Thanksgiving Thoughts - Immigrants and Refugees

With the emigrant crisis in Syria and surrounding countries, and the posturing of American politicians regarding immigrants and refugees, I thought I'd share a few of my own views, and what I know of my family history, regarding the United States of America. Unless you are a Native American, or Indian (as Columbus and other voyagers mistakenly called them), including the so-called "Hispanic mixes" (all of Native American races) in the southwestern United States, you are an immigrant somewhere along your family tree.  If you're African-American, your ancestors were brought to the Americas without a choice; if you're Caucasian, someone, somewhere along in history, decided to leave the country in which they were born, and to live permanently in what is now the United States.  According to the dictionary, an immigrant is a person who comes to live permanently in another country.  A refugee is a person forced to leave their country of birth in order to escape war, persecution, or a natural disaster.
   I believe that the majority of my ancestors were immigrants to the New World.  I know that several of them were refugees from war and persecution.  One of my ancestors was a trader in early Virginia, who (supposedly) married a Powhatan woman.  One of my ancestors signed up as a bond-servant in London, and worked on a tobacco plantation for seven years, six days a week, to earn his right to be known as a free man.  One part of the family - a many, many-times Great-uncle - arrived aboard the Mayflower, which was a ship full of religious refugees seeking relief of persecution in England and the Netherlands.  (My direct ancestor, the Mayflower guy's younger brother, came over to the colonies a few years later and became the coffin-maker for Plymouth and the surrounding area.)  I know I have a couple of French Huguenot ancestors, who came to the colonies as religious refugees.  I'm not quite sure of the reason for immigrating for the few Germans in the tree.  My great-great-grandfather left Denmark to avoid fighting in a war against Germany, and arrived here in the USA in time for our Civil War.  My great-grandparents, and my grandfather, held dual citizenships in both the United States and Sweden.
  In  my family tree, I am more than half English, with the Swedish and Danish mixed in.  But, truly, if you look at the history of England - Great Britain, that is - one sees that they, themselves, are a hodge-podge mixture of races and ethnicities, too.  You have the early Picts, followed by the Celts, followed by the Britons, followed by the Romans, (not to mention the mixing in of Scots and Irish) followed by the Vikings, followed by the Normans (who were originally Vikings), followed by waves of settlers from Flanders, the Netherlands, and various other European and African countries.
   Ninety-nine point nine percent of all my ancestors were immigrants and/or refugees that arrived on the shore of North America with hopes, dreams, and no land.  To my knowledge, America has accepted refugees from every country in the world.  Since our wake-up call to terrorism on September 11, 2001, the United States has admitted over 1 million people seeking refugee status.  Four of those million have been arrested for terrorism charges in the 14 years since.  In my mind, that means our system of checking out the backgrounds and histories of people who want to escape tyranny is pretty damn good.  (That is 0.0004 percent, by the way.)
   I think that refusing any refugee, no matter their race, creed or religion, is a slap in the face to our ancestors, and the Founding Fathers of this nation.  I think that Senators, Congressmen, and Governors should face recalls for refusing to support refugees.  Where the heck would they be, if not for an open immigration and refugee on the part of our government?

   Thank you for letting me get on my soap-box and have my say.