Immigrants to U.S.

Re the recent Katherine Hu column on the editorial page: With all due respect, from one emigrant to another, I just happen to disagree. I have my worries and my battles, but they are of a different kind. My worries come from these movements in our country trying to drive it toward a dangerous path. My family and millions of others, many of them killed (over 100 million), suffered under this criminal enterprise that was and is socialism and communism.

I recognized the same worries in the words sung by the late Merle Haggard: “They love our milk and honey/But they preach about some other way of livin’.” That horrible way of living was the reason my family left our country of origin almost 40 years ago. When we arrived at the port of entrance in the U.S., we had our green cards in hand. Legal is the magic word. Once here, we had the duty to adjust and assimilate, and we did. Little by little, we achieved our American dream.

I do not have the slightest desire to improve my native tongue. The irony is that now I have a slight accent in both languages. I do not yearn for the friendships I had because I still have them. My home is here now. I am American first and I love this land with all my heart. The church I chose to attend has at least 18 different ethnic groups. We are all Americans.

What I yearn, since I am also a grandmother, is that my grandchildren will live in a safe country where nobody is above the law, where political correctness will not dominate our daily lives, where we don’t glorify those who break our laws. I seriously doubt these worries are Hu’s father’s. I believe that he taught by example through hard work, honesty, love of family and love of America. But if Hu decides her life here is so unbearable, in the words of Haggard again, “If you don’t love it, leave it,” at least for a while. I am confident she’ll be back. ALEXANDRA GLADIN Maumelle