The future comes apace.(United States-immigrants' protest)

WATCHING those demonstrations for "immigrant rights," it occurred to me that we are the fools of the world. Americans labored and fought to create the freest, richest, most generous society that ever existed. Having done so, we threw open the doors and said to the rest of humanity: "Come on in and join the party!" In they duly came. We supposed that they'd be grateful for our generosity. Some of them were; many others laughed at our foolishness. We supposed that, seeing what a splendid thing Americans had made, they would want to absorb themselves in that thing, to become part of it. Some did; many others preferred the customs and language they were used to. Since they were so many, and we had adopted an ethos of "equal respect for all cultures" and "celebrating diversity," they found it easy to maintain their ways while ignoring ours.

We reacted to these negative responses in the way we have taught ourselves to react to any negative developments in our society that touch on matters of culture: by burying our heads in sentimental myths and feel-good platitudes, and by blaming ourselves for not being kind enough. They are hard-working people! They are doing jobs we won't do! Enriching our national fabric! We are a nation of immigrants! Remember Ellis Island! All human beings everywhere wish for the same things! Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande! Anyone who dissents from this script is turned on savagely, read out of the society of decent people, and consigned to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Bigot! Nativist! Racist!

If logic had any place in this situation, and words were being used in their dictionary meanings, I ought to have been pleased by the marches--been out there marching, in fact. Weren't the marchers agitating for "immigrant rights"? Yes, they were, according to our major media outlets. And am I not myself an immigrant? Yes, I am. So what's the matter with me? Don't I want to have any rights? But of course, the marches were not about "immigrant rights" at all. I have lived in this nation as a citizen, as a resident alien, and even as an illegal immigrant, and, call me obtuse, but in all these years it never occurred to me that I was being denied any rights at all.

What were the demonstrations really about? Here in New York, where the demonstrators included many South and East Asians, as well as Latin Americans and blacks from Africa and the Caribbean, and a scattering of Irish, it was an appeal for illegal immigrants to be given residency--the fabulous Green Card (it is actually pink), leading to citizenship. That was also the major element elsewhere; but in the South and West the marchers seemed--I am judging from the TV coverage--to be much more solidly Latin American, and there was a much stronger feeling of racial solidarity about the marches. As well there might have been, seeing that a principal backer of the events was the Hispanic group called La ...