I know that I have said it before. My brother and I are the children of immigrants. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. My parents and brother are immigrants; I am the child of immigrants.
My father came to this country in the early 1940’s, I think. He applied to the armed services but was rejected for whatever reason. He went to Chicago and worked for the Edison electric company running wire through the city, or that was the family story. Later, he returned to Mexico where he met my mother, married, and returned to the US for work. My mother birthed her eldest son in Monterrey – my brother. It was 1947.
Soon after, she and my brother joined our father in Houston, Texas. I was born in mid 1949. So, according to the law of the time, I was born a citizen of the United States. My parents and brother were legal resident aliens.
My brother and I went through our basic education, and he went through university and then enrolled in medical school at the age of 15 or 16; he was the youngest member of his class, and still a resident alien. Before graduating from medical school, he married and joined the Navy – still a resident alien. I went to university, worked in the defense industry for a while, and then returned to graduate school.
Sometime in those years, my mother applied for US citizenship, and passed her citizenship exam. My father never did that; he wanted to die a citizen of Mexico. I always thought that odd since he took little to no interest in the politics of his country.
When he finally reached the age of 18, my brother took and passed his citizenship exam. He left the Navy with the rank of Captain and went to make a life in Corpus Christi. So, here we are, my brother and I, some 70+ years later. We are both citizens of the United States. I had to do nothing but come into the world to become a citizen. He, on the other hand, had to navigate a Byzantine bureaucracy to become a citizen. I, like Donald Trump, never served in the armed services. So, who contributed more to this country – Donald, me or my brother?
I post this essay to pose the question of who is deserving of citizenship. Is it enough to be born on American soil (birthright citizenship). Does it require military service aka Starship Troopers citizenship? Does it require demonstrating some other significant contribution to our society?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know that having pseudo-patriots, born to US citizenship, who would deny the same to “anchor babies” are the most pathetic example of hypocrisy that America could offer the free world.