The Magic of Immigration.

Certainly all of this talk of immigration has given me reason to pause and reflect about my own background and how my family came to be here in the United States.
On my mother's side we are many generations American. So far back that no written history of her relatives arrival still exist. We can trace back to the mid 19th century with lines that were both Irish and English somewhere before that.
On my fathers side it is somewhat easier. My grandfather came over from Poland and arrived at Ellis Island and stood in line. Went through numerous tests and health certifications and was finally allowed in with his brother who soon left the country and headed for Canada never to be heard from again. My father's mother was smuggled into the country through a port in the Carolina's as a housekeeper servant and then made her way up the east coast at the age of 13 where she setteled in New Jersey and met my grandfather and were married by the time she was 14. Unusual by today's standards but not so unusual for the time. She was a bold and independent young woman who met a bold and determined man who she would remain married to until his death in 1965. More than fifty years together and 9 children, two who would pass shortly after birth.
They spent nearly every waking moment working, building and creating a better life for themselves and thier family than they would have had if they had stayed in Poland.
My grandfather a constuction and sometimes a factory laborer. My grandmother a homemaker and a buisness woman. He could read and write. She could not, but could do math in her head and manage money better than those who had the schooling to do so for years. I took her grocery shopping in her elder years and she would tell the clerk what she spent to the penny by putting the money in her hand prior to the first ring of the cash register. I saw this several times and was always amazed because during the picking out of groceries she would talk to me the entire way never seeming to be adding up the bill at the same time.

They came for a better life. A better oppurtunity for thier future children and thier children.
They did not care what job they got as long as they were working enough to support themselves and thier children with the hope that they could always progress along the way into something better yet again. They bought homes, lost a very large farm in Michigan during the depression and worked to rebuild thier life to buy yet another. The one I grew up on.

There are thousands and thousands of similar stories of those who came from other places to make their place here. Always wanting to build something better.
Build a wall and stop it from happening for others??? I for one can not do that and still pay homage to my grandparents for wanting better things for me. I dont like walls except on homes and workplaces for future Americans.