Donald Trump has enacted a policy which has set the world, not just the U.S. on its collective ear. I will not venture into the whole brouhaha, but I will broach one argument that has been made as to why the flow of immigrants must be quelled. The argument has been around longer than many of you may realize. This was a contention many made about what would happen if slavery was abolished. Former slaves would take jobs from the “white folk.” Bullshit. As with every immigrant wave since, the former slaves were going to do the work no one else wanted to do. Forget “40 acres and a mule” as Gen. Sherman proposed. Sharecropping was not anything anyone aspired to. It was the rare occasion indeed that most slaves had the funds to leave the South to be gainfully employed as an artisan during the Industrial Revolution. Those former slaves that did become artisans, frequently came from urban hubs close to the Mason-Dixon line. Jim Crow and northern marginalization took care of things for future generations. Blacks for the most part, remained relegated to work many whites felt was beneath them. Not the Germans, Irish, Chinese, or Eastern Europeans.
There was a line from the movie Gangs of New York that sums it up rather accurately; Nativist Bill Cutting, Daniel Day-Lewis’ character states, “What the white man will do for a quarter, the N----- will do for a dime, the Irish will do for a nickel. This mentality exists to this day. Please take note of who mows lawns or works at your local quicky mart. Often it’s an immigrant.
Eastern Europeans, Germans, Irish all worked in the dangerous mines. Chinese were the cheap labor that built the railroads. Members of all immigrant groups became domestic help. Whites nativists wanted none of it. They were farmers who’d work than land and starve, rather than do work they felt demeaning. Later, Italians became a cheap labor resource. Some fought back. They were labeled anarchists.
Today, the argument that immigrants will be taking jobs away from “Americans,” is as much bullshit as it was over 150 years ago. If jobs are “taken away” it could be because an immigrant was more qualified. Wernher Von Braun, a German immigrant (it does not matter how he got here), was an aerospace engineer that aided in the development of the U.S. space program. I bet some other native born aerospace engineer was cursing under his breath about his missed opportunity, and how all the other foreign-born geniuses should be deported. This is just one example, but you get the point I hope.
So the next time you hear that the current immigrant wave should be stopped because of all the jobs “real Americans” are losing, think of my friend from Iraq. He came here for a better life. He has his master’s degree in Civil Engineering. He has been working at The Easy Shop convenience store just up the street from my home for the past 20 years. He worked from 7am to 11pm until his kids were old enough to help out. Then his wife helped when the kids no longer needed her at home. He has 2 kids who have already graduated from college. One, is getting an advanced degree. Another is in her 3rd year of college. The last is a sophomore in high school. My friend has never taken a real vacation as I recall. He has gone on Hajj. He did return to Iraq when his father’s days were ending. That’s it. I have done his taxes. Ugh. He has a job I know many Americans clamor for; not.
Sports has followed a similar employment timeline. Baseball in the 19th century was deemed as a lowly occupation, not honorable work. Parents deterred their children from ever becoming ballplayers. So who became baseball players once winning became paramount, and baseball was no longer just a leisure activity for the aristocracy? Immigrants. A New York shipbuilder once paid the $300 fee for an Irish laborer employee to avoid the draft for the Civil War because he was a great ballplayer. See, concessions are made if you are good at what you do. No one complained that the Irish and Germans were arguably the best ballplayers. Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Ed Delahanty to name a couple. Later the DiMaggio brothers well represented the first Italian wave. No one was in an uproar that they took “natural born” spots on rosters. That animosity was left for the African-Americans. Baseball remained segregated until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947 (There were exceptions, but this blog is for the general public, and to explain here would take up too much space). Then the cry went out that black ballplayers would take roster spots from white players. No mention of ethnicity.
Today, in all 4 of the major professional sports (soccer is another matter altogether), rosters are multi-ethnic, multi-racial. No one is crying out that native born only players should participate in these professional sports. You can play all 4 of these sports in different countries albeit at arguably lesser levels. Being the best at what you do is all that matters. America’s professional sports scene is the showcase for the best players. No one seems to care where someone is from, or what ethnic group these athletes belong to. The rest of us should learn a lesson from this, and apply it accordingly.
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