Land of Immigrants

[Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] One summer, an American American family set out to see America. There was a lot of America for an American family to [Music] see. Heat. Heat. [Music] foreigners. We're a nation of foreigners. Every one of us almost. Once long ago, a really early American watched a shipload of people land on his shore. [Music] immigrants. The foreigners were often treated quite rudely by some of the Native Americans who didn't welcome immigrants in the [Music] neighborhood. They had problems with the language spoken here. They dressed strangely. They had to learn new customs and ways of living in the new land. They did learn new customs and they settled down to live. [Music] The Spanish had come looking for gold and silver. The French and the Dutch came for furs and trade. But most of the English came searching for a better life. Back in England, there was much discontent and unhappiness. The king had proclaimed that everyone should go to one church. His people who wish to worship in other ways had to flee. Some left to escape debtor's prison and hopeless [Music] poverty. Some fled civil war and rebellion. Others came seeking profit and [Music] adventure. As time went on, the promise of a better life brought other people from all over Europe to the new colonies. [Music] There were other ships though that carried other passengers. The only immigrants who shared only the hardships, not the [Music] hope. An immigrant is a special kind of person willing to risk hunger and hardship for a better life. Though immigrants from different countries had different customs and beliefs, they learned to work with each other and live [Music] together. 150 years passed and then these immigrants and sons of immigrants declared their [Music] independence. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] A new nation, a different kind of nation created by immigrants and sons of immigrants. They were English, Dutch, Irish, French, German. They were Presbyterian, Quaker, Anglican, Catholic, Congregationalist. They were wary. Each made sure that the other would not take away the liberty he had fought for. They created a nation of people free from an all powerful church and free from an all powerful ruler. [Laughter] For the next 70 years, the new freedom drew a steady stream of people to [Music] America. Then a great surge of immigrants was started by a terrible event in Ireland. Famine. Crops failed not just once, but several years in a row. Thousands of families were driven from their homes. So many jammed the ports that ships couldn't carry them all. The Irish famine came at a moment in history when vast numbers of workers were needed [Music] here, particularly workers for the railroads and canals. [Music] The Irish were only the first in this great period of immigration when wave after wave of people rolled onto these [Music] shores. At first, the waves came mostly from Western and Northern Europe. There were Germans fleeing from revolution and war. From countries where farmland was growing scarce came Danes, Swedes, Norwegians. Many people of these early waves spread out into the Northwest and onto the plains. They plowed the prairies. They stocked the dairy lands. They lumbered the forests. [Music] For a while, there was an incoming tide from the Orient, from China, the Philippines, and Japan. [Music] [Music] still later waves came from Eastern and Southern Europe. Italians living in miserable poverty. Greeks, Poles, checks and Slovacs. Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, [Music] Russians, all searching for freedom from tyranny and hunger. [Music] [Music] [Music] During these years, more people immigrated to America than had ever moved to one country in the history of mankind. [Laughter] Most of these later immigrants piled up in the cities where there was factory work or in the mining areas. All the world thought of America as the land of freedom, the land that promised a better [Music] life. But not all of the promises were kept. [Music] Why is it that some people dislike strangers, people who seem foreign to them? Is it because the strangers have different manners and customs? Because they dress differently? Is it because they don't know their way around in the new country? Is it because their speech is hard to understand? Why? Immigrants, like other strangers, often feared and disliked each other. Little wonder that people from different countries stayed among their own countrymen, crowded in different parts of the city slums. Though it was hard for many immigrants to become full-fledged Americans, it was easier for their children. Education, free education was one of the promises that really came true in this land of opportunity. Children learned American ways. Yes. But you'd be astonished at the number of American ways that were really foreign ways to start with. We celebrate our holidays with a Dutch Santa [Music] Claus, a German Christmas tree, Russian, Polish, Czechoslovakian Easter [Music] eggs, Roman candles, and Chinese firecrackers, French lace hearts, and British witches. We eat Irish stew, Italian spaghetti, Swiss cheese, Chinese chia, Canadian bacon, Mexican tamales, Welsh rabbit, French mayonnaise, Spanish omelets, and Hungarian goulash. We watch Russian ballet, listen to German symphonies, sing Italian opera, play folk songs from every nation. And we treasure ideas, particularly the ideas of freedom and equality. The great ideas on which this nation was founded and which every immigrant since has strengthened. Foreigners? No, Americans. Immigrants and the sons and daughters of immigrants. All of us. It's the mixture of all those people from different lands that has made this nation great. Years ago, when there was still a great imporing of immigrants, the people of France gave this nation a gift. The greatest tribute one nation has ever paid to another. A mighty woman with a torch. Keep ancient lands your storied pomp, the silent lip say. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We are proud to be immigrants, a land of immigrants. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Laughter] [Music]