America, Land of Immigrants

We had a death in the family this year. My wife’s uncle had been the last of his generation. His death at age 88 made me think about our often tenuous links to the past. That reflection sent me to my file cabinet and a folder labeled Ernst-Cundiff Genealogy.

I found the information sadly incomplete and that day started tracking my family roots. Among the things I found were dates of births, marriages, and deaths. But, thanks to my younger brother, who had done a yeoman’s job tracing the German side of our family tree before he died, I also found some fascinating material.

Our great-great grandparents, George and Franziska Ernst, emigrated to the U.S. from Baden-Baden, Germany, in the mid-1840s. They arrived in St. Louis around 1847. By the 1870s, George’s occupation was listed as laborer and porter. Records show that the couple lived with other German immigrants in the 1300 and 1400 blocks of North 12th Street in various boarding houses that must have been modest indeed. Later U.S. Census Bureau records show that the buildings in that area were without toilets and indoor plumbing. The occupations of their sons were laborer, carpenter, machinist, painter, and barber, indicating those apples did not fall far from the tree.

Those humble beginnings led me to think about the immigrant experience in America. Like nearly all immigrants, my great-great grandparents wanted to improve their lives. They also were brave and adventurous, leaving their homeland for a country where the language was unlike their own, little else was familiar, and no family was around to cushion their falls when they stumbled.

My grandfather told me how difficult life was for our immigrant ancestors, partly because their English was heavily accented and partly because they came to this country with few skills and distinctly minor financial resources. But opportunity was there and make the most of it they did.

The struggle for other immigrants was even harder. Asians were treated very harshly and fought for generations to become accepted. Asian-American students now score so well on ACTs and SATs that annually a lop-sided number qualifies for admission to top-ranked universities. The language and culture of Jewish immigrants in the late 1800s were so foreign to Americans that they were at first thought to be mentally inferior and suffered considerable discrimination. Today, Jewish Americans are disproportionately represented in the ranks of scientists, medical doctors, attorneys, and businessmen.

Although many politicians pander to nativist sentiments, we must never forget that America is a great country solely because of hard working immigrants with names like Hakeem Olajuwon (NBA star born in Nigeria), Cesar Millan (the Dog Whisperer born in Mexico), Madeleine Albright (U.S. Secretary of State born in Czechoslovakia), I. M. Pei (world famous architect born in China), and Subranhmanyan Chandrasekhar (Nobel Prize-winning physicist born in India).

It turns out that my son taught me a great deal about the immigrant experience. He has been in the restaurant business for nearly twenty-five years. Today he is a regional manager for a national restaurant chain. From him I learned all the kitchen workers in restaurants he manages are Hispanic and nearly every one of them works two full-time jobs; several also work additional eight hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. Like their brothers and sisters who are migrant farm workers, they work eighty to 100 hours each and every week doing arduous jobs for modest wages. How many natural-born Americans can match that fierce drive to succeed?

Naturally, we want people who emigrate to the U.S. to fulfill the legal requirements. But how do we treat fairly those who came here out of desperation to gain a better life through hard work and determination even though they came illegally? How do we acknowledge their dignity and essential contributions to this country?

My immigrant ancestors fled Germany and Ireland because they were determined to improve their lives. America opened its doors of opportunity to them. Surely, we can find a way to open that door to the current wave of hard-working immigrants and their children, even if they are here illegally.

Paula Deen Is Getting Railroaded

Make no mistake, my spirited defense of Paula Deen has nothing to do with accepting racial or ethnic or sexual pejoratives as appropriate. They obviously are not. Period. My problem is with the questions she was asked and the knee-jerk responses her probably honest replies have generated.

Last month, when questioned under oath by an attorney she was asked if she had used the N-word. “Yes, of course,” Deen replied, and then added, “It's been a very long time.”

Her answer should have been, “Hell, yes!” Could any white or black person over age sixty deny saying the word, nigger? Get real. While in elementary school every one of the kids I knew recited the very same counting rhyme to choose a person to be "it" for games. Please note that the rhyme below is 100 percent accurate.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch a nigger by the toe.
If he hollers, make him pay
Fifty dollars every day.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

In high school we were required to read Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and were also required to discuss in class his use of the term “nigger Jim” and his liberal use of that heavily freighted word throughout the book. In college English Lit we were required to read Joseph Conrad's, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus': A Tale of the Sea. Think none of us in that class ever said “nigger” aloud during those discussions? And what about reciting your favorite rap lyrics while driving alone in your car? Think the nigger word never appears in those lyrics? Or maybe you've never listened to and discussed with your friends Richard Prior's great records, like That Nigger's Crazy and Bicentennial Nigger, or his stand-up routines in which he used the nigger word countless times. And what about the famous hip-hop, gansta rappers NWA? Don't tell me white persons never said their name: Niggaz Wit Attitudes. Please, please, please don't bullshit a bullshitter.

Deen should have told the lawyer she could not respond to such an obvious and open-ended trap without clarification or without being able to provide context in her answer. How was the word used and when it was used could be of tremendous importance. When she said that it had been “a very long time” did she mean five years or fifty-five years? Context in her case is critical. But not to the attorney who asked the question or to people calling for her head.

I personally do not know if Deen is a closet racist, overt racist, repentant racist, recovering racist, or never was a racist in the first place. And if she is of the repentant variety why is she being persecuted for past sins? Who out there can cast the first stone? Step forward, please. What I do know is she has been shamelessly railroaded.

What most white people have to come to grips with is we all, almost without exception, have been adversely affected by racism. Whether we fell under its pernicious influence or struggled against it throughout our lives is a critical question. It's also a question Deen was never asked and thus was never able to answer.

As an old white guy, I have said the word, nigger, many times in 70 plus years of life in a great many contexts. But never once did I use it to disparage a black person. Never once in my presence have I tolerated its use as a pejorative. I actively detest racial pejoratives in ordinary conversation. But, if I had been asked the same questions as Deen, I might have responded the same way even though the contexts in which the usage occurred were innocent. Should I be condemned for my use of the word?

Paula Deen has been.