The United States is a stew, not a melting pot

Thanks to my wife for reminding me of the African and Haitian students who have been in my classes over the years and how much they appreciated this country.

She wrote in her Facebook post:

“As part of my responsibilities as a social worker, I’ve been honored to have supervised social work students from Africa and Haiti, who were completing their school internships. They, along with all the students I supervised, only wanted to be of service to this country and live here as contributing Americans. If Trump met them, it might offer him the opportunity to learn from them as well.”

Her words hit home the day after President Trump reportedly asked why we would want to take in people from these ... countries. I block out the word he used because I wouldn’t want children to hear it.

Some students in my classes have come from other countries. I cannot think of a single exception to my observation that they love America for giving them the opportunity to be here.

I often pass out copies of the U.S. Constitution so that students can read it for themselves. Many of those born in America admit they have never read it. Many who have come here from elsewhere have.

A few even had memorized some parts that they thought most important, especially the first amendment guaranteeing us the right to speak and worship often denied in the countries they fled.

I remember many of these students:

Three from African countries escaped here because they were afraid of being killed. One wanted to open a business. Another wanted to teach in an inner-city school. A third hoped to become a nurse.

Two of the three were U.S. veterans, having fought for us in Afghanistan.

Two students from Haiti left their families behind during a nation racked by a natural disaster and came here to study. One yearned to be a writer. She was learning English to do so.

Another hoped to come a counselor and work among refugees.

I feel like a first generation American myself. My father was born in this country but returned to grow up in England. He held dual citizenship. I remember how seriously he took his political decisions and how he always voted in every election and on July 4th he proudly flew the American flag outside our house.

He could not understand how many other Americans seldom voted.

America is not an island unto itself. You can’t build a wall around the entire country. Isolation is not a real foreign policy option in an interconnected world.

We used to think of ourselves as a melting pot into which many nationalities were poured. The problem with that metaphor is that it makes us homogenized — that we all end up looking and acting alike. The better metaphor for us that of a stew into which many nationalists are put, retaining some semblance of their countries of origin but part of a wider pattern, a patchwork quilt.

When my British kin ask me about what’s happening in my country these days — the attacks upon the press and the judiciary and people from other nations — my reply is: “I am not part of that.”

If enough of us can say that much, we may yet save our republic and its deeper values — respecting others and the rule of law and the freedom to speak or worship as we wish.