The letter that was never published

[CG6468]

Received in an email, and according to Snopes, a mixture of truth and not truth.

Dear Editor:So many letter writers have based their arguments on how this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one, suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because the people now in question aren't being treated the same as those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of entry.

Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new American households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home.

They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws to protect them. All they had were the skills and craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.
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The letter

[JohnnyReb]

Those that came before knew they wouldn't be flying back and forth to "The Old Country". They came to stay, forsaking their extended families and "The Old Country. Most come today to milk this country for all they can and send it back where they came from.....then return themselves.

[marv]

My paternal ancestors left France for Holland, and then the "New World". They landed in the Carolina Colony at where what was to become Baltimore. They were Huguenots who sought religious freedom. That was in the late 1600s.

My maternal grandmother emigrated from Prussia with her parents in 1879, and ironically, to the port of Baltimore seeking political freedom.

I look around today at the religious and political landscape, and I hang my head in shame for what we've done with this great experiment we call the United States.

[Dori]

My paternal ancestors left France for Holland, and then the "New World". They landed in the Carolina Colony at where what was to become Baltimore. They were Huguenots who sought religious freedom. That was in the late 1600s.

My maternal grandmother emigrated from Prussia with her parents in 1879, and ironically, to the port of Baltimore seeking political freedom.

I look around today at the religious and political landscape, and I hang my head in shame for what we've done with this great experiment we call the United States.

I haven't found any French connections yet, but I had English ancestors who also went to Holland because of religious persecution.

One was a seaman who arrived with the name Van Amsterdam, but people from the Netherlands used surnames of the locations they were from, like a farm.  If they moved from one farm to the next, they took the new farm's name.