Wall Street Journal (Op-Ed)
By Raymond Yung Lin
September 11, 2015
I
am an “anchor baby” and proud of it. That’s the term Donald Trump has
used to describe people whose parents chose to have their children gain
U.S. citizenship by being
born on American soil. Mr. Trump wants to take my U.S. citizenship from
me—a citizenship that I received after years of struggle by my parents
to come to this great country, a citizenship guaranteed by the
Constitution’s 14th Amendment. I say, let him try.
He won’t succeed.
When
my father died in 2006, I was shocked to learn that my parents came to
the U.S. in the mid-1950s and intentionally overstayed their tourist
visa with hopes of one
day becoming American citizens. My father found a job, and less than a
year later I came into the world. My parents struggled to make a new
life in America, but they worked hard, raised a family, and became legal permanent residents and naturalized citizens
as soon as they could.
Their
story is not that different from that of millions of immigrants to the
U.S. My parents fled China after the Communist revolution in 1949
because my mother was informed
by a neighbor that the communists were “watching” their home. My mother
took my older brother, then just a baby, and hopped on a train to Hong
Kong with nothing more than two U.S. $100 bills sewn into the collar of
her cheongsam dress and two suitcases sent
secretly first to a friend’s home. She then met my father, who had
taken a separate route.
My
parents rightly feared political repression in China, but there was
virtually no legal immigration permitted for Chinese in 1949. Not even
for my father, who earned
two masters degrees from American universities and wanted to become an
American citizen so badly that he volunteered to become a civilian
employee of the U.S. Army during the Korean War. No matter.
After
the Korean War, my parents emigrated to Brazil but had difficulty with
the language and culture. They longed to return to America. So—trusting
in God, for they were
both Christians—they applied for a U.S. tourist visa and in 1957
disappeared into the maw of America as illegal aliens.
After
months of job searching, my father contacted his old professor,
Christopher Tunnard, who agreed to hire him as a research assistant on a
book he was writing with
Boris Pushkarev on the changing urban environment in the U.S. The
book—“Man-Made America: Chaos or Control?”—won a 1964 National Book
Award, and the work my father did helped him land a job as a city
planner in Tampa, Fla.
My
father, Philip Lin, spent the rest of his long life in Tampa. Before he
died at the age of 91, I asked him where he wanted to be buried. Many
Chinese immigrants want
their bodies to be returned to China. But not my father. He was an
American and wanted to be buried in America, in Tampa, the country and
city he loved.
Most
American immigrants, documented or not, don’t have my father’s
educational background or professional training. But what my family and
all American immigrants have
in common is the desire to improve their families’ lives. They share
the bravery of giving up the known for the unknown. They share the
optimism that the future can be better than the past, that our lives are
what we make of them, and that our actions control
our destiny.
What
they don’t share is the concept of privilege, the idea that an “anchor
baby” creates an entitlement to a better life without working for it.
Donald Trump has said
that once an “anchor baby” is born “for the next 80 years we have to
take care of the baby.” That’s simply not true. Most immigrants, even
undocumented ones, work hard and pay their way.
According
to a study released in April by the Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy, undocumented workers paid nearly $12 billion in state and local
taxes in 2012.
The Social Security Administration estimates that in 2010 they paid $12
billion more into the Social Security program than they will take out. I
know my parents never asked for anything other than the opportunity to
work hard and live free. They always paid
their way and so do I.
I
have met many immigrants from many backgrounds, but I’ve never met one
who wanted to become an American to live off of welfare. They understand
that with the benefits
of citizenship come the responsibility of being American. They pay
taxes and believe in serving this country. People like my wife’s
grandfather who came to the U.S., worked most of his life in a salmon
cannery, but put it aside to serve, at age 51, in the
U.S. military during World War II. Or an in-law, who served in the
Korean War and wears his U.S. Army uniform proudly every Veterans Day.
Or my cousin, David, who enrolled in ROTC while attending Brown
University and served as a naval officer in the 1980s.
This
is why I’m proud to be an “anchor baby.” I’m proud to have a family
that taught me the true virtues of American exceptionalism—that we as a
people are exceptional,
not because we are born to be exceptional, but because we are born to
parents who were willing to risk everything for the opportunity to
become Americans and that we must make the most of this precious gift
from our parents. Donald Trump may try to deport
me, but this is my country and I’m not leaving.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment