The years 1902-1929 were known as the Progressive Era in the U.S. The doors to politics and political participation were thrown open wide to many more people, such as women who were disenfranchised, and it would henceforth be the People, not the states who would decide who served in the U.S. Senate. Immigration exploded as people from non-English European speaking countries started arriving in even greater numbers at our shores, and many were Catholic, or not considered to be white (or both.) In particular, many were Asian. This was duly noted by conservatives who then decided to do something about it. So, in 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow’s veto. The Act forbid prostitutes, anarchists and political radicals, idiots, imbeciles, alcoholics and epileptics among others from entering the country and becoming citizens. This post is a story of how I came to love an illegal immigrant. I know of a woman among the hundreds of thousands of immigrants back then who was not an alcoholic or a prostitute and who had no political leanings (as a teenager, she was not even old enough to vote assuming women could vote in 1917 America.) But she was an epileptic. Her and her mother landed at Ellis Island seven years after the Immigration Act of 1917 was passed. And because this woman’s mother lied to the authorities about her daughter’s epilepsy, this young woman was able to slip into this country illegally. She committed a crime in order to come to America, to join her father who was already living and working here.
This woman sailed steerage-class on the trans-Atlantic ship München which left Breman, Germany. Steerage was absolutely the cheapest accommodation available to the poor in Europe. There were portholes in the compartment in which she and many others slept, but you could not see the sky as the portholes were several feet below sea level. It was hot and noisy in her quarters since it adjoined the engine rooms which were, themselves, hot and noisy. Women, and occasionally men would be packed together like sardines, and people were always seasick. some women did not survice the passage, others were undoubtedly molested en route. When permitted to be on deck for a few hours each day, there was little to do. No chairs on which to sit, no entertainment, certainly no hors d’oeuvres before dinner was served (in buckets.)
This woman would tell me how excited she was to see the Statue of Liberty facing her as she finally sailed into New York Harbor after a dangerous and tiresome voyage. But by the time they reached Ellis Island for processing, Lady Liberty was looking away from them, towards the Southeast. What happened next escaped the notice of that famous Lady. The first Americans they met at Ellis were perfunctory, if they were not outwardly rude. They poked and probed the frightened immigrants, barking out orders at them in a language they could not understand. Some immigrants were likely locked up for some reason (or no reason at all.)
That illegal immigrant was my mother. My mother, a white Anglo Saxon Protestant, became a true American patriot who loved and later defended this country by later birthing and sending her two sons off to Vietnam. She learned English, voted diligently and regularly after receiving citizenship, was never arrested, paid her taxes, worked tirelessly her whole life, never asked the government for assistance, but she was persona non grata and would have been deported—and might still be today–had she not died of old age in 2000. She wasn’t a gangster, a thug, or a drug dealer. She never spent a day in a lunatic asylum or a jail. She never poisoned anyone’s blood. She was a good mother to me and my brother, and both of us loved her dearly.
My mother was not born epileptic. She had an accident as an adolescent when she fell off a hay wagon in rural German and hit her head on a rock. As she fell, she heard her grandmother (my great grandmother) call her name, and thereafter that cry from my great gransmother became an aura to her which was replayed just before a seizure struck. But she never had more than one or two seizures a year, thanks to the Dilantin and Phenobarbital she took daily.
The München was renamed in 1930 as the SS General von Steuben in honor of a German war hero who fought with George Washington during the American Revolution. During World War II the Reich repurposed it for military missions and on February 10, 1945, it was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. Some 4,000 German civilians fleeing from the advancing Red Army lost their lives when the ship sunk. It lies today 230 feet below the waves.
Today, many immigrants no longer arrive in ocean going passenger ships, but rather in cargo containers. Some die along the way as some did on the München. Those who arrive in the U.S. face an unwelcome and uncertain future even as my mother did. They likely don’t have epilepsy, but they may have scars from being brutalized in their home country or as they walked towards the U.S.
Because of my mother and her circumstances, it would be hypocritical of me to deny others today the opportunity to enjoy the life in this country that she enjoyed. Granted, there are bad dudes that sneak in; wolves with the sheep. A few do murder and rape, but only a few. A very few. Even Wiliam Bradford had violent criminals to deal with in Plymouth Bay. These villanos weren’t looking for a land of opportunity. They were fleecing his flock. But unless you are Iroquois, Comanche, Sioux, Cherokee, Pawnee or a member of some other tribe, your ancestors were at some point aliens to these shores, themselves. Think about that!
Don’t let some cheap political hack poison your blood against these unfortunates.