I was shocked by the photos in the May 27 News Tribune of protesters rallying against refugee resettlement. Then I was angered, disgusted, and, finally, just plain sad. What gives the descendants of Italians, Finns, Slavs, and other ethnicities the right to say they don't want others in "our" country? Unless you are Native American, it is not "our" country. The Iron Range was shaped by immigrants. We did not call them refugees when they came to America, but that is what they were. They were escaping poverty or a whole host of other problems.
Case in point: my father and his family came to America from Lithuania in the early 1900s. They came to escape abject poverty and the tyranny of Czar Nicholas ll, which included conscription into the Russian army for any number of years. His father did not petition for naturalization until several years after his arrival. My father and his siblings did not become citizens until 1942.
My father started working in the coal mines in Indiana when he was 13, spoke only very broken English, and had no formal education. Nonetheless, my father and his older brother were proud to serve in World War I. The entire family went on to become productive members of society.
Refugees are not illegal immigrants. What kind of bigotry was being taught by the woman pictured picketing with her 9-year-old daughter? What sort of country are we becoming? God have mercy on us all.
Ellie Dryer
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Duluth
