Born in the U.S.A.

The 14th Amendment is one of three amendments passed after the Civil War.  The 13th said no more slavery.  The 15th gave the right to vote to males regardless of color or condition of previous servitude.  The 14th, a long amendment, guaranteed equal protection of the laws, and it also said that anyone born in the U.S. was a U.S. citizen.

President Andrew Johnson opposed the 14th.  He was quoted as saying that under the provisions of the amendment, “even the Chinese will become citizens.”  The 14th has unified and strengthened this country.  When California passed laws that Japanese aliens couldn’t own land, they put their deeds in the names of their children, who were born here and,therefore, U.S. citizens.

Turkish immigrants who have lived in Germany for three generations and speak only German are not necessarily citizens of Germany.  The Germans don’t have the equivalent of the 14th Amendment.

We have always been an inclusive country.  In 1908 Israel Zangwill wrote a play about our mixing and blending entitled “The Melting Pot.”  Many social scientists think we are more of a stew with some large chunks, but we are still in the melting process.  As I often told my students at San Jose State, a real melting pot, “If you are born here, you are one of us.”  Us.  Inclusive.  Together.

Now Republican candidates, and not just Trump, are proposing to change the 14th Amendment.  Citizenship would no longer be a birthright.  We’d have two classes--citizens and a permanent underclass.  People like Walker are whipping up xenophobia.  Even Jeb Bush is talking about “anchor babies,” a silly paranoid fantasy of the far right.  I’m telling you, this is getting serious.  People of good will and common sense and a knowledge of our American heritage need to speak up.