By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — Inside Liberty Station (the old Naval Training Center in Point Loma) lies the New Americans Museum. I had passed by it several times feeling that I should check it out “one of these days,” but hadn’t had a reason to until I heard this news:
Over Thanksgiving weekend, as we commemorated a boat full of new immigrants finding peace and prosperity in their adopted home, someone scrawled on the museum’s sign, “Too much immigration! Go back to your country. This one is ours!”
The man on the cleaning crew who discovered it –an immigrant himself- took it personally and immediately set about cleaning up the damage.
In response to the vandalism, the NAM has been in touch with the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) for their help in how to respond to such incidents. They have also received encouragement from the Museum of Tolerance and the Tenement Museum in New York.
Are they cowed by this incident? Absolutely not. If anything, they feel the need to be louder. While unfortunate, this act of vandalism highlights the need to educate the community about the value that immigrants bring to this country and our need to work together. Recent events have emboldened hate groups and such incidents are on the rise in schools, requiring greater vigilance and appropriate responses.
A modest space, the NAM is more artistic than informative. According to Executive Director Linda Sotelo, “We’re not a space about history and anthropology. We’re a space about ideas and values.”
The NAM annually hosts the children’s citizenship ceremony as minors pledge to be loyal Americans. They also have an essay contest for young immigrants to tell their stories. The binder was pretty thick, so I could only read a few. But here are some passages that I would like to highlight:
“…As Hmong people, we did not have our own country to be called ‘Home.’ We are simply known as the barbarians of the mountains.”-–Mai Moua, 9th grader, Hmong-Laos
“[My parents] left everything and everybody when they escaped. …They came in with three dollars of American money. … My parents lives have changed for the better since they left Afghanistan. … They are glad to be out of reach of the Taliban and the Soviets. They are glad to be home in the United States of America.”-–Sara Shah, 6th grader from Afghanistan
“…As a new American, I realize that it is my responsibility to make this country, the United States of America, richer, stronger and more beautiful….” -–Yen Luu, 9th grader from Vietnam
It’s worth noting that –according to the Department of Defense- there are more than 65,000 immigrants (both naturalized citizens and non-citizens) currently serving in the US armed forces. The majority come from Latin America and Asia with the bulk of those coming from Mexico and the Philippines.
As I read their stories, I was reminded of many of our own. How many of us are here because our grandparents fled from pogroms? And we weren’t always welcomed with open arms. We were foreigners, the other, with strange customs and prayers. Why couldn’t we just “get with the program” and have a Merry Christmas? And yet we persevered and we prospered.
Every year at Passover we say, “Once we were slaves, but now we are free.” This year, let’s add a line to our Hagadot: “Once we were refugees, threadbare and weary, but now we are equal citizens, free and prosperous. Let us never forget who we were. But let us, like our father Abraham, open our tents to the traveler offering the mitzvah of hospitality to those in need. Amen.”
*
Tauber is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com