A Muslim Kid's Pain
"I mean, what does a parent say when a child asks,
"why do they all hate us?"
MJ Rosenberg, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow, Media Matters
Huffington Post : August 19, 2010
Growing up in a small town with few Jews, I was sensitive about my
minority status. The half-dozen Jews in my elementary school were not all
friends but we were all very much aware that we had something in common. We
were a tiny minority, and most of our classmates had no idea what Jews were.
There wasn't much anti-Semitism but pretty much everyone reacted with horror
when they discovered that we did not accept Jesus Christ as Lord. Of course,
we Jews went out of our way to avoid the subject. To this day, I know more
Christmas carols than most Christians I know. I never missed a tree trimming
party and never, ever, wanted to stand out as different. (American kids
invariably want to "fit in").
The occasional burst of anti-Semitism, when it came ("CHRIST-KILLER!") was
unbearable but thankfully rare. (Besides, we had it easy compared to the
black kids).
I recalled all this as I have watched Fox News, the Christian Broadcasting
Network, and other media outlets broadcasting anti-Muslim hate non-stop for
going on a month now. And not just the right-wing media but mainstream
Republican, and some Democratic, politicians.
Muslim bashing is everywhere you look and listen, with Muslims being called
terrorists virtually nonstop. Terrorist and un-American.
I cannot imagine what that feels like for a Muslim kid in the United States.
I cannot imagine how hurt and humiliated I would have felt if people like me
were called America's enemy. Or if the synagogue I attended was labeled a
haven for evil.
I think I would have looked at every one of my friends and classmates and
wondered: does he hate me for being a Jew, what do her parents say about my
parents? I know I would have felt lonely and miserable.
The only other ethnic group recently subjected to the right-wing media's
nonstop hate campaign is the Hispanic community but, even there, there is at
least the half-hearted distinction between "legals" and "illegals." For
Muslims, no distinction exists. They are all bad (much as all Jews were bad
in other countries I could name in the 20th century).
I would hate to be a Muslim parent today. I mean, what does a parent say
when a child asks, "why do they all hate us."
In my opinion, we, as a culture, have reached a new low.
***
Born in the U.S.A. Is What Makes Someone American
"The Civil War transformed the debate over citizenship. In a sense, the 14th
Amendment wrote into the Constitution the results of the Union's triumph and
the destruction of slavery."
By Eric Foner
Bloomberg: August 17, 2010
For almost 150 years Americans have believed that anyone born here, whatever
his or her origins, can be a good citizen. There is no reason to believe the
children of illegal immigrants are any different.
Congress should think long and hard before tampering with this essential
American principle embodied in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Approved by Congress in 1866 at the outset of Reconstruction and ratified
two years later, the amendment establishes the principle of birthright
citizenship. With minor exceptions, all persons born in this country are
American citizens, whatever the status of their parents.
Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, several of his Senate
colleagues and a number of conservative political commentators are now
demanding that the amendment be reinterpreted or rewritten so as to exclude
the children of illegal immigrants.
Bitter conflicts about who should be an American citizen are hardly new, nor
are efforts to exclude those deemed for one reason or another undesirable.
The very first naturalization law, enacted in 1790, barred non-white
immigrants from ever becoming citizens. This prohibition was lifted for
Africans in 1870 but lasted into the mid-20th century for Asians. In 1857,
in the Dred Scott decision, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that no
black person, free or slave, could be a citizen of the U.S.
Union's Triumph
The Civil War transformed the debate over citizenship. In a sense, the 14th
Amendment wrote into the Constitution the results of the Union's triumph and
the destruction of slavery. It begins by defining as citizens all persons
born or naturalized in the U.S. "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" --
language meant to exclude Indians, deemed to be citizens of their respective
tribes, and American-born children of foreign diplomats. It goes on to bar
states from depriving these citizens of life, liberty or property or denying
them the "equal protection of the laws."
The most important change in the Constitution since the Bill of Rights, the
14th Amendment was intended, first, to establish beyond doubt the
citizenship of the 4 million emancipated slaves and to consign Dred Scott to
oblivion.
But the Republicans who controlled Congress also had a larger purpose. "It
is a singular fact," the abolitionist Wendell Phillips wrote in 1866, "that,
unlike all other nations, this nation has yet a question as to what makes or
constitutes a citizen." The 14th Amendment established the first national
definition of citizenship and with it the idea that these citizens enjoyed
their rights as part of the American people rather than as members of
particular racial or ethnic groups.
National Consciousness
In this, it reflected the expansion of national consciousness brought on by
the Civil War. The struggle against slavery crystallized the idea of the
national government as "the custodian of freedom," in the words of
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The Black Codes enacted by all-white
southern governments soon after the end of the war, which sought to reduce
freed people to a condition reminiscent of slavery, reinforced the
conviction that the states couldn't be trusted to respect Americans' basic
rights.
Did Congress intend birthright citizenship to apply to the children of
illegal residents? No such group existed in 1866; at the time, just about
anyone who wished to enter the U.S. was free to do so. Only later were
certain groups singled out for exclusion -- prostitutes, polygamists,
lunatics, anarchists, and, starting in 1882, the entire population of China.
Not until 1924 was the Border Patrol established, in connection with the law
setting nationality quotas for immigration. Initially, its purpose was to
keep "undesirable" Europeans -- Italians, Greeks, and other southern
Europeans -- from sneaking across the Mexican border.
No Limits
Until 1965, there were no numerical limits on immigration from countries in
the Western Hemisphere, so the issue of illegal Mexican immigrants, which so
alarms today's critics of the 14th Amendment, didn't arise.
The closest analogy in 1866 to today's illegal aliens were immigrants from
Asia, forever barred from American citizenship. The Chinese aroused
considerable hostility among white Americans, especially on the West Coast,
and with an eye on congressional elections, the amendment's opponents
charged that it would make citizens of Chinese children born in this
country. The amendment's authors didn't retreat in the face of blatant
racism. They chose their words carefully; when they wrote "all persons,"
they meant it.
Universal Application
The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that birthright citizenship applies
to every American-born child and equal protection of the laws to citizens
and non-citizens alike. The key cases, decided in the late 19th century,
were U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, which affirmed the citizenship of children born
to Chinese immigrants, and Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which overturned a San
Francisco law discriminating against Chinese-owned laundries.
The juxtaposition of the 14th Amendment with the bar on the naturalization
of Asian immigrants long affected Asian-American life. In the early 20th
century, California barred aliens ineligible for citizenship from owning
land, so Asian parents transferred title to their homes and farms to their
citizen children. Not until World War II was China given a quota (all of 105
persons per year) of immigrants eligible for naturalization. Only with the
immigration reform of 1965 did Asians achieve the same status as other
immigrants.
'For Mankind'
The 14th Amendment made the Constitution what it is today: a document that
guarantees the equal rights of all Americans and to which individuals and
groups who feel they are being denied equality can appeal. As the
19th-century Republican editor George William Curtis wrote, it was part of a
process that changed the U.S. government from one "for white men" to one
"for mankind."
To be sure, as far as blacks were concerned the amendment fell into abeyance
after the abandonment of Reconstruction. It was reinvigorated in the
civil-rights era. Even today's conservative Supreme Court has used it to
expand the rights of aggrieved Americans, as it did in Lawrence v. Texas,
which in 2003 overturned a state law criminalizing homosexual acts.
Adopted as part of the effort to purge the nation of the legacy of slavery,
birthright citizenship remains an eloquent statement about the nature of our
society and a powerful force for immigrant assimilation. In a world where
most countries limit access to citizenship via ethnicity, culture or
religion, it sets our nation apart.
(Eric Foner, whose forthcoming book, "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and
American Slavery," is a professor of history at Columbia University. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the author of this column: Eric Foner at ef17@columbia.edu
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