Categorized | Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: The Fire Under the Kettle Has Gone Out

melting pot

Melting pot

The United States has been referred to as “The Melting Pot”, a nation of immigrants from all over the world. This is what the proponents of giving amnesty to illegal aliens keep reminding us. And that is true; we are a nation of immigrants. I don’t care if you can trace your roots back to the Mayflower. Unless you are a Native American Indian your ancestors came from somewhere else.

In a melting pot, such as a furnace or kettle used to process scrap iron, you put pieces of old bicycles, pipe, bed frames, automobile parts, etc., into a big kettle. Then you turn on the fire and all these different parts melt down into one molten mass, becoming one if you will. It’s the same with immigrants who came to this country legally, yearning to be free.

People used to come here looking for a better life and actually appreciated the chance to live here. Some got off the boat, kneeled and kissed the ground. Now there seems to be a lot of kissing going on but it’s not the immigrants doing the kissing and it’s not the ground being kissed.

People came here leaving what they had known their whole life and took a big gamble to make a better life for themselves and their family. They just couldn’t walk in and be given financial and medical aid. They needed promise of employment, housing and had to pass a medical exam. Most of all they had to learn English. They were given temporary status, a Green Card, and a time limit to learn our language and our ways. I remember being embarrassed by a women studying for her citizenship test when she knew more about American history than I did.

Well I think the fire under the kettle went out as of late. People still keep coming to “The Land of Opportunity” but want to hold on to their “roots” for lack of a better word. We are not melding into one country. The scrap in the kettle is remaining separate pieces of useless scrap instead of becoming one mass that can be used for a meaningful purpose.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best back in 1907:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

I’m writing this because of something I heard the other day. Someone asked me if I had heard what happened in Woodbridge. I said, no what’s up? He told me that the Woodbridge schools replaced the Veterans Day holiday with the Hindu holiday of Diwali. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I did some research and found that it was not Veterans Day that was replaced, it was Columbus Day. As it happens they never honored Veterans Day, (go figure). Are you kidding me? It shows how far the politically correct crowd will go to destroy this country’s sovereignty.

Political Correctness is a joke. You can’t speak your mind because it might offend someone, even if what you are saying is the truth. I like to refer to the Politically Correct as the “Pucker Crowd”. It fits and the initials P.C. are ironically the same. The “Pucker Crowd” is not limited to just one political party, but transcends political boundaries. That’s the really scary part.

Many nationalities have holidays that are celebrated in their countries of origin and are celebrated here. You have many clubs and places of worship where celebrations are held, and you are free to hold them. We have parades; St. Patrick ’s Day, Pulaski Day, and Puerto Rican Day, to name a few, but we do not close American institutions on these days. That is, (or was), reserved for American holidays.

If you want further proof of how our country has become a scrap heap, take Patriot Day, the most solemn day in America. For those who don’t know what Patriot Day is, (and I’m sure there are a lot of you), it is September 11th. That was the day that close to 3000 people were killed in the 911 attacks.

One house on my street was flying an American flag. Across Perth Amboy I counted ten. Yet when there is a festival or some ethnic holiday people drape their cars and themselves with the flag of their country, (funny I thought this was their country), and fly their flag from their houses. I guess I don’t get this diversity thing. I must need sensitivity training. Sensitivity training, that’s another joke worthy of another letter.

Joe Bayona

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