I am only a second-generation American. My paternal grandparents came from Ireland. My maternal grandparents came from France and Hungary. My wife’s paternal grandparents came from the Netherlands.
They came because they believed the United States was a better place, where neither race nor creed nor ethnicity mattered. That is what I believe. How wrong they were, based on President Donald Trump’s recent executive order. All these things now apparently matter to the executive and legislative branches, who would like to believe that the United States has a definitive culture that only they and those like them resemble. It does not.
The United States represents the highest ideal of individualism, however we fail as a nation to conform to that ideal. The idea that one should exclude or repress persons who do not reflect either the appearance or culture of the national leadership is reprehensible. It is contrary to the guiding principles of our nation in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Mark Coyne
Lexington
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