Editor of the Forum:
When I was in the 8th grade in 1950-51, we had a big fat blue history book; the rule was that we had to pass the 8th Grade Constitution and U.S. History test or we wouldn't be allowed to graduate and go to high school.
I remember one vocabulary lesson where we had to learn the meaning of some very big words, and we had to understand what they meant in the context of American history.
Xenophobia was a word that came from the Greek and meant a "fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, especially of strangers or foreign people.
Nativism had to do with fear that your culture would be adversely affected by immigrants.
"Know-nothings" were people who belonged to a political party in the U.S. in the 1850's who were afraid that Catholic immigrants from Europe would overwhelm the U.S. and be controlled by the Pope.
Children were expected to memorize things in those days: the Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the Constitution, the words of the National Anthem, and the words engraved upon the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
We 8th graders had grown up during WWII. We knew well the ideals which our fathers and uncles and fought for. We 8th graders were proud to know that our country was far beyond the ignorance of the xenophobic, nativistic Know-Nothing people who were ignorant and prejudiced, and who didn't believe in what the constitution said. We knew that America stood for something better than that.
(We didn't know yet that there was a long way to go. In our early adulthood we lived through the Civil Rights Movement. We saw our peers take great risks to make sure that America would become what we had been told in 8th grade it already was.)
Now I am old, and I see a resurgence of navitism and xenophobia. Do we really need to protect ourselves by rounding up young men like Edgar Ayala and expel them from our country: I don't know Edgar. I hear he was an honor student at FHS where I taught for 27 years, a member of the FHS wrestling team, a potential recruit to the U.S. Navy? Sounds to me like just the kind of person we'd want to keep here.
What are we becoming? Does anyone still study the constitution and care about protecting what it stands for? My ancestors arrived in 1635. They didn't have permission to enter this country. They didn't have title to the land they settled on. They didn't have a passport or a visa. They did what people do. They migrated to where they thought life would be better for them and their children. We have no "right" to this land. We live here with others who got here in a variety of ways. We better just get along with each other, show respect, and accommodate to others who join us. I knew in the 8th grade "Know-nothings" were small-minded, selfish, and contemptible. They still are, and it makes me sad and sick to hear them spew their un-American venom on cable TV and radio talk-shows.
Please don't protect me by betraying the ideals on which this country is founded. Don't protect me by deporting Edgar Ayala and people like him! Let's not let the "Know-Nothings" take over our country – they were an embarrassment in 1850. They should know better by now.
Marsha West
