Dear United
States of America,
I am writing
this because as a refugee, as an American, and as a human being I need to speak
out, or I won’t be able to sleep at night..
Two weeks
ago, my family celebrated our 23rd year of living in the United
States. To do so, my parents, grandparents, and I had a family gathering, where
we took a trip down Memory Lane, looking at photo albums. Like every year, my
family reminded me of how we came to the United States, and why. We came as
Jewish refugees, leaving family and friends behind. We made this sacrifice to
flee anti-Semitism, rampant street violence, corruption, and a crashing economy.
We risked our entire livelihoods to search for a better future, and a better
life. And we found it! Decent jobs, our own property, the ability to travel,
cars, grandparents well taken care off, the ability to speak your mind, study
what you want, pursue a career that interests us, and innovate. We have reached
our American Dream!
Yet while
reaching it, sometimes we got so busy that we missed what is going on right
under our noses. Two weeks later, I came to realize that, while we were
toasting the successes of our new lives in America, the country that we adopted
was starting to become unrecognizable. The same country that, 23 years ago,
welcomed immigrants and refugees, now jails them. The nation that provided 7-year-old
me money, clothing, food and recreation, is now taking the kids off the arms of
their mothers and putting them in cages. I shudder to imagine what would happen
to me if this was the fate of my family!
Unlike too
many of the hypocrites who are now in the United States as refugees and
immigrants themselves, I haven’t forgotten where I came from, or how I got
here. The ONLY difference between my family and the refugees seeking a better
life, is that they are dark-skinned, while I’m Jewish. They weren’t born in a Socialist
country; I was. Their country of birth is not hostile to the United States; mine,
at that point, was. That’s the ONLY difference. To infer otherwise is
tomfoolery. How can any immigrant, refugee, or asylum-seeker, legal or not, be
opposed to something that he or she used, and would use again without any
hesitation oncesoever, to build a better life?
Some may
claim that my family is legal, while others are not, but what kind of excuse is
that? Who decides who is “legal”? It’s ironic, isn’t it? To become “legal”,
Russian Jews first had to suffer through pogroms, then the Holocaust, then
Russian Socialism, all to earn the right for “asylum”. How many holocausts do
the people already suffering from gang violence and lawlessness need to go
through before the United States gets its head out of its ass, and wakes up?
What the
Trump administration is doing is despicable. It is inhumane. It is a black mark
on our history. We claim that we are so-called leaders, in aid, in humanity, in
empathy. We want other countries to follow our lead, to admire us, to “spread
democracy”. Yet we are blind to the human rights violations happening right at
home, under our very eyes. Worse, so-called “Americans”, who claim to believe
in God, who consider themselves as decent human beings, who espouse “family
values”, are actually defending separating children from their parents. What
kind of illness has befallen our country? When shall we take the antidote to
cure us from our sickness?
For anyone outside
of the United States reading this, I want you to know, this is NOT THE America I
know. The majority of us Americans do not, and will not support this
criminality. We shall, and are fighting it. We shall resist. And, while the
black mark on our history has already been stained with permanent ink, we shall
make sure that it is but a tiny blot in our history. The humanity, and the
future of the United States depends on it!
Love,
Gary Gorny
Refugee,
Immigrant, American, Human Being
