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.
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