Immigrants

“ Ford suggests immigrants to blame for shooting at Jewish school ”

Chances are strong that you will not recognize the politician’s name, nor ever lived in the politician’s stamping ground, and have never been in a synagogue.

No matter.

The word “immigrants” caught my eye.

I have lived in the country, home to the politician. But I was not born there.

That makes me an immigrant.

Too, I have lived and worked in Australia, Singapore, and France. But I was not born there.

That makes me an immigrant another three times.

I was not born in the country in which I live today; I am an immigrant here.

So if I lose control of a car and damage a tree the headlines can legally read “immigrant skins bark off tree”. Or “immigrant starts fire in backyard” or even “Immigrant caught breathing in and out”.

By definition everything I do here I do as an immigrant.

“Immigrant makes $5,000,000 donation to local elementary school library”. Guilty as charged, with the implication that we should toss the miscreant out.

This is the danger of using a group label.

“Ford suggests Anglicans to blame for shooting at Jewish school”

“Ford suggests Botanists to blame for shooting at Jewish school”

“Ford suggests Jews to blame for shooting at Jewish school”

You can see where the use of group label makes things worse, not better.

Of course “Immigrants make $5,000,000 donation to local elementary school library” is read in a different light. But how about “Immigrants a main cause of wealth for fledgling United States of America”? For about 150 years the USA took in millions of people from Europe, adults who were work-trained; instant fodder for the growing industries, settlements, and businesses of the USA.

Australia pursued a similar idea in the late 1940s and 1950s. My parents, my sister, and I were absorbed that way. The fare (by ship in those days) was ten pounds sterling (“ ten pound poms ”), but children traveled for free. My sister and I were expected to become wage-earners, and hence tax-payers, helping to build a nation.

That I quit the Australian workforce in 1977 should have earned me a headline “Ford suggests Immigrant to blame for retarding the Australian economy”

Words like “immigrant”, “black”, and even “Chinese” or “English” are powerful words; dangerous if used in the wrong context.

Ontario is Canada’s most populous province, and this web page provides data on Ontario’s demographics. Once you have waded through the various definitions of “immigrant” or “ethnic origin” or “indigenous”, you might care to consider that everyone in Ontario, except the indigenous people, are of migrant stock.

The indigenous people of course migrated across the Beringia land bridge some fifteen thousand years ago.

We can blame everything and anything on immigrants!

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