American History, a Saga of Immigrants

Interesting letters on April 23 regarding Vietnamese immigrants. For instance, I wonder where Sal Giardino learned his American history? He never knew that there was no country called “Italy” in 1492? That Christopher Columbus was Genoese, not Italian, and that nobody on the Italian peninsula would give him a penny to make his famous trip? It was Spanish money, Spanish ships and Spanish sailors that made that trip possible, and Columbus claimed the land he found for the Queen of, yes, Spain! I have never understood why the Italians claim Columbus Day.

Furthermore, it was the English who originally colonized our part of North America, and immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, Poland, China, Japan, Mexico, and, yes, even Italy, and on and on who settled, built, and are still building our beautiful country. When the first generation got here from any of these places they did nothing but hard work, which is exactly what the first generation of our new Asian immigrants is doing.

Then there are the “garish urban-blight type buildings” Jennifer T. Moore complains about. Now, which of us can remember the failing businesses, sleazy used-car lots, trashy signs and vacant lots that lined Garden Grove and Westminster Boulevards before the Asians began building? And what do we have now? Clean, interesting, successful businesses that generate a lot of tax money. Personally I prefer the latter.

I suppose as much as anything we should feel pity for people who are so profoundly ignorant of the country they proudly call their own. The immigrants who don’t “succeed” are criticized for “living off our welfare system”; the ones that do succeed are criticized for having the nerve to actually get “rich.”

What a pity the grandparents of the Giardinos and Moores and others of their attitude aren’t around to remind them of how they were treated when they came here “yearning to be free.” What a pity that so many of us still don’t understand what the inscription on the Statue of Liberty really means!

HEATHER SMITH

Fountain Valley