I am a descendant of Elder William Brewster and his wife, Mary. Elder Brewster was the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims, one of the first Europeans to set foot in New England, and a signer of the Mayflower Compact. As was typical of women throughout much of history, his wife Mary’s claim to fame was more domestic: her assistance in cooking the first Thanksgiving feast. A generation closer in history, their son-in-law presided over one of the first witch trials in the United States. Another ancestor (whose spirited nature overcame gender expectations) was abducted by Native Americans and made a controversial – and gruesome – escape. Through a different ancestral line, I am a descendant of the founder of Hartford, CT and several of my ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War (albeit not all on the same side). Through multiple grandparents, my ancestors settled and established colonial America and their names fit right in with the best of the Puritans: Mehitabel, Abiah, Patience, Elishua, and Thomasin. In short, apart from families descended from Native Americans, few can claim to be more all-American than mine.
I have inherited the fierce, puritanical intensity of my ancestors. We are a tough lot who value hard work, education, close families, and practicality over fashion (which is likely why my birthplace of Boston was once recognized as the worst dressed city in the nation). I have shoveled more snow in my lifetime than my husband and together we’ve chopped a car out of an ice block with a borrowed ice pick. When local mid-West schools declare indoor recess due to the weather, I’m kicking my New England born kids out to play dressed like Ewoks.
But it is more than puritan New England that has influenced my family. I am a full quarter Spanish, descended from Catholic families that lived in the mountains around Santander for centuries; and I am partially German, through ancestors that were recruited to come to the New World in order to outnumber the French Catholics. Ironically, I am also French Canadian and through my immigrant husband’s faith, I have become Catholic.
My children share my complex ancestry with a single simplification: fully half of their genealogy is Czech. Due to immigration laws, I married their father legally 14 years ago at the city hall of one of the New York city boroughs. With permission from both the Church and the U.S. Government, we were married sacramentally seven months later in Prague. After years of navigating a complicated, dehumanizing, and poorly understood immigration system, my husband became a U.S. citizen in a ceremony at the JFK Library in Boston, MA. I celebrated with our then three-year-old daughter while my husband returned to work following the ceremony (he was unable to join the family celebration due to the more-than-an-hour-late arrival of the immigration judge who, in keeping with the frequently dehumanizing nature of the immigration process even then, never apologized to the new citizens for the delay).
As a multi-cultural family, we enjoy a rich tradition of holidays and foods, have a deeply international perspective on things, and are stretched through our efforts to overcome cultural and language barriers with those we love. Like my spunky colonial ancestors, my husband’s family is a feisty lot whose legacy of protesting the injustices of the communist government lives on in my own family. Their dry, irreverent humor flows freely in my children’s veins. In many ways, we are who we are because of our past – and I love us.
In the same way, the United States that I love is the country it is because of the complicated pasts of each of the people who dwell within its borders. Immigration has given us a rich, textured culture that reflects the beauty of God’s creation in ways that more homogenized cultures cannot do on their own. Each ethnic group highlights specific aspects of God’s image in His people – albeit in imperfect and human ways. I have learned so much about humanity and, consequently, the Creator from the similarities and differences of those around me.
That is not to say that living in a multicultural society is easy. It can be challenging living in a multicultural household, never mind a neighborhood where cultural expectations about noise, personal boundaries, and assertiveness conflict. And of course, larger societal problems like poverty, educational inequality, and crime add another layer of challenge. Restrictions are necessary for national interests and, as Pope Leo has said, enforcing them in just ways is appropriate. For this reason, I fully support reworking the U.S. immigration system so that it becomes functional, accessible, just, and respectful of human dignity.
Still, even with the challenges it poses, being a nation that is welcoming to immigrants is worth it.
I would never want to be like my first American ancestors. I would not want to be burdened by their legalism or stained by their prejudices. Knowing my own personality flaws and weaknesses, I would have either lived in a state of grace-less fear or rebelled and been kicked out of the colony. In fact, I would not want to go back even a hundred years to a time when I would have lost my own citizenship and potentially been made stateless by marrying a non-American (look up Inez Milholland and the Expatriation Act of 1907 and you will see that the U.S. immigration system has been broken for a long time).
What I want is to be able to know and love people from diverse backgrounds. I want to learn from them. I want to appreciate their food, music, and celebrations. I want to bond over our shared humanity. I want to see Christ in them and be Christ’s hands and feet to them. I want to share the bountiful life I have been given and rejoice in the ways that their presence in my life enriches it even more. I want mutual enrichment. I want relationship.
The current state of U.S. immigration policy is so abhorrent, so cruel, so immoral, so inhumane that I feel there is nothing left to say about it. If, despite all that has been revealed and written someone chooses to defend it, then my own words of contradiction would be impotent and wasted.
However, as an American whose family has been here since the country’s beginning, I have plenty to say about the good that immigration has done for our country. Let’s not lose sight of this in the midst of our fight against the injustice being done. We are not just fighting against something; we are fighting for something that is very much worth fighting for. In fact, we are fighting for the very people who have made us who we are and who we will become.
Pope Leo emphasized an aspect of the contribution of immigrants in his message on the 111th World Day of Migrants and Refugees:
Their presence, then, should be recognized and appreciated as a true divine blessing, an opportunity to open oneself to the grace of God, who gives new energy and hope to his Church: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb 13:2).
So, for the families that are living in fear right now, facing persecution, and feeling unwanted, please know that I – whose family has been here since the birth of the nation and whose ancestor signed the document that established self-governance in the New World – want you here. You make us better and we would not be us without you. You are the reason that I won’t stop fighting to keep these words an emblem of our nation:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!-Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”
Image: “Statue of Liberty 9-11-17 #7679” (CC BY 2.0) by KimCarpenter NJ
Ariane Sroubek is a writer, school psychologist and mother to two children here on earth. Prior to converting to Catholicism, she completed undergraduate studies in Bible and Theology at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She then went on to obtain her doctorate in School and Child Clinical Psychology. Ariane’s writing is inspired by her faith, daily life experiences and education. She is currently writing a women's fiction novel and a middle-grade mystery series. Her non-fiction book, Raising Sunshine: A Guide to Parenting Through the Aftermath of Infant Death is available on Amazon. More of her work can be found at https://mysustaininggrace.com.
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