San Ysidro border crossing, 2018
Newly elected Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compares current migrant caravan to Jews fleeing the Nazis. ‒ News report
My family on both sides came from Eastern Europe to escape persecution and discrimination. They arrived at Ellis Island carrying their few possessions. I do not know precisely what they were carrying. But I do know with absolute certainty what they were not carrying.
They were not carrying czarist flags.
They were not carrying the flags of their former oppressors. They might have been homesick for their relatives and their neighborhoods. But they were not nostalgic for the dictatorial governments, the rigid social structures, the inescapable class systems, the religious and ethnic hatred, the brutal police, the lawless officials, or the absence of opportunity for improving their situation.
If you asked them why they were not arriving with angry expressions on their faces, they would tell you how joyous they were when they first caught sight of the Statue of Liberty. If you asked them why they were not waving the flags of the nations from which they had fled, they would think you were insane. And they would point to the small American flags their children had been given.
Ellis Island, early 1900s
These observations lead to an inescapable conclusion: My family, and millions of immigrants like them, were coming to America to become Americans. No doubt many current immigrants have the same ambition. But many others obviously do not:
● They arrive at the border waving Honduran or Mexican flags.
● They speak Spanish at home, not only because they have not learned English, but also ‒ as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times recently confirmed ‒ because they want to be sure their children speak Spanish. In this they are unlike my family members, who insisted on speaking English in front of their children ‒ accented English, ungrammatical English, but English nevertheless ‒ to be sure their children learned English.
● They take over neighborhoods, and towns when possible, and turn them into replicas of the towns from which they came. And this includes not only Spanish-language newspapers, radio and TV stations, and store signs, but also the corrupt local governments and violent street gangs with which they were familiar.
● They carry with them, and transmit to their children, the notion that Europeans stole a rich and prosperous land from Latinos and Native Americans. So they see no need to study and adopt the traditions of political and economic freedom that allowed America to become so blessed with abundance. On the contrary, they hope to overthrow those traditions and substitute their own traditions.
● They claim asylum from their homelands, but at the same time they strive to create replicas of those homelands here in America. The gigantic contradiction escapes them completely.
● They slander America as horribly racist and oppressive, yet at the same time they insist on their “right” to come here. The colossal contradiction escapes them entirely.
● They accuse anyone who opposes unlimited immigration of being a “racist.” But they are the ones who shout “¡Viva la Raza!” and belong to an organization called “La Raza.” Contrary to what they claim, La Raza means the race, not the people. That would be La Gente or El Pueblo.
● They and their apologists ridicule the idea that this constitutes an invasion. A mass of several thousand people, the large majority of them young men, are approaching an international border with the expressed intention of crossing it illegally, while waving the flags of foreign nations. What would you call it? A real-estate transaction gone bad? A meet-and-greet on steroids? An unhealthful health walk?
No, Representative-elect Ocasio-Cortez, the current migrants at the southern border are nothing like Jews fleeing the Nazis. The Jews did not arrive waving swastika flags. The Jews did not plan to create replicas of Nazi Germany in America. The Jews were fleeing a massive, industrial killing machine that was murdering millions and turning them into huge piles of gold teeth and women’s hair ‒ and ashes.
No, Representative-elect Ocasio-Cortez, Honduras and other Central American nations are nothing like Nazi Germany. In the unlikely event you wish to educate yourself on what Nazi Germany was really like, watch this film documentary produced by the U.S. Government to assure that the Holocaust would never be forgotten ‒ or trivialized:
https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.43452
No, Representative-elect Ocasio-Cortez, in making your ignorant, thoughtless, uncaring, insensitive comparison, you are trivializing the Holocaust ‒ in effect, denying it. And for that, ignorance is no excuse.
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Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. You are welcome to publish or post these articles, provided that you cite the author and website.