The Concept and Historical Role of Immigration and Migration

The concepts of immigration and immigrants, and migration and migrants are complex and difficult to understand. Much seems to depend on how close to them you may feel. Those of us of color have always been tied to them, directly and indirectly. Those of European Anglo-Saxon heritage (Anglos) feel much further removed. This chapter is offered to help clarify the complexity of immigration.

An immigrant is a person from a foreign country who comes to the U.S. willingly or unwillingly to reside here. Black slaves from Africa were brought here unwillingly. Most immigrants come legally. Some come under H-Visas to work for an understood frame of time and then return to their native country. Some come undocumented. A migrant is usually a U.S.-born worker who has a home in some state. He/she leaves that state to generally do farm field labor with the many seasonal jobs throughout the U.S. in agriculture nurseries, fruit orchards, packing plants and canneries, beef/poultry products, hotels, construction, etc. There are often undocumented as well as H-Visa workers in their ranks.

The word “immigrant” becomes clearer when it is distinguished with the word “native.” Native people were here in what has become the “American” continent of which the United States is one of the 36 nations. They were here for thousands of years before the coming of immigrants. First came the Spanish-speaking (Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro), then the Portuguese (Brazil) and finally the English-speaking. The Natives came to be called “Indians” because Columbus believed he had found India. The “Indians” of today’s Mexico were Natives before they mixed with Spanish blood and became Mexican “mestizos”. All the Natives are “American” because they are all of the American Continent. Are they really immigrants if they merely move from one part of America to another? Maybe they are just migrants?! Think about it.

The status of natives never changes, nor does that of immigrants. If you are not native to the U.S., if your parents/forefathers came from a foreign nation--you are an immigrant. Once you accept this status, you will find it impossible to be anti-immigrant--for you cannot be anti-you! If you sense yourself to be a “Nationalist”, you have two things to consider: First, Nationalists want “America” for “Americans.” That view is really weak, because the majority of the immigrants in the U.S. are from the American nations of the American Continent! The second is more subtle, but also truer. Nationalists want “America” for whites. This one you have to think over also. America the continent is now and always has been dominantly “Indian” and Latino. If they mean the U.S. in particular, then they will have to admit that racism is the primary issue. You must think through all of this before you decide that you are a “Nationalist.”

One other notion being aired is that we don’t need immigrants. That is completely incorrect, and our need for them will be discussed in my next chapter. However, many Anglos might not accept this notion, partly because they may recall that their ancestors were not needed when they came to Jamestown and Plymouth. Nevertheless, history shows that all immigrants to America, past and present, have come because they need to. Some of the reasons are such forces as poverty, displacement, cruel laws (such as the debtor prison in England) famine (the Irish potato famine), war, political strife, persecution, unfair (world) “free” trade arrangements, etc. No immigrant has ever left because they don’t love their native nation.

Another defense being voiced is that immigrants should be deported because they come here undocumented. That is a hard stand to make when we know that all of the millions of immigrants who were the first to come here were themselves “undocumented”!

The last defense to cover here is the one that uses danger and fear; that immigrants are dangerous, drug users/sellers, murderers and not law-abiding. Records show that they are more law-abiding than the general U.S. citizens. As to “dangerous”, let’s recall the history of this relating to the first immigrants (our forefathers) who came to this continent following Columbus (1492).

Archaeologist and ethno-historian Henry E. Dobyns ascertains that pre-Columbus “America” had a population of over 112 million native people. Almost overnight, the genocidal diminution of America’s native people began. They were receptive of the invaders, not resistive. Records and diaries of clergy declare that they were friendly and helpful, resourceful, family-oriented and societally structured. They had ample arable land and mineral resources for the taking, including gold. However, there was some practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism.

Unfortunately the church and state, already reeking with historical barbarism, the Crusades and the Inquisition, found the natives to be savage, heathen and uncivilized with no regard for the sanctity of human life. This caused them to justify using genocide--the extreme disregard of human life--as the primary means of getting rid of them. Those not liquidated were removed from their lands by war, enslaved or placed in Reservations so time could offer some form of humane resolution. Most of them in North America are still “on reserve”!! Millions died from diseases brought from Europe like measles, chicken pox, syphilis and the common cold. The Spanish moved into today’s U.S. Southwest in 1540 and, between 1769 and 1836, established missions from San Diego to San Francisco. During this time, the Indian population declined from 310,000 to a mere 18,000!! The “white” Gold Rush of the 1800s further decimated the Indian population. The North American Indian population declined from 18 million to a mere 350,000 between 1492 and 1900!! In other words, the American continent had eliminated 60 million Indians, leaving about 52 million--about 400,000 in today’s U.S.A. Clearly, the immigrant Spanish and white invaders have been far more “dangerous” than the invaded. Our contemporary immigrants carry no such record.

Every state in the U.S. has its genocidal history of the Indians. Minnesota’s last military conflict with its Indian residents was in the Dakota Uprising of 1862, known as the U.S.-Dakota War. Due to disastrous U.S. Indian policies, it resulted in more broken treaties, and starvation due to refusal to release promised government provisions. Rebellion was inevitable. The war started in August and ended in September--six weeks. One thousand white soldiers and civilians were killed. On December 26, 1862 thirty-eight Dakota men were hung in Mankato--the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Another 265 Indians were sent to prison. Over 300 indigenous elders, women and children died while displaced, and hundreds were moved to reservations in the Dakota Territory--mostly Nebraska. An unknown number of Indian combatants died in the war. We need to remember that it was the immigrants who displaced the Minnesota Indian population.

I leave you with two questions:

                1) Do we deserve to be here anymore than most of the incoming immigrants (however they got here) merely because we hold citizenship papers?

                2) Do most of them deserve a path toward citizenship sooner rather than later?

The next chapter will cover the dilemma of immigration reform, the push for deportations and a rationale for detainment.


093017 update of 091517 (a little different)