Sitting watching Town Meeting. One presenter raised the question on an affordable housing issue about keeping out "illegals." This seems to be a recurring issue here in this, the Oldest Town On Cape Cod. I cannot help but wonder what the discussion would have been had the Pilgrims been met with such hostility?
Personally, I can trace my roots back to the marriage of Martin Prevost, a French explorer, and Marie Olivier Manitouabeouich, an Indian, in 1644 the first documented marriage between a European and a Native American. Europeans were welcomed 365 years ago. Many European settlers, economic and political refugees, have been welcomed since then.
Now we have Latin Americans needing the same opportunity that these Europeans needed, yet we have become far less welcoming. We hardly live up to the slogan most European settlers traveled past on Lady Liberty:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
No comments:
Post a Comment