors.

Not difficult at all, since many were more recent 20th century immigrants, one from Ellis Island even. Two of her grandparents immigrated from Mexico to work in the fields.

I got nothing. Some of my ancestors seem to have wandered in from Canada to settle briefly in Ohio and Wisconsin and others apparently landed in California to seek their fortunes without checking in.

One of my ancestors and her sister were bought imported from Europe by the Mormons as "mail order" bride/servants. Her sister became a good Mormon wife, she ran off without paying her "debts." Utah was NOT what she had been promised.

Probably quite a few people lost their identities that way: as runaway indentured servants or as debt slaves. That kind of crap still happens today.

[treestar]

18. Many did not

It would be surprising if anyone could prove a clear record for all their ancestors on that point.

Besides, there were few or no restrictions then. That one is always stupid. If laws like the ones we have now were on the books, their ancestors would have been illegal and still would have come.

[The Straight Story]

4. Based upon the immigration policy at the time, they did

;)

[LetsgoWings13]

5. when did an immigration process start?

if people came before there was a way to immigrate here then there should be nothing wrong with that, what were they suppose to do? If they came here illegally when there was a process to go through then it is wrong.

[treestar]

19. The "process" back then was to just show up

Now there are many restrictions.

Just try filing for an imaginary H1b. Or anything. go online and pretend you're a foreigner and see if you could possible qualify to come legally.

[salguine]

6. Did it occur to you that possibly, just possibly, his ancestors were

immigrants that came here, as you put it, "LEGALLY!"?

I don't understand what you're upset about. If you're upset that he's remarking that his ancestors were immigrants who came to this country legally, why? It's just a statement.

If you're upset because he's inferring that a lot of immigrants in recent years have come here illegally, well, why? Is that not true?

I'm turning that statement over and over to see what's so shocking in it, but I don't. Help me.

[treestar]

20. It is because people who say this are trying to assert themselves

as superior - when our ancestors came, anyone could come.

And still many came illegally too - they are assuming because they are white everything was "legal" somehow.

Their ancestors could likely not have qualified under the restrictive laws of today - mine could not have. I also know of at least one who came illegally, and think most of these people will have at least one or a few who did not come in some purely legal way even back then.

It's just a stupid excuse for "I'm white, hahahaha, I was born superior."

[DCBob]

7. My grandparents came here legally in 1905 from Hungary with 25 bucks and a baby.

They were sponsored by a friend in East St Louis who helped my grandfather get a factory job. The rest is history.

[NoPasaran]

8. My grandparents came through Ellis Island

Damn straight they came here legally. You got some kind of problem with that?

[B Calm]

24. Mine came over in 1911. They needed coal mine slaves to work the

mines in eastern Illinois.

[gratuitous]

9. And any number of folks arrive here legally

But, after carving out a life for themselves, starting a family and a career, their inability to get through the immigration labyrinth turns them illegal. And that could be due to a failure to fill out a form, or because the INS can't get its act together, or for about a skabillion other reasons. I suppose we could raise taxes to hire more personnel for the INS. Let's let Gov. Brewer and the Arizona Legislature go to the front of that line.

[underpants]

10. There were allowed to come (after being recruited) to processing points, examined, ....

and allowed in

We don't do that now because
a. the corporations like people without full rights because they can PAY THEM LESS
b. they could organize

[Initech]

11. Next time ask him to prove it.

[treestar]

21. Yes!

Exactly, most of them could not and would probably find someone illegal. That who meme is a pure myth. Just because you are white does not mean all of your ancestors followed even the loose restrictions back then.

And what of before Ellis Island?

[Igel]

14. First, why does the person's race matter?

The ancestors of Native Americans immigrated legally, after all. Even the Eskimos, relative late comers.

The very first immigrants in the New World were probably completely swamped by later arrivals, but while the first arrivals may have resisted they lost, either by war (albeit fought in thousands of small skirmishes over millennia) or through being demographically outnumbered and assimilated. In any event, immigration via invasion and genocide through great demographic growth was a time-honored right.

Which gets to the second point: "Legally." If there's no immigration policy--and there wasn't for a long time--then it was legal. Assuming the usual American POV that what's not against the law is legal, as opposed the flip POV, unless it's allowed by law it's illegal.

[leeloo]

15. Maybe the ancestors came through Ellis Island?

[MrScorpio]

17. When my ancestors came to America, they came here legally too

The laws allowed for slavery and my ancestors were considered its commerce

[proudohioan]

22. You know, that one really puts it all into perspective!!!!! K&R!!!!

[Codeine]

23. Not every white dude is descended from Pilgrims.

My own family all came here in the 20th century, a number of them post-WW2. :shrug:

[Cartoonist]

25. The first immigrants

I always get bothered when someone says, "we were here first," and they clearly are not indigenous people.

[BlueIris]

26. Does anyone remember that time in 2001 when Pat Buchanan was railing against immigrants

in a "conference interview type thing" with Cornell West, and West called him on the fact that his ancestors also immigrated to the United States and Pat Buchanan went all psycho? While pointing (pointing!) at Cornell West, (well, at the screen) Pat Buchanan said, "When my ancestors came to this country--first of all--" (still pointing) "--legally--"

Cornell West started laughing. And I realized that Pat Buchanan had just implied that a black man in America was somehow descended from people who immigrated here illegally. I mean, there was something illegal about how they got here, but I doubt it had anything to do with Cornell West's relatives being so desperate to get to America that they deliberately broke immigration laws to do so. :-)

[Obamanaut]

27. I go to a gym. My father came here legally from Denmark and became

a citizen, and served in the Army in WW1. I've seen his citizenship papers, as well as his military papers. I am white. We do exist.

On edit. unrec

[Bigmack]

28. All four of my grandparents....

came into this country from Canada. They just walked across the border. No papers involved. Illegal aliens.

Canada had looser immigration requirements than the US did, and all four were Catholic.... two from France, and two from Ireland.

It took some digging to find this out, since the folks didn't advertise their lack of papers. I wonder how many of our proud 'Murikans have similar stories, but just don't know about them.

[rustydog]

29. Too bad you couldn't ask them if it physically hurts when they "think"

and did it hurt when they pulled such a huge asinine remark out of their ass?

[ipaint]

31. I'm white and there are illegal immigrants on both sides of my family.

Grandparent and great grandparents, all from Europe.

[Motown_Johnny]

32. Mine came here legally too, are you saying that they didn't?

What exactly is your point?

Do you want open boarders?

[pampango]

33. "Legally" and "illegally" as determined by the European immigrants who preceded them.

I doubt anyone ever checked with the Native Americans to see if they had a policy against "immigrants", be they Europeans or from a neighboring tribe, taking their land. Something tells me they fought pretty hard for their land and didn't exactly have an "open borders" policy. Obviously European immigrants could not have cared less whether indigenous people were "allowing" them to take their land or not. Europeans could say that coming to the New World was not "illegal" in the sense that the Native Americans didn't have written laws to break, but unwritten "laws" (traditions, values, etc.) were certainly broken.

Once enough had been killed or displaced, European immigrants (and their "native" descendants) could pass laws regulating further immigration. While the now American government decided that high levels of immigration were "legal" that didn't mean that immigrants were welcomed by the descendants of earlier immigrants. We all know the history of attitudes toward the Irish, Italian, Germans, Polish, etc. They were viewed by most "real" Americans as competition for jobs and downward pressure on wages, even though they were "legal".

While some immigrants have been more "legal" than others, partly depending on whether you count unwritten laws and customs, almost none of them were ever "welcome" by either the native inhabitants or the immigrants (and their descendants) who preceded them. Some things never change.

The whole focus on immigration from Mexico would never have occurred if Bush had been president in 1848. He not only would have invaded Mexico, as we did, but he would have held on to it. Today we wouldn't just have parts of our SouthWest from Mexico, we would have the whole country. It would be another state (or several) in the US and immigration wouldn't be an issue. "Mexicans" would be all over the US. (Of course they wouldn't be "Mexicans" they would be Americans.)

Of course if we had lost that war much of our SouthWest would still be Mexico. We would have to build our border wall in a different place to keep out the Californians, New Mexicans, and Arizonans who would, no doubt, be trying to sneak across the California/Oregon border as we speak.

[derby378]

35. I've noticed that there are some Hispanics who came here legally...

...but they have little tolerance for those who cross the border illegally. The way they see it, they filled out the forms, cut themselves off from their families for months or even years, and did everything they were supposed to do in order to become American citizens. And a few of these Hispanics even joined groups like the Minutemen because they simply ran out of patience with those who illegally came to America purely for economic reasons.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. Our ancestors also hung witches and used cocaine LEGALLY!

Just sayin'.