How about stirring more acceptance into the melting pot?

There are many tragedies in the history of the world that should never be repeated. Their having occurred even once was once too many. I wasn't alive during the Holocaust, so there was nothing I could have done about it. (Even if I had been alive, I'm not sure how much I could have done about it.) But, when I read The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, there was a passage whose words described uncannily what today's immigrants must face in order to come to the United States. And this time I can do something, even if that something equates only to spreading awareness.

So as not to paraphrase first-hand accounts "about the conditions inside the freight cars to the Operation Reinhard camps, during the late summer of 1942" (p. 236), author Daniel Mendelsohn opted instead to let the words of a survivor, Abraham Krzepicki, do the telling of his journey from Warsaw to Treblinka, an extermination camp in Poland.

"Over 100 people were packed into our car....It is impossible to describe the tragic situation in our airless, closed freight car. It was one big toilet. Everyone tried to push his way to a small air aperture. Everyone was lying on the floor. I also lay down. I found a crack in the floorboards into which I pushed my nose in order to get a little air. The stink in the car was unbearable. People were defecating in all four corners of the car....The situation inside the car was becoming worse. Water. We begged the railroad workers. We would pay them well. Some paid 500 and 1000 zlotys [Polish money] for a small cup of water....I paid 500 zlotys (more than half the money I had) for a cup of water -- about half a liter. As I began to drink, a woman, whose child had fainted, attacked me. I drank; I couldn't take the cup from my lips. The woman bit deep into my hand -- with all her strength she wanted to force me to leave her a little water. I paid no attention to the pain. I would have undergone any pain on earth for a little more water. But I did leave a few drops at the bottom of the cup, and I watched the child drink. The situation in the car was deteriorating. It was only seven in the morning, but the sun was already heating the car. The men removed their shirts and lay half naked. Some of the women, too, took off their dresses and lay in their undergarments. People lay on the floor, gasping and shuddering as if feverish, their heads lolling, laboring to get some air into their lungs. Some were in complete despair and no longer moved."

With a little bit more research, I found that that account actually continued for a few more sentences.

"We reached Treblinka.…Many were inert on the freight-car floor, some probably dead. We had been traveling for about twenty hours. If the trip had taken another half day, the number of dead would have been much higher. We would all have died of heat and asphyxiation. I later learned that there were transports to Treblinka from which only corpses were removed."

I hesitate to even write this blog, as I do not feel justified in attaching myself -- even only in writing -- to situations I have not lived first-hand. However, many of those people who did, are not here to share their stories; so, while I do not claim to have the same knowledge they did (because I definitely do not), I do feel that I can at least use the information I do have to acknowledge those parallel circumstances between the Holocaust (1939-1945) and immigration (ongoing) when it comes to transport.

It is impossible to say with any certainty how many immigrants have crossed into the United States illegally, as current estimates range from 7 million to 20+ million. But, one likelihood is that the way they crossed the border was through circumstances akin to those detailed by Abraham Krzepicki above.

One misconception that I believe many people in the U.S. have about "illegal immigrants" (and I put that in quotes because no person can be illegal)  is that that decision was one that the person wanted to make. The reality is that it is a decision that the person had to make. Perhaps their family was threatened by gangs, by poverty, by lack of opportunity. Immigration tears families apart and even creates new problems; people wouldn't put themselves through the risk and the agony of the journey to maybe get to the U.S. if they didn't have to.  Then, when they get to the U.S., they often experience sub-par working conditions, not being paid adequately or treated humanely, which minimize their ability to send money back to their families. The cycle is simply being perpetuated, and it has to stop. The people who come here involuntarily, often work back-breakingly hard in order to create a better life for their families.  In doing so, they also end up contributing to the economy and comprising part of the ever-expanding multicultural tapestry that has been the United States, ever since Christopher Columbus and his crew arrived in 1492 and claimed the land as their own.

We could call Christopher Columbus (left) the "first illegal immigrant," if you wanted to use those terms. (Alternatively, he could be called the first person to come into the country illegally.) But we would be wrong.  He wasn't the first explorer to set foot on the Americas (Leif Erikson (right) was...almost 500 years before Christopher Columbus "did."). Even still, it would not have been wrong for Columbus to set foot on the Americas -- his error was in stealing the land from the Native Americans.

Since then, the nation has become known as a "melting pot" -- one that embraces people from different backgrounds in order to make that multicultural thread the norm. It would be hypocritical for anyone in the United States (other than descendants of the original Native Americans) to reject immigrants, as they would essentially be denouncing themselves, the very product of other immigrants who arrived illegally.

Having a day to honor Christopher Columbus the Explorer does not seem like the right thing to do, as we should not be celebrating someone who "discovered" land that had already been discovered, claiming it as his own. So what if we celebrated Christopher Columbus the Immigrant?  Shouldn't do that either; Columbus himself was not an immigrant who just set out to create a better life for himself and his family, which is why he shouldn't be celebrated in the same context as the many other immigrants -- people -- who have risked their lives to emigrate, have contributed to the U.S., and have continued to make the country a richer, more diverse place. It is those people to whom I direct my gratitude and my admiration. This day (tomorrow) honors you.  (And kudos to the four states and other countries who got it right in appropriately naming the holiday that Columbus Day was designed to celebrate. We should follow suit to rename the day so as to truly honor the right people, since Columbus himself was certainly no role model.)

By the way, it turns out that there is a Leif Erikson Day, which occurs every October 9th. For some fun facts about that, click here.

Update: Here are links to more sites detailing why Columbus Day shouldn't be a thing.
*Christopher Columbus was awful.
*Indigenous People's Day