On January 27, 2017 exactly one week into his presidency Donald Trump initiated Executive Order 13769, more commonly known as the Muslim ban. The order suspended entry into America from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The backlash was quick and very powerful. Many critics shot back with statements like ‘This is not who we are’ ‘We are a nation of immigrants’ and so on. But in all reality, This is exactly who we are.
October 1492 “They willingly traded everything they owned... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for when I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants... With fifty men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
-Christopher Columbus, Journal
In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to authorize slavery through enacted law.
1662 the Virginia royal colony approved a law adopting the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, stating that any children born in the colony would take the status of the mother. A child of an enslaved mother would be born into slavery, regardless if the father were a freeborn Englishman or Christian. This was a reversal of common law practice in England, which ruled that children of English subjects took the status of the father. The change institutionalized the skewed power relationships between slave owners and slave women, freed white men from the legal responsibility to acknowledge or financially support their mixed-race children, and somewhat confined the open scandal of mixed-race children and miscegenation to within the slave quarters.
1705 The Virginia Slave codes further defined slaves as those people imported from nations that were not Christian. Native Americans who were sold to colonists by other Native Americans (from rival tribes), or captured by Europeans during village raids, were also defined as slaves. This codified the earlier principle of non-Christian foreigner enslavement.
1787 The Constitution of the United States did not prohibit, and therefore tacitly permitted, slavery. Section 9 of Article I forbade the Federal government from preventing the importation of slaves before January 1, 1808. As a protection for slavery, the delegates approved Section 2 of Article IV, which prohibited states from freeing slaves who fled to them from another state, and required the return of chattel property to owners.
1790 The Naturalization Law provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white person[s] ... of good character". It thus excluded Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and later Asians, although free blacks were allowed citizenship at the state level in certain states. It also provided for citizenship for the children of U.S. citizens born abroad, stating that such children "shall be considered as natural born citizens."
The Indian Removal Act in 1830, more commonly known as The Trail of Tears, was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States, to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory.
The Greaser Act in 1855, legalized the arrest of those perceived as violating its anti-vagrancy statute. The law uses the word "Greaser" found in section two, to refer to individuals of "Spanish and Indian blood."
1859 The last recorded slave ship to land on U.S. soil was the Clotilde, which illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama.
The Naturalization Act of 1870 revoked the citizenship of naturalized Chinese Americans.
The Page Act of 1875 was the first restrictive federal immigration law in the United States, which effectively prohibited the entry of Chinese women, marking the end of open borders. Exclusion of women aimed to cement a bachelor society, making Chinese men unable to form families and thus, transient, temporary immigrants.
On May 12, 1879 (387 years after Europeans invaded America) in the court case United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook., Judge Elmer S. Dundy ruled that "an Indian is a person" within the meaning of habeas corpus. It was a landmark case, recognizing that an Indian is a "person" under the law and entitled to its rights and protection. "The right of expatriation is a natural, inherent and inalienable right and extends to the Indian as well as to the more fortunate white race," the judge concluded.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a law signed by President Chester A. Arthur, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from immigrating. It also imposed a head tax on noncitizens of the United States who came to American ports and restricted certain classes of people from immigrating to America, including criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care of him or herself."
The Immigration Act of 1903 codified previous immigration law, and added four inadmissible classes: anarchists, people with epilepsy, beggars, and importers of prostitutes.
The Immigration Act of 1907 prohibited “all idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living…”
The Immigration Act of 1917 one hundred years prior to Trump’s Muslim ban included a section of the law designated an "Asiatic barred zone." The zone, defined through longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, excluded immigrants from China, British India, Afghanistan, Arabia, Burma, Siam, the Malay States, the Dutch East Indies, the Soviet Union east of the Ural Mountains, and most Polynesian islands.
1920 The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution finally prohibited the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.
The Immigration Act of 1924 set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, an 80% reduction from the pre-World War I average. Quotas for specific countries were based on 2% of the U.S. population from that country as recorded in 1890. According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity."
Manzanar War Relocation Center 1942 to 1945, is best known as the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
Operation Wetback (offical name) May 1954, used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants, some of them American citizens, from the United States. Overall, there were 1,074,277 "returns” in the first year of Operation Wetback. The deportees were sent to unfamiliar parts of Mexico, where they would struggle to find their way home or to continue to support their families. Those apprehended were often deported without receiving the opportunity to recover their property in the United States, or to contact their families. They were often stranded without any food or employment when they were released in Mexico.
The Immigration Act of 1965 immigration into the country, of "sexual deviants", including homosexuals, was prohibited under the legislation. The INS continued to deny entry to homosexual prospective immigrants on the grounds that they were "mentally defective", or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority."
Since this hemispheres invasion over 500 years ago by white colonizers to today, who we are has rarely been any semblance to the country described in the poem at the feet of the statue of liberty. This nation has only existed for 200 years and in that 12 score the leaders and lawmakers have failed to recognize the personhood and human rights of the preexisting native nations on the land. Failed to recognize the personhood of black people, barred the entry of Asian immigrants, refused gay immigrants, and would not allow women to vote.
The statue of liberty asks for your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, the homeless, and tempest-tost. But the The Immigration Act of 1903 turned away the poor. The Immigration Act of 1882 turned away the huddled masses. The Immigration Act of 1917 would not allow the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. The Immigration Act of 1907 prohibited the homeless, and the tired.
Executive Order 13769 is exactly who America has been. It is no wonder then when a man elected president cries ‘MAGA’ we begin to build walls, cage people, refuse immigrants and strip people of their basic human rights. It is exactly what this country has been. There are two voices in this country's political realm. One cries backward, one cries forward. It is paramount to understand exactly what backward means. To look back and see exactly what this country was and has been. But it is also important to understand what this country could be. What Dr. King dreamed, that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed.
October 1492 “They willingly traded everything they owned... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for when I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron… They would make fine servants... With fifty men, we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
-Christopher Columbus, Journal
In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to authorize slavery through enacted law.
1662 the Virginia royal colony approved a law adopting the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, stating that any children born in the colony would take the status of the mother. A child of an enslaved mother would be born into slavery, regardless if the father were a freeborn Englishman or Christian. This was a reversal of common law practice in England, which ruled that children of English subjects took the status of the father. The change institutionalized the skewed power relationships between slave owners and slave women, freed white men from the legal responsibility to acknowledge or financially support their mixed-race children, and somewhat confined the open scandal of mixed-race children and miscegenation to within the slave quarters.
1705 The Virginia Slave codes further defined slaves as those people imported from nations that were not Christian. Native Americans who were sold to colonists by other Native Americans (from rival tribes), or captured by Europeans during village raids, were also defined as slaves. This codified the earlier principle of non-Christian foreigner enslavement.
1787 The Constitution of the United States did not prohibit, and therefore tacitly permitted, slavery. Section 9 of Article I forbade the Federal government from preventing the importation of slaves before January 1, 1808. As a protection for slavery, the delegates approved Section 2 of Article IV, which prohibited states from freeing slaves who fled to them from another state, and required the return of chattel property to owners.
1790 The Naturalization Law provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were "free white person[s] ... of good character". It thus excluded Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and later Asians, although free blacks were allowed citizenship at the state level in certain states. It also provided for citizenship for the children of U.S. citizens born abroad, stating that such children "shall be considered as natural born citizens."
The Greaser Act in 1855, legalized the arrest of those perceived as violating its anti-vagrancy statute. The law uses the word "Greaser" found in section two, to refer to individuals of "Spanish and Indian blood."
1859 The last recorded slave ship to land on U.S. soil was the Clotilde, which illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama.
The Naturalization Act of 1870 revoked the citizenship of naturalized Chinese Americans.
The Page Act of 1875 was the first restrictive federal immigration law in the United States, which effectively prohibited the entry of Chinese women, marking the end of open borders. Exclusion of women aimed to cement a bachelor society, making Chinese men unable to form families and thus, transient, temporary immigrants.
On May 12, 1879 (387 years after Europeans invaded America) in the court case United States ex rel. Standing Bear v. Crook., Judge Elmer S. Dundy ruled that "an Indian is a person" within the meaning of habeas corpus. It was a landmark case, recognizing that an Indian is a "person" under the law and entitled to its rights and protection. "The right of expatriation is a natural, inherent and inalienable right and extends to the Indian as well as to the more fortunate white race," the judge concluded.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a law signed by President Chester A. Arthur, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law implemented to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from immigrating. It also imposed a head tax on noncitizens of the United States who came to American ports and restricted certain classes of people from immigrating to America, including criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care of him or herself."
The Immigration Act of 1903 codified previous immigration law, and added four inadmissible classes: anarchists, people with epilepsy, beggars, and importers of prostitutes.
The Immigration Act of 1917 one hundred years prior to Trump’s Muslim ban included a section of the law designated an "Asiatic barred zone." The zone, defined through longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, excluded immigrants from China, British India, Afghanistan, Arabia, Burma, Siam, the Malay States, the Dutch East Indies, the Soviet Union east of the Ural Mountains, and most Polynesian islands.
1920 The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution finally prohibited the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.
The Immigration Act of 1924 set a total immigration quota of 165,000 for countries outside the Western Hemisphere, an 80% reduction from the pre-World War I average. Quotas for specific countries were based on 2% of the U.S. population from that country as recorded in 1890. According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, the purpose of the act was "to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity."
Manzanar War Relocation Center 1942 to 1945, is best known as the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
Operation Wetback (offical name) May 1954, used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants, some of them American citizens, from the United States. Overall, there were 1,074,277 "returns” in the first year of Operation Wetback. The deportees were sent to unfamiliar parts of Mexico, where they would struggle to find their way home or to continue to support their families. Those apprehended were often deported without receiving the opportunity to recover their property in the United States, or to contact their families. They were often stranded without any food or employment when they were released in Mexico.
The Immigration Act of 1965 immigration into the country, of "sexual deviants", including homosexuals, was prohibited under the legislation. The INS continued to deny entry to homosexual prospective immigrants on the grounds that they were "mentally defective", or had a "constitutional psychopathic inferiority."
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883
Since this hemispheres invasion over 500 years ago by white colonizers to today, who we are has rarely been any semblance to the country described in the poem at the feet of the statue of liberty. This nation has only existed for 200 years and in that 12 score the leaders and lawmakers have failed to recognize the personhood and human rights of the preexisting native nations on the land. Failed to recognize the personhood of black people, barred the entry of Asian immigrants, refused gay immigrants, and would not allow women to vote.
I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
-Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963
Executive Order 13769 is exactly who America has been. It is no wonder then when a man elected president cries ‘MAGA’ we begin to build walls, cage people, refuse immigrants and strip people of their basic human rights. It is exactly what this country has been. There are two voices in this country's political realm. One cries backward, one cries forward. It is paramount to understand exactly what backward means. To look back and see exactly what this country was and has been. But it is also important to understand what this country could be. What Dr. King dreamed, that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed.
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