I am an American citizen, the son of a serviceman and a Cuban mother. My family left the U.S. to live in Cuba in 1948 until 1959. In 1959, my mother and I returned to America with two suitcases and $150 and started a new life. My mother was allowed to re-enter the U.S. as my guardian; this is “chain migration.”
During the 1960s, much like today, there were two Americas—a generous America that offered unlimited opportunities and a cruel America that looked down on people who spoke with an accent and resented our willingness to take jobs no one else wanted. It was an America that invited us to Thanksgiving celebrations and one where men in power made unwanted sexual advances to my mother thinking she would not complain for fear of deportation.
Today, the second America is emboldened by a president willing to undermine the First Amendment, calling the press the enemy of the people and attempting to impose his will on the judicial and legislative branches. He is a president emboldened by a political party unwilling to challenge him.
I see the government incarcerating citizens for exercising their right to assemble and express grievances; a Justice Department threatening to punish states unwilling to submit to the will of the president; and a complicit legislative branch writing and passing legislation that punishes states that did not vote for the president and rewards the states that did.
I see a president who creates a crisis for innocent immigrants and is willing to destabilize families to use as leverage with Congress to win at all costs.
DAVE RIVERA
West Mifflin
Note from KBJ: I feel sorry for Dave Rivera. He lives in the greatest nation ever invented, and he hates it.
