Readers React: America once welcomed desperate children

To the editor: In the 1960s through the 1980s, we saw people escaping repression from East Germany to the west with their oppressors willing to shoot them in the backs for trying to climb over a wall to a better life. (“More than rumors drive Central American youths toward U.S.,” July 3)

Now we see victimized people just to our south trying to leave oppression with many on our side willing to stop them head on in any way possible for seeking the same better life. What does this tell us about ourselves and our society? I’m not sure.

But isn’t it ironic?

John Goodman, Oak Park

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To the editor: There’s irony in the descendants of Europeans in North America, which was stolen from natives who had been here for centuries, reacting angrily to “immigrants” moving north. These native North Americans are coming back to their land.

Renee Veale, Pasadena

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To the editor: Two letter writers urge “compassion” for the illegal immigrants flooding our borders and condemn the protesters in Murrieta. I have a challenge for both of them. (“Murrieta’s anti-immigrant protesters could learn something from Lady Liberty,” Letters, July 3)

My daughter is a single working mom raising my granddaughter. They live in a rented condo in Costa Mesa. Money is tight for them.

I ask each of these compassionate letter writers to send me their addresses. I will go check out their residences, and if they are better than my daughter’s, I will have my granddaughter break in so she can have a better life using their homes and amenities.

I am sure people imploring us to be compassionate will jump at the chance to show my daughter compassion.

John C. Vita, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: More than a century ago, when America needed labor to build its cities and farmers to till its soil, the Statue of Liberty raised its lamp to encourage ambitious, creative, eager, industrious immigrants to come to our shores. Emma Lazarus wrote a noble invitation to these immigrants, a poem that one letter writer quoted extensively.

The invitation was not and is not the law of the land.

The immigrants came. Our land is full. The invitation wasn’t for forever.

Our country cannot support the wretched refuse of every country of every continent in perpetuity, and neither Lazarus nor Statue of Liberty sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi intended for that to happen.

Ermanno Signorelli, Mar Vista Crest