4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
ENOUGH
this is not America
A
television commentator recently
summed up the immigration
mess created by President
Donald Trump by paraphrasing Winston
Churchill’s words early in World War II.
After Trump retreated from a pol-
icy that separated children from their
parents, the TV news show guest said:
“This isn’t the end. It’s not the begin-
ning of the end. But we have reached the
end of the beginning.”
Whether incarcerated babies, tod-
dlers and older children will be reunited
with their parents remains to be seen.
The enthusiasm with which the separa-
tion directive was enforced has not been
matched with a corresponding level of
competence. While kids sit in cages,
many of their parents are deported.
Those who are not orphaned for the rest
of their lives will, at the very least, be
permanently scarred by the experience.
A broad mass of Americans watched
this travesty play out in real time and
vehemently rejected the Trump policy
by saying: This is not America. This is
not who we are.
We add our voice to that chorus.
We are all immigrants. Our ances-
tors all came here seeking better lives,
whether freedom from persecution or
a chance to provide a decent living for
their families. And over the centuries,
every wave of immigration to America
has been met with a measure of abuse
from those who preceded them. The
newcomers were often treated as subhu-
man and employed as virtual slave labor,
enduring racial animus that would have
been unthinkable today — until now.
When a million Irish fled starvation
and death in their homeland during the
potato famine of 1845-49, they were
immediately relegated to the lowest
rung of society. “No Irish need apply”
signs were common. So what did they
do? They set to work building our roads,
railroads and cities. They persevered and
assimilated.
When 4 million Italians arrived
between 1880 and 1924 to escape grind-
ing rural poverty, most began their new
lives as manual laborers, toiling in the
factories, mines and the fields. They dis-
covered that not only were the streets
not paved with gold, but they were
expected to pave them.
When large numbers of Chinese
began arriving in Astoria in 1876 to
work in the canneries, the pattern
repeated itself. Often referred to as “coo-
lies,” they were the workhorses of the
city’s fish processing industry. They
were widely scorned as human beings,
but they went on to build key ele-
ments of the town. The founder of The
Astorian, DeWitt Clinton Ireland, did
his part in making the Chinese an object
of derision. Then we had the Exclusion
Act, sending Chinese home.
And in the 1920s, when the Ku
Klux Klan rose to power in Astoria and
around the state, a hatred of blacks,
immigrants, communists and Catholics
boiled to the surface.
It would be hard to find a small
American town with as much evi-
dence of immigrants’ contributions than
Astoria. Look at the rich contributions
of Scandinavians — Swedes, Finns,
Danes, Norwegians and Icelanders.
Today, Hispanic immigrants are essen-
tial to our workforce and our regional
economy.
What, then, are we to make of the
Clatsop County Historical Society
Residents of Chinatown in Astoria prepare for a Regatta Festival at the turn of the 20th century.
Columbia River Maritime Museum
Chinese cannery workers in Astoria.
Library of Congress
This cartoon was published around the time of the 1887 massacre of Chinese workers
in Hells Canyon.
‘America cannot afford a leader who treats people
with such malicious and careless abandon. It is morally
wrong. History will not judge him well, nor should it.’
current wave of xenophobia sweep-
ing our nation against Hispanics and
Muslims?
Trump’s election has unleashed a
level of racial and religious invective
unknown in our recent history, at least
outside the South. Many otherwise
upstanding Americans suddenly find
it acceptable to publicly castigate any-
one who doesn’t look, sound or worship
like them. They’ve been emboldened
by the leadership of a president who not
only doesn’t represent “all Americans,”
as he promised in his inaugural address,
but insults many of them daily via his
Twitter feed. The voices of hatred have
emerged from closets and dining rooms
and spilled out onto the streets, with a
full-throated roar.
Trump has brought the full force of
the nation’s military and law enforce-
ment apparatus to bear on an issue that
most of the country doesn’t think is a
problem. A record-high 75 percent of
Americans, including majorities of all
party groups, think immigration is a
good thing for the U.S. — up slightly
from 71 percent last year, according to
a recent Gallup poll. Just 19 percent of
the public considers immigration a bad
thing.
The heavy-handed tactics — often
featuring agents outfitted in full military
gear using armored vehicles, helicop-
ters and police dogs — are worthy of a
totalitarian state. Entire factories full of
employees are rounded up and checked
for citizenship papers. Buses far from
the border are boarded without search
warrants. Agents are stationed at court-
houses, libraries and other public places.
In one local case, a hardwork-
ing, law-abiding immigrant in Pacific
County was hunted down, carried off to
detention and separated from his family
because he dared to speak to a newspa-
per about his experiences.
One cannot help thinking how things
would have turned out had a demagogue
like Trump been at the helm during
the civil rights movement. Would he
have sent in troops to desegregate the
University of Mississippi and Central
High School in Little Rock, Arkansas?
Or would he have arrested the black stu-
dents instead, for daring to demand an
equal education?
It is apparent that Trump launched
this policy of separating children from
parents with no plan. He has debased
our national conversation in order to
make political points. He has normal-
ized the denigration of the other, whose
victim this month is Hispanics at the
border. His most damning tactic was
to turn this group of human beings into
objects to be treated inhumanely by
agents on the government payroll.
America cannot afford a leader who
treats people with such malicious and
careless abandon. It is morally wrong.
History will not judge him well, nor
should it.