Immigration Day

[bobquasit]

Today is the day that immigrants are supposed to do a general strike, of sorts - stay away from work to show how integral they are to the economy of the USA.

I'm not an immigrant, but my father is, and my mother's parents were.

What immigrants are in your family?

Comments

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. We may be getting to overkill on these things, what with already having protests a while back.

And, after all, the issue isn't really immigrants but illegal immigrants. Mind you, the real problem is employers who see a workforce that they can exploit as they see fit. While I had to go through a bit of effort to get my birth certificate so I could prove that I was actually born in the USA for my current job, there certainly a lot of employers who don't care as long as they can pay low wages with no tax witholding. If it was clear to farmers and others that they would pay more in fines than they save by violating the law there would not be a demand for illegals and there would not be as many illegals coming in.

But we might have to pay a bit more for groceries, hotel rooms, and other stuff as employers find themselves having to pay legal workers legal wages with income and Social Security taxes withheld. And what happens to Mexico if there was no "safety valve" of unemployed workers going to the US?

Yes, I do wildly tangent, don't I?

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

How far back do you want me to go?

My mother's parents immigrated from Germany between the wars, as did most (but not all) of her aunts & uncles. We still have some contact with the part of the family that remained in Germany.

My grandmother's grandfather (on my Father's side) immigrated from Ireland. I believe his wife did as well, although they were married here. We don't know where in Ireland they came from.

My grandfather's great-great Grandfather (again on my Father's side)immigrated from Scotland, possibly by way of Ireland. This was awhile ago... about the time Georgia was being colonized.

Kiralee