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| G R Stolpe |
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| E Stolpe |
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| G R Erikson |
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| A J Erikson |
With
all the other things overloading my emotions right now, I don’t have the energy
for the debate on immigration right now, as much as it shreds my heart. Besides
my personal and family concerns I still care about violence in which guns are a
lightning rod, racial justice and harmony, sexual harassment and assault,
climate change and environmental quality, compassion and justice for people who
are poor and weak. I am grieved that rather than addressing these urgent
issues, each one seems to push the others out of public consciousness before
anything meaningful is accomplished. I have no illusions that my voice
influences any of these things, but expressing my convictions gives my heart
some relief so I can proceed with my immediate responsibilities.
I
am in favor of immigration reform that provides a way to welcome new people
into this country that is simple, accessible, compassionate, and just, so that those
who are seeking to share life with us have no reason to end run the system. Of
course, we need to do the best we can to protect the country from crime, but
not from ethnicities or religions we don’t understand.
To
me, the overall impact of the things being presented for non-negotiation, of
which the wall is the most blatant symbol, are not so subtle efforts to post a
huge sign that says, “Keep Out! This Means You!” Much as pre-adolescent boys
used to post (maybe still do) “No Girls Allowed!” signs on their clubhouses.
I
am only the second generation born in this country to immigrants, so the issue
feels rather immediate to me. My understanding from family lore (which I know
takes on a life of its own) is that they each had a unique immigration journey.
For me, immigrants are neither history figures, nor anonymous figures in the news;
I knew and loved these immigrants and empathize with today’s immigrants as real
people, just as my recent ancestors were real people for me.
- · My mother’s father ran away to sea from Marstrand, Sweden at 16 years old and never looked back. After considerable seafaring adventures, he jumped ship in California and was for some time a troublemaker. Jesus found him through the Salvation Army and he married a young Salvation Army woman, which is how he got through the process of becoming what we would call “legal” today. She and their six year old son died in the flu epidemics.
- · My mother’s mother was the first child born to her parents who had recently immigrated from Sweden to escape abject poverty. Her father was a cobbler. They settled in Oakland, Nebraska and moved to California, where they moved frequently seeking employment opportunities. Her parents never learned to speak English. She was older when she met my grandfather at the First Swedish Baptist Church. My mother was their only child. With a bit of poetic irony, my grandmother died in Oakland, California.
- · My father’s father emigrated from Sweden at 16 years old largely to escape poverty in Lapland and avoided military conscription. As Baptists and not Lutherans in Sweden, they were considered nonconformist and avoided government involvement. His older sister already lived in Connecticut and facilitated his coming to the US. His siblings followed him. My grandfather learned English and to become a tool and die maker by reading a large set of technical books (I still have the math volume). At some point along the way all of his brothers and the husband of their younger sister all worked for the same tool and die shop in Detroit, Michigan, which became their home base. Eventually their father came to the US as well, but never learned to speak English.
- · My father’s mother came to the US from Stockholm, Sweden. Much earlier some of her forbearers had come from France to Sweden but fully identified as Swedish. I know little else about her other than that she met my grandfather in the Swedish Baptist community with which both sides of the family have identified in the US.
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