Imagine the thoughts of a native resident of the Lower Peninsula of Virginia some 350 years ago as she watches another English ship sail up the James River.
"These illegal immigrants from England are becoming a real problem. When they showed up on our shores a few years ago, they seemed like a desperate small band of foreigners so we greeted them with hospitality as is our tradition, even though they came here illegally, not having gotten the permission from our chiefs to stay and work prior to coming. We saw that these illegals lacked the basic skills to survive here. They probably were not smart enough to find work in England and came here looking for jobs that we would not do. So we took pity on them and allowed them to stay, but they continued to come in greater
numbers, and they are breeding like flies. Now their forts, farms, and houses dot our land. These English brought all sorts of problems with them. They are overtaxing our medicine men and women, being agents of all sorts of disease, from smallpox to syphilis. I am sure it was these English, Spanish and other illegal immigrants that caused the great epidemics that killed so many of our people.
The English also bring ruin to our land with their drug trade. They easily addict to our sacred tobacco, smoking it all day long, rather then using it only on rare occasions in ceremonies, as any civilized person would know to do. They deal these nicotine drugs back to their home country, using their profit to acquire more of our land. Sometimes their drug-trafficking ways leads them to plant tobacco instead of crops, resulting in much starvation. I do not know if these people ever had morals, or if their drug economy took away their sense of right and wrong. The shameless tobacco kingpins in the immigrant community buy people from Africa and use them as slaves to cultivate the plants. These drug-addicted English are so uncivilized that they are even known to eat their own wives! They can't keep their hands off our women-folk or the African women. Before they arrived, there was no such thing as a jail or prison in our land. Now English ruffians fill the lock-ups.
The drugs, crime, disease and uselessness aside, we could welcome these Europeans to become citizens of our land, but they don't even want to learn the language of our country. How can they expect to
function in our society if they can't communicate with us?
Maybe they don't want to really be part of our society and, instead, just live in a "Little England" on our land. If that is true, I can see what the future holds. The English will take most of our land and force us to live on small reservations. They will even destroy those by damming rivers when they want more fresh water. They will destroy the sacred Chesapeake by robbing it of all the oysters, crabs and fish, and by sending their urine and feces there. Something must be done to stop these illegal immigrants from England."
Does any of this lament sound familiar? The U.S. citizens of European extraction currently debate the problem of undocumented workers, as they have ever since their own ancestors arrived here.
Most of the attention is focused on undocumented workers from Mexico. While undocumented workers from that country find jobs throughout the United States, most look for employment in the western states, such as California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Oregon. This seems fitting, since most of their lands used to be part of Mexico before the United States won them in the Mexican-American War.
Remember that war? Pioneers from the United States settled in Mexican-owned territory that now comprises those western states. The "Manifest Destiny" crowd in government supported these pioneers (maybe the Mexicans called them illegal immigrants), wanting to claim the lands of the west for the United States. In 1846 we went to war with Mexico ostensibly over a border dispute with Texas, but one brilliant U.S. victory after another brought that fractured nation to its knees, and the United States got to keep all those western states.
It seems that now many white folks complain that the land that our ancestors took from Native Americans is being infiltrated by Mexicans, but those Mexicans are mainly returning to land that we took from their ancestors, and their ancestors took that land from the Native Americans of the west. Got it?
So, unless you descend from the native peoples of America, be careful about who you label an illegal immigrant.
Benjamin Cuker, Ph.D.
Professor of Marine & Environmental Science
Hampton University
Hampton, VA 23668
[email protected]
ph. 757-727-5884, fax 5740
"These illegal immigrants from England are becoming a real problem. When they showed up on our shores a few years ago, they seemed like a desperate small band of foreigners so we greeted them with hospitality as is our tradition, even though they came here illegally, not having gotten the permission from our chiefs to stay and work prior to coming. We saw that these illegals lacked the basic skills to survive here. They probably were not smart enough to find work in England and came here looking for jobs that we would not do. So we took pity on them and allowed them to stay, but they continued to come in greater
numbers, and they are breeding like flies. Now their forts, farms, and houses dot our land. These English brought all sorts of problems with them. They are overtaxing our medicine men and women, being agents of all sorts of disease, from smallpox to syphilis. I am sure it was these English, Spanish and other illegal immigrants that caused the great epidemics that killed so many of our people.
The English also bring ruin to our land with their drug trade. They easily addict to our sacred tobacco, smoking it all day long, rather then using it only on rare occasions in ceremonies, as any civilized person would know to do. They deal these nicotine drugs back to their home country, using their profit to acquire more of our land. Sometimes their drug-trafficking ways leads them to plant tobacco instead of crops, resulting in much starvation. I do not know if these people ever had morals, or if their drug economy took away their sense of right and wrong. The shameless tobacco kingpins in the immigrant community buy people from Africa and use them as slaves to cultivate the plants. These drug-addicted English are so uncivilized that they are even known to eat their own wives! They can't keep their hands off our women-folk or the African women. Before they arrived, there was no such thing as a jail or prison in our land. Now English ruffians fill the lock-ups.
The drugs, crime, disease and uselessness aside, we could welcome these Europeans to become citizens of our land, but they don't even want to learn the language of our country. How can they expect to
function in our society if they can't communicate with us?
Maybe they don't want to really be part of our society and, instead, just live in a "Little England" on our land. If that is true, I can see what the future holds. The English will take most of our land and force us to live on small reservations. They will even destroy those by damming rivers when they want more fresh water. They will destroy the sacred Chesapeake by robbing it of all the oysters, crabs and fish, and by sending their urine and feces there. Something must be done to stop these illegal immigrants from England."
Does any of this lament sound familiar? The U.S. citizens of European extraction currently debate the problem of undocumented workers, as they have ever since their own ancestors arrived here.
Most of the attention is focused on undocumented workers from Mexico. While undocumented workers from that country find jobs throughout the United States, most look for employment in the western states, such as California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Oregon. This seems fitting, since most of their lands used to be part of Mexico before the United States won them in the Mexican-American War.
Remember that war? Pioneers from the United States settled in Mexican-owned territory that now comprises those western states. The "Manifest Destiny" crowd in government supported these pioneers (maybe the Mexicans called them illegal immigrants), wanting to claim the lands of the west for the United States. In 1846 we went to war with Mexico ostensibly over a border dispute with Texas, but one brilliant U.S. victory after another brought that fractured nation to its knees, and the United States got to keep all those western states.
It seems that now many white folks complain that the land that our ancestors took from Native Americans is being infiltrated by Mexicans, but those Mexicans are mainly returning to land that we took from their ancestors, and their ancestors took that land from the Native Americans of the west. Got it?
So, unless you descend from the native peoples of America, be careful about who you label an illegal immigrant.
Benjamin Cuker, Ph.D.
Professor of Marine & Environmental Science
Hampton University
Hampton, VA 23668
[email protected]
ph. 757-727-5884, fax 5740
