immigrant

Poor Father, I see his final exploration. He arrives at the new place, his hair risen in astonishment, his mouth and eyes dumb. His toe scuffs a soft storm of sand, he kneels and his arms spread in pantomimic celebration, the immigrant, as in every moment of his life, arriving eternally on the shore of his Self.

Today you.... tomorrow me.

Zoe leaned closer to Ruth, nearly nose to nose. __f they were made from better stuff, they would have pretended the fault was theirs. They would have made a moment of it--a pretty moment.

Zoe stopped one last time in front of the mirror, adjusting her new American dress. She didn__ see the dress, however. She saw what the big Russian did to her. She saw what al-Qaeda did to her. She saw a person shunned by her Persian village. She saw ugliness. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw deficiency.

The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.

They might watch American movies, wear American clothes, even read American books but Bush and the Iraq War have made actual American people social lepers; she only has to open her mouth in some places to feel a wave of loathing directed at her. Katie is weary of pointing out that at least half her countrymen detest their President even more than Europe does, but it__ no good.

Needless to say, there are people who hate Arabs, Somalis, and other immigrants from predominantly Muslim societies for racist reasons. But if you can__ distinguish that sort of blind bigotry from a hatred and concern for dangerous, divisive, and irrational ideas__ike a belief in martyrdom, or a notion of male __onor_ that entails the virtual enslavement of women and girls__ou are doing real harm to our public conversation. Everything I have ever said about Islam refers to the content and consequences of its doctrine. And, again, I have always emphasized that its primary victims are innocent Muslims__specially women and girls.

Every single immigrant we have, undocumented or documented, is a future American. That's just the truth of it.

If cheap immigrant labor is made unavailable, employers can hire Americans at a higher wage, or replace low-wage immigrant workers with technology and automation, which will create a smaller number of skilled jobs for Americans.

Considering our history, I can think of nothing more American than an immigrant.

Every single immigrant is part of a larger history that needs to be communicated in all its ambivalences and complexities.

No country in Europe has a larger proportion of men and women of immigrant descent, mainly from the African continent and mainly Muslim: an estimated six to seven million of them, or more than 10% of the population.

Learning to distinguish the illegal immigrant from the legal immigrant does not solve the problem of illegal immigration.

If we say we believe in equality for all then we must fight for equality for all, not betray our immigrant sisters.

I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood. We just knew the rule was you're going to have to work twice as hard.

A hothouse flower trained to bloom out of season and in the wrong climate. I do not belong.

You could have just said Ngozi is your tribal name and Ifemelu is your jungle name and throw in one more as your spiritual name. They__l believe all kinds of shit about Africa.

Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American Ground?