Teddy Roosevelt - On Being an American

I didn't know Teddy Roosevelt - and I certainly never got to hear him speak in person, but I have always liked the character of him. He was responsible for pushing more and more land into our National Park program - and he loved the Land, just like me. My mom forwarded this to me this morning - and since yesterday was Pearl Harbor Day - a day to remember those souls who lost their lives in a sneak attack - it seemed appropriate to me.

I stay away from politics, mostly. I have spent nearly my entire career caring for people who were marginalized - and poor - and I have seen what people go through just to get here. I am Catholic - and I support the decision of the Church to actively pursue an amicable solution to the current immigration crisis. However, I also know stories of how my great grandmother helped the older German ladies learn how to speak English and how she would read their letters - I know that my family of Irish immigrants learned English and worked hard until finally there was a generation when all 8 kids went to college. People were bilingual - and that was fine, but if you went to the bank, you needed to speak English. I don't mind if you speak Bosnian or Spanish or whatever at home, but the burden on health providers and business owners to speak a second or third language to do business is silly.


"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
Theodore Roosevelt 1907