E Pluribus Unum

E pluribus unum. It’s three words I’m sure many of us United States residents have seen on our currency. It’s a Latin phrase that translates to “out of many, one”. I think it’s a great motto for what America is supposed to stand for.

America has often been called the great melting pot, and for good reason. People from all over the world have migrated to the United States throughout its history. Name a country, and there are people living in America who either came from that country directly, or had parents or grandparents who did. My great-grandparents migrated here from Germany and Slovakia in the early 20th century.

I think that’s one of the things that makes America great. The fact that we have so many people from so many different places. The right wants to make us think that diversity makes us weak, and that it means that less qualified people advance over those more qualified, but that's a load of hogwash. Time and time again it's been shown that diversity brings more options to the table and helps build a more inclusive and equitable society.

Our hostility to immigration is by no means new. Whether it be the Chinese immigrants in the 1800s, the Jewish refugees in the late 1920s / early 1930s, the Irish, Italians, and others, we’ve often failed in being as welcoming as we could or should.

Ronald Reagan had this quote which I think sums it up nicely:

I would add just one thing that recently came to me in a letter. A man wrote and found it necessary to say this, and I'm pleased that he did. He said, you can go to live in another land -- you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany, but you can't become a German. You can go to live in Japan or Turkey, and you cannot become Japanese or Turkish. But anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.

I wish more people would recognize this and not be so hostile towards those who might come from different backgrounds.