The Good Son |
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Not every story ends with the good son of an immigrant family working his way into the American Dream. Not every immigrant family can dream such dreams, for one. Economic realities, social stratification, and job boundaries keep many of these immigrants at home, their dream no more than food on the table and basic medical help for when the good son is sick. Their dreams are the dreams of the New Immigrant; the post World-War II story of food instead of social justice; of freedom from tyranny and fear rather than freedom of religion; of shared, overcrowded ethnic slums rather than a two car garage and a white picket fence. The new immigrant does not build America’s railroads or help conquer the West; he hides in the shadows, works those jobs that no one else would, and waits for immigration to finally catch up to him and take his meager existence away.
I am the good son of an immigrant family. My father embraced the American Dream not because it was there for the taking, but because this country offered it to him. He left tyranny and economic stagnation and embraced the promise of egalitarianism and success based upon hard work rather than cronyism. His America was my America; the America that listens to what I say rather than the particular accent I use when I say it. His America was my America; the America that values self-respect, integrity, and offers a hand of compassion when one stumbles or loses the way.
I am the good son of an immigrant family. My brown skin is my pride; the color of my father, the color of my people, and the color of America. My blood holds the promise of my kin and my ancestors and the community in which I live; red blood, spilled many times over in the mountains of Kashmir, in the deserts of the Punjab, in the islands of the South Pacific, and in the jungles of Vietnam.
I am the good son of an immigrant family. I am America.
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