Who Is America?

Last week's marches for immigration rights, one of which passed directly in front of ACS headquarters in Washington, D.C., intensified the passion already ignited across the country. Judging from letters to editors, blogs, and radio talk shows, it's clear Americans are deeply divided on how to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Some people fear that undocumented workers are not learning English and worry that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens. But others point out that immigrants take on the unpleasant, ill-paid jobs that citizens don't want.

Some people support the bill passed by the House of Representatives that would wall off the border between the U.S. and Mexico and make criminals of anyone who helps immigrants who lack proper documentation. Others want to define a process through which immigrants now in the country illegally can eventually become citizens. Still others favor a "guest worker" program, where foreign nationals get the right to work in the U.S. for a predetermined period and then must return to their countries of origin.

I suspect the chemistry community reflects the ambivalence toward immigrants seen in the country as a whole. We welcome foreign graduate students; indeed, without them, many of our universities would be hard-pressed to carry out research or find teaching assistants. Chemical and pharmaceutical companies want to hire the most qualified chemical scientists they can, regardless of their national origins. And ACS is working hard through programs such as Project SEED and the ACS Scholars to encourage larger numbers of minorities, including the sons and daughters of immigrants, to join the profession. Yet chemists are also worried about dwindling job opportunities, and that fear can manifest itself as a reluctance to welcome newcomers.

My own family history has shaped my attitudes. It was just over 84 years ago—March 28, 1922—that my Lebanese mother landed in the U.S. at Ellis Island with her parents, two brothers, and older sister. In later life, my mom didn't much like to talk about her childhood experiences as an immigrant, haunted as she was by memories of teasing and ostracism triggered by her accent, the "weird" food she brought to school for lunch, and the pierced ears that marked her as foreign.

One story my mother did share was how her parents got around immigration restrictions by claiming my mom and her sister were twins. Apparently, twins were counted in the quota as a single person, so my grandparents were able to get four of their kids into the country instead of just three. My sisters and I were never quite sure if the twin story was true until we found the manifest of the S.S. Hubert online at www.ellisisland.org. Listed among the steerage passengers are my mother and aunt, both logged as five years old.

It seems to me that those of us who were born here in the U.S. sometimes forget how much we owe to luck. It wasn't our own initiative, drive, determination, and courage that got us inside the borders of our country. It was our immigrant forebears who took the risks to come to a nation with unparalleled freedom and economic opportunities. All too many of us have done nothing in the way of national service to earn the privileges we so often take for granted, yet we are deeply suspicious of today's immigrants, who are only trying to secure those rights and privileges for themselves and their children.

Five years ago, Carlos G. Gutierrez, award-winning professor of chemistry at California State University, Los Angeles, asked in this space: "Who Will Do Chemistry?" (C&EN, May 21, 2001, page 5). "The challenge to all of us," he wrote, "is to create an environment within chemistry in which the intellectual talents of all Americans can be developed and applied."

I think that challenge holds for the nation as a whole: To create an environment in which all people, U.S. citizens or illegal immigrants, can apply their talents to bring about a better world for their families, the country, and the world as a whole. Let's not demonize conscientious, hardworking people because they didn't have the good fortune to be born here.