I recently received, from my cousin Paul, a family photo of an aunt and two uncles in their early childhood.
Their parents had immigrated to the United States from a small shtetl in Lithuania.
They lived in a small river town in Kansas where their father was a tailor.
The three of them look innocent and hopeful.
A number of decades later,
My family shared time and milestones
With all three of them.
I attended the funerals for two of them.
The other, a long time member of
the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., took me to lunch at the Club in his later years when I was in the city for a conference.
As of several days ago, all of their children have passed, leaving a legacy that has been passed on to new generations.
I wonder what would have happened if the rampant anti-immigrant sentiment in this country that began to spread in the decades after this photo was taken had started much earlier. Would they have come?
Would my mother, the youngest sibling in this family,
have been born?
Would my father's parents have immigrated to the United States, found each other, and married?
Sometimes, in the present, there are those who think they know so much, who are looking for easy answers, such as their claim that most any newcomer, seeking opportunity and security, wants to destroy our country.
THAT IS NOT THE CASE.
We do have room for immigrants today, but some people have no room in their hearts to be welcoming.
They fail to realize how their narrow attitude of suspicion and disdain towards newly-arrived immigrants would have affected the previous generations of their family, brave souls who took a chance in coming here.
If those immediate ancestors would have encountered prejudice, non-acceptance and harassment, they might have left in disappointment and sadness.
As for me, my arms and heart are still open wide for those who are seeking what my grandparents hoped to find in this country.
Did they find it?
For now, I will say...perhaps.
And I will do what I can to transform "perhaps' to "yes."
And during the Jewish High Holy Days, I visit the cemetery where my parents are buried to pay memorial tribute to them.
And then, I go to the graves of two of the three siblings in the photo above, because I am one of many who preserves their stories and memories.
They deserve nothing less.
