Just over eighty years ago, my grandfather stepped off a boat in New York Harbor after a long journey from a small Swedish city called Sandviken. Seeking opportunity, and not wanting to follow his father and brother into the city’s steel mill, he left his wife and baby behind, hoping he could earn enough to bring them later. Less than two decades later, his quest for work brought him to another steel mill. He left his family once again, but this time it was when his life ended in an accident in that mill. His oldest son was serving the family’s new country in the Pacific, so my father had to support his mother and younger brother. Each day after school, he boarded a streetcar to yet another steel mill. At the tender age of sixteen, his job was to stoke the fiery hell of an open-hearth furnace; hardly my grandfather’s dream of what this place called America would provide for his family. That had to wait for another generation. My cousins and I grew up in an America of abundance. We attended colleges, began our own families, and bought beautiful homes. Today, this grandchild of immigrants is a business owner and an elected official, and I continue to share my grandfather’s belief that this America is an amazing land of opportunity. Today’s new Americans may not arrive aboard boats, but Lady Liberty still beckons as a welcome mat and an enduring promise of a bountiful future. These new faces frighten many of the children and grandchildren of immigrants, who worry about their impact upon the land they’ve known and loved. They wonder where these new faces will live. Where they’ll work. Whether we’ll have room for them. No need to worry. They’ll find places and create their own opportunities. They’ll become a lot more like us as we become a little more like them. And in a generation or two, they’ll worry about the arrival of the next group of people seeking that land of opportunity, and they’ll shed tears as their children marry the kids of those new arrivals. That’s been the American way for quite some time. So when I catch a friendly wave from a landscaper, or get a bright smile from someone who’s clearing the dishes from our table, I don’t see a threat. I see my grandfather. And when I look into the eyes of these new Americans, I see the hope and the promise that made this nation such a wonderful dream for a brave man I was never fortunate enough to meet.
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Scott Flood creates effective copy for companies and other organizations. To learn more, contact him at sflood@sfwriting.com or 317-839-1739, visit his website at www.sfwriting.com, or read his blog at www.sfwriting.com/wordpress/. ©2010 Scott Flood All rights reserved