Immigrants

While waiting outside the Spokane Valley City Council in July, I met an elderly woman who was very proud that she grew up in Idaho and now lived in the Spokane Valley. We had a brief discussion about immigration, and she just couldn’t understand why all the migrants were coming to the United States with their children.

“Why don’t they just stay in their own countries and fix them, instead of coming here?” she queried.

I responded by asking her, “Well, why do you think they come here?” and she said that they want our stuff. Later, I thought of a better question for her. “My great-great-great-grandfather came here in the 1850s to escape the potato famine. “Why do you think he didn’t just stay there and fix Ireland?” My second question might have turned on a light bulb, as very likely her European ancestors made a similar escape to come to the United States, and probably wanted a better life.

--Nancy Street, Cheney