A stranger in the land

Several things have been bothering me for the past several weeks and I now see that they are connected. As usual, it was the Holy Spirit that woke me up.

There were two letters to the editor in the local paper this past month. The first talked about the need for immigrants to speak American in this country. I am not making that up – the writer really thinks American is the official language of the U.S.

The second writer was concerned about the preservation and dissemination of Americanism (preservation and dissemination are my words not those of the original writer). I had to wonder if that was left or right Americanism or red or blue Americanism? Was it 21st century Americanism or 18th century Americanism? And what is Americanism?

When did the all the immigrants who came to this country without invitation from the indigenous population begin to speak American and display Americanism?

Then the Holy Spirit brought me the readings for Pentecost. This passage is particularly meaningful to me because it was the first reading I ever did as a Lector in church; and look at what trouble that caused. From The Acts of the Apostles 2.1-21 we have this excerpt:

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

I lived in South Florida for several years around 1980 and it was not uncommon to hear Spanish from the large Cuban population. At the time there was even an effort to make English the official language of Florida. Today in a small community in Pennsylvania it is not uncommon to hear Spanish as well as dozens of other languages. The local school district has somewhere over 30 different languages represented in the student body. In many ways it is music to my ears as I reflect on the wonders of each of these unique cultures. It is also sad for me to think that I can not communicate, even a little, with most of those brothers and sisters in their own language.

While I realize that being functional in English is important to someone living in the US so that they can be productive, stripping them of their own language is not the answer. Forcing the American language or Americanism culture upon someone is disrespectful.

The final piece to this puzzle came to me from a recent op-ed piece written by Rabbi Jack Paskoff where he makes a plea for compassion. Rabbi Paskoff reminds us of the words of the Hebrew Bible that say "You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). Very few of us can claim that we or our families were not also strangers in the land of the US. But how many of us can claim compassion for the stranger in our land?

PAZ,