Deborah levine
DL Opinion columns

July 4th: “Land that I Love” – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

I love celebrating July 4 by singing the famous song, “God Bless America – Land that I Love”. Yesterday, I asked a young friend if he knew that song. He immediately started humming the tune and we ended up happily singing it together. Then I asked him if he knew who wrote it. He had no idea, but knew the song because “God Bless America” is sung at baseball games as a patriotic anthem. Irving Berlin, who wrote 1,000 famous songs, claimed that this great song is one of life-long gratitude. Not surprising since his Jewish family emigrated from Siberia/Russia and Berlin began his career singing for pennies as a kid on the streets of Brooklyn, NY.

Immigration these days is a topic of huge contention with plans to deport as many as possible in a short amount of time time as possible. Originally, those plans only applied to criminals, but that was obviously a marketing scam. Now, you can be deported even if you have no criminal record, have a job and pay taxes. And if you were born in America, but your mom wasn’t a U.S.citizen, you don’t have citizenship and can be deported. I wonder if that applied to Donald Trump’s kids with two of his wives who were immigrants without American citizenship when they gave birth. Should we discuss deporting Ivana Trump’s children: Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric as well as Melania Trump’s son, Barron? Get real!

We’re looking at current immigration limits that apply to racial and ethnic folks. This is nothing new. In the early 1920s, legislation like the Johnson-Reed Act accepted immigrants from Northern and Western Europe but limited those from Southern and Eastern Europe. The resulting quotas affected Jews, Africans and Asians with the goal of protecting American ‘racial stock’ by limiting these so-called undesirables. 

Fortunately, Berlin’s family came to the U.S. before these quotas or he’d never have earned this testimonial: ”Irving Berlin has no place in American music – he is American music.” July 4 should be a time to celebrate Berlin and other famous immigrants for their dedication to this country, the land that they loved, and their contributions to our culture, science and politics. Who might these people be? 

Here are just a few of the immigrants deserving a July 4th shout-out: Nikola Tesla (engineer – Serbia), Levi Strauss (fashion – Germany), Joseph Pulitzer (journalist – Hungary), Arnold Schwarzenegger (actor/politics – Austria), Madeleine Albright (politics – Czechoslovakia), Bob Marley (Reggae music – Jamaica), and Albert Einstein (Science – Germany). 

Maybe the internationally acclaimed journalist Fareed Zakaria could write a column commemorating them. Originally from Mumbai, India, Zakaria directed a research project on American foreign policy at Harvard University (Yup, Harvard). He stayed in the U.S. and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and The New Republic. I’d love to see him celebrate international students, especially at Harvard, who are vital research assets. We should loudly object to this administration attempts to ban these folks and their expertise.. 

And while we’re celebrating the work of immigrants, we could also celebrate those who have not come from immigrant families. Who would that be? Only Native Americans who are all too often invisible with their history virtually erased. I was delighted to see Chattanooga commission the wonderful Native American Art at Ross Landing. I’ll drive over to Fort Oglethorpe this weekend to see John Ross’ log cabin home and feed the ducks in its pond. Come join me and we’ll give thanks to all the folks who have contributed to this “Land that I Love …My home, sweet home.”

 

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