Immigration and...Wong’s Tacos

Every time Cinco de Mayo rolls around I get all sentimental about immigration, a subject that seldom provokes sentimentality any other time of the year. Most of the time I prefer not to think very much about immigration at all. It’s been a mess for years, yet another touchstone of raging argument in my embattled and contentious country. One of the reasons I don’t spend a lot of time on the subject is because my thinking is all over the map, and I generally don’t enjoy the angst of inconsistent ideas. I mean, I’ve got enough problems trying to remember where I left the car keys, let alone trying to figure out immigration policy.

The basic tension revolves around the word illegal. Where once it seemed perfectly understandable and defensible to prefer legal over illegal immigration, now even using the word illegal suggests malice and earns you condescending lectures from the woke crowd. No human being is illegal, they scream! Like I said...its a mess.

But then Cinco de Mayo comes. My wife has this thing about celebrating with food. Every St. Patrick’s Day its green stuff with soda bread, cabbage and corn beef. She loves themed meals. So naturally, last night she was all in on homemade tacos with some new recipe she had found. She gave me marinated chicken to cook on the grill along with corn on the cob which she transformed into this super yummy Mexican street corn dish. Then there was this special cheesy/spicy sauce she had made from scratch to season everything with. For drinks she served up lime margaritas—with or without alcohol. My sister Paula came over for dinner. It was fabulous.

Then I started thinking about what an amazing place America is. Here we all are in this giant place where literally nobody is from here. Even the so-called Native Americans aren’t from here, if the Anthropologists are to be believed. They stumbled across an ice bridge from like Mongolia or someplace thousands of years ago. As for everyone else? We are all from away, as my friends in Maine would say. My wife’s people came here from Ireland by way of Nova Scotia. My family’s story is a bit more complicated. It’s all a bit murky, but depending on which family historian you talk to we got here from either England, Ireland, or Germany. The more fabulous versions of the tale have my mother’s ancestors arriving via the Mayflower!! But, you get the point, everyone here today arrived on a boat.

For all of our history, the majority of those who have settled here have been from some sort of European extraction, although that majority status is less than it used to be. Still, from the beginning, we have always welcomed people from all over the world. When I say “welcomed” I’m not trying to suggest that we stood at the dock cheering. Far from it...we have welcomed immigrants grudgingly, largely because that is the way of human beings. We are always wary of “outsiders”, even if we ourselves were outsiders ten minutes ago. In the previous century, Irishmen and Italians took turns being the dreaded other. Now, its Mexicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans.

 

But here’s the thing...I think we are such a better country because of the Irish, Italians, Germans, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, etc who have chosen to make this country their home. Just think about all the delicious foods they brought here, not to mention the art, color, athleticism and brain power. Now, thanks to fusion cuisine, our favorite restaurant is a place called...get this...Wong’s Tacos. To me there is nothing more American than a joint called Wong’s Tacos! How awesome is that?

Yes, I know, it’s not as simple as this. Assimilation isn’t easy. Multiple languages, unskilled labor are all significant problems. But, looking at the big picture of our history, immigration has been a net plus...and it’s not even close.