A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Phil Vargas, Ph.D., J.D.
Korean War veteran

In light of the long and demanding efforts by the U.S. Congress to pass a much-needed immigration bill, I offer the following for all Americans de buena fe.

The strength of our great nation is in the tremendous potential dynamism of a social amalgam. And that strength lies in an inter-mixture of diverse strains and components that in wars against oppression and tyranny has drawn upon its many human colors, talents, creative energies, and courage to preserve the unified whole that the many have been able to become.

And our America is constantly changing and needs to be ever correcting itself, growing, and becoming better and better (one would hope) through a constant drawing on people of many origins, colors, languages, and backgrounds. Indeed our America is constantly drawing from many sources and many human strains. Our country makes possible the continued infusion of new talents, aspirations, visions - new positive energies and ideas - from many human strains (ethnic, cultural, gender, genetic) that make up the American people. Our great nation is a dynamic and evolving "unit" whose strength is in looking both to the future and the past.

This brings to mind what Albert Speer, the confidant of the Fuhrer of Nazi Germany, wrote about Hitler's views about America's weakness. Hitler is to have said that "The Americans could not stand a trial by fire ... no such a thing as an American people existed as a unit; they were nothing but a mass of immigrants from many nations and races" (Inside the Third Reich Memoirs).

Those words about our country by the most destructive of our enemies still poses a challenge to this special society of ours, a society whose strengths are grounded in diversity and heterogeneity. Hitler's viewpoint, however, proved fatal. But what Hitler did prove is that once a nation descends so that it holds one group superior to another, no person can be safe from the concentration camp or the firing squad.

Our nation is a great mixture of many peoples and cultures, and we have become great because of our intermixture and living together as one people and respecting what each group represents -- as Americans! Great nations are built by the intermixture of peoples of many colors and strains, and that is what our America is, and, in large part, that is where its greatness lies.

For there is a polyglot American people that can manifest great strength as a unit. Our society is a great deal more than a disparate "mass of immigrants from many nations and races." We are all Americans contributing to the greatness of our great nation that, we hope, will always be "becoming." And the immigrants coming from many parts of the world, but most especially from the other Americas, are enriching our institutions and our culture, and they all gain strength from the continual infusion of life energies, cultures, and languages from many human sources that will only make our country stronger.

And we need to continue to enrich our America so it can continue becoming a better nation -- for all Americans. For our nation is a dynamic, evolving "unit" whose strength is in its inter-mixture, looking both to the past and to the future. Great nations are built by the intermixture of peoples of many colors and genetic strains, and that is what our USA is and, in large part, that is where America's greatness lies. The immigrant infusion, with their different languages and cultures and outlooks, only strengthens our great society. For our America was and is an unfinished process, not a final superior perfection exercising dominion over the weak and imperfect -- those who don't "fit."

Finally, Hispanic Americans account for 42 Medal of Honor winners during World War II, the Korean, and Vietnam wars: among them is a relative, Joe Martinez, a native of Taos, New Mexico and a former migrant farm laborer.

Phil Vargas

The views expressed here are solely those of the author. My family sacrificed three sons during the Vietnam War. I spent my 18th year in the Korean War, following my compatriots from the villages and pueblos in New Mexico who fought and died in many battlefields for our great nation. Dr. Vargas can be reached at icicva@aol.com

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION Technorati Tags: Reader Contribution [6] Phil Vargas [7] immigration [8] Adolf Hitler [9] Albert Speer [10] de buena fe [11]