An Immigrant Story: Then (1996) and Now (2026)
AN IMMIGRANT STORY: THEN AND NOW
I think many of us who have been around immigrants feel much more connected to them. We tend to understand their experiences. In some cases we empathize more with their struggles more than most people. There’s a big difference between living with a person who was born abroad — which means immigration is a major component of everyday life — as opposed to just interacting with an immigrant on occasion, mostly outside the home perhaps at work or in some other casual encounter. The immigrant experience becomes very deeply personal when you’re married to someone born overseas, or adopted a child from abroad, or became otherwise intertwined physically and emotionally to what is for each and every immigrant a unique story as to how they become Americans (or in many cases seek to become Americans).
This photograph was taken of Marieta Dalla on the Mall in Washington, D.C.. it was taken on the same afternoon she when became a naturalized United State Citizen. This was just a few minutes after her INS ceremony, with people from all over the world gathered near the White House. It’s from 1996. Since we’re coming up on the 30th anniversary of that special date, now might be a good time to reflect on what was going on back then, and comment about what’s going on now. Our 35th anniversary is also approaching. How time flies when you’re having fun and still in love.
Had I not married an immigrant it’s very unlikely I would have the same strong opinions and convictions I do, nor would I be quite as understanding of the immense sacrifices and extraordinary risks so many took to leave their home countries behind and move here. Ask yourself and answer honestly — could you leave everything behind and move to a strange new land where you may not speak the language and you know perhaps no one at all? I think most of us, were we to answer this truthfully, would admit the decision and the struggle would be very difficult. So just maybe, those people vilified by so many millions of Americans who dragged themselves tirelessly across mountains and rivers and deserts simply to get here and work the most difficult jobs might just deserve a little more REPECT.
There are many different kinds of immigrants, of course. They are people, after all. There are good people and some bad people. Most immigrants are good, honest, hard-working people. Contrary to the way the leadership of our nation so often lies about them, all the statistics reveal that immigrants are actually more law-abiding, ambitious, creative, industrious, and interesting (yes, that’s my opinion) than typical native-born Americans. All things being equal, I’d much rather have the “average” immigrant move in next door to me than some Red State good ole’ boy native-born so called “patriotic” American. To me, the decision isn’t even close.
The purpose of making that bold statement isn’t to malign all native-born Americans. After all, I am one. It’s simply to point out that most immigrants, including those still awaiting legalization status and who are victims of grotesque American incompetence in positions of leadership by failing to implement a navigable *pathway* to residency and citizenship, have made far more sacrifices than most of us just to get here, to live here, to work here, and to stay here. And now, to see so many good people attacked, arrested, rounded-up, and vilified …..well, it kinda’ pisses me the fuck off. Spewing lies about rounding up “murderers and rapists” and then sending in military units to hunt down so-called “illegals” like prey on a safari isn’t human. It’s fucking SICK. Seeing farm workers and gardeners and their families thrown into the back of unmarked vans and carted off like cattle by masked men with assault weapons seems about as UN-AMERICAN as it gets.
When Marieta moved to this country three decades ago she was very self-conscious about who she was. Yes, she was “different.” She absolutely hated her accent, which I adored. She didn’t like when strangers asked her where she was from. She quickly tired of other personal questions that aren’t asked to people born here. She went through some adjustments, and some of those times weren’t easy. I remember her being quite upset on a few occasions and her saying she wanted to “be like everybody else.” Of course, I told her if she was just like everybody else, that wouldn’t make her special. I have learned to not only appreciate differences and to admire the small eccentricities — I have come to embrace them.
I think it’s downright unpatriotic to defame other nations and cultures, and few nations seem to do it with such cruelty and veracity more than America — right now — which ironically is a nation of immigrants. There’s nothing patriotic whatsoever about spewing “American Exceptionalism,” especially when the loudest barkers are typically people gifted with privilege all their lives who haven’t made even close to the sacrifices of those who have come here now hiding in fear. Such narcissism strikes me as the ultimate national IN-security. Boasting about how great we are all the time, how powerful, how rich, how dominant, how this, and how that doesn’t impress the people that matter, It belittles ourselves. True strength comes when not having to use power, nor cheer incessant jingoistic arrogance.
Some time ago, when Trump was on TV rambling in his usual chaotic and idiotic fashion, Marieta said something that really struck me. It came from the perspective of someone born abroad, a view of the whole forest and not just the trees, a thought that never would have crossed my mind. She noted that even when living behind the Iron Curtain, under Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship, and being bombarded with constant propaganda about how bad the United States was — she (and most Romanians) knew that Americans were good and decent and smart and wise and noble and kind and possessed virtues that were not always apparent in other countries and societies. How remarkable is that. Even the most authoritarian regimes couldn’t repress the inherent sense of optimism. But now, as the Trump regime approaches the end of its first year of a second term, and the MAGA movement has burned for a decade and the rhetoric of an earlier and much darker period in European history brings fear closer to home, she now has many doubts. Seeing how so many people just like her are now treated and looked upon and targeted and reduced to subhuman degradation in what once called itself “a nation of immigrants” is troubling. And to see native-born Americans often treated with the same disdain just for standing up and protesting, even by our own government and some branches of so-called “law enforcement” is even more terrifying.
It wasn’t America’s enemies who tarnished this nation. And, it certainly isn’t immigrants who are making this nation into something unrecognizable. It’s Americans who are now doing that.
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