Mike McLellan

Emma Lazarus wrote the poem engraved on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. As a school boy I remember standing there looking up and reading the words which include: “… give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

My paternal relatives had been land owners in Scotland who headed for Ireland during one of Europe’s many religious disputes. They came from Ireland in the 1800s and made the United States their home. They did not come through Ellis Island — they were well-to-do and came to America, applied for citizenship and received it.

They were not part of a huddled mass.

But as a child, reading that poem made me proud to be an American. My country was welcoming, charitable and kind. What a wonderful place to call home.

As an adult, I have experienced history enough to know that not everyone has been welcomed.

Today, many folks would like to close the door behind them. We have a strange and mixed relationship with those we call “aliens” who wish to come to America.

What language do they speak?

My wife taught at a local elementary school. In her most recent class were the children of five alien families, all non-English speakers at home. They spoke Tagalog, Croatian, Farsi and Chinese. Many would guess, wrongly, that all English-learners speak Spanish.

A friend teaches in West Sacramento where the English-learners speak Russian. In Fresno, it might be Hmong.

Of course, we would not have to deal with all these foreigners and their languages if we had closed the door on those who did not grow up speaking English.

If we had closed the door on people whose native tongue was not English, Albert Einstein would have stayed in Germany, as would Wernher Von Braun (and we might not have had NASA).

Henry Kissinger would be there, too. Edward Teller would have helped Hungary invent the atomic bomb instead of us.

If we had that attitude toward aliens regardless of their language, Alex Trebek would have hung out on the other side of the Canadian border with Peter Jennings. Oh, and Bob Hope would likely not have entertained our troops, as he would never have left England.

I am not suggesting that we let everyone into the United States who wants to come. The majority of the world’s population is happy where they are. They really do not want to be Americans. Yet, you never know what alien will land on our shores and help make America a better place.

The issue is who we will keep out. Are these folks a particular ethnic, national or linguistic group? What will we demand of them? Will they be encouraged to give up their heritage or be limited in sharing it?

In the past several years, my physicians have patched me together so I can go on living as a fifth- or sixth-generation American. Only a couple of these doctors were actually born in the United States. Even those born in the United States were ethnic minorities. If we had kept out the aliens, were would I be?

This is a hot topic. We all like the cuisines they bring, but many of us are unsure if we should let them in — Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Afghani, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, German and, even without their food, Scots.

It is tiresome to label people good and bad due to the relative length of their citizenship. We have been a melting pot since the first Northern Europeans came to America and started taking over from the indigenous peoples who had migrated here eons earlier.

We need to be honest. It is an economic problem. It has less to do with language and heritage and more to do with money. We do not want anyone to compete for our jobs, even the ones we will not do. So, we look around for someone different and use them as the target.

It is simpler than dealing with people as individuals. Individuals endowed with “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” thank you Thomas Jefferson.

Inalienable — there’s one of those alien words again.

• Mike McLellan can be contacted by calling and leaving a message at 830-4201 or e-mailing him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it