Born “Free”
in America
We
‘born here’ citizens of the USA are widely envied throughout the world. Legal immigrants who also
gained citizenship are envied just as much.
There
were ten of us Kegley children, of German immigrant descendancy, born to
blue-collar parents in Portsmouth Ohio, a town I call ‘the cultural center of
my universe”.
We
Kegleys never any felt any serious form of discrimination because of the fact
that our large family was not from the more-recognized ‘hilltop’ affluent
citizens in Portsmouth. But we knew of cliques which were there, even
for us, the financially poorer people. Our
family was largely raised just a block up the hill and a few feet above the
above the terrible 1937 flood crest.
No
one person enjoys a personal slight or condescending manner from any other, but
we know it happens and can be personally felt.
A parent cannot want that for their children.
Although
the Civil War ended in 1865, my home town had segregated
living areas for black and white citizens. I only learned as an adult how deeply
blacks resented the separations.
We
had a one of the nation’s finest swimming pools which we kids and adults enjoyed so much. Blacks were
unable to attend because it was called “The Terrace Club”. Much later, the pool was integrated, but not
without peaceful demonstrations and a black ‘swim-in’.
The
Civil Rights act was passed in 1964. Still, the blacks felt under-privileged in
our country, which many of them had helped other service people in fighting our
enemies in order to have the USA remain ‘Free’.
Assimilation
didn’t immediately happen for any of the ethnic
groups who legally entered our country; however, it was not
dismissed out of hand as people wanted to retain their own cultures even in
their newly entered land. But most eventually
assimilated. It has not been as easiy a
path for the black families, as it became for the Irish, Italian, east and west
European or Asian immigrants. Not many of
those other groups came as slaves as did the blacks.
Many
immigrants have meant so much to the USA. Werner Von Braun brought his German iingenuity
for American advancement. Assimlating immigrants or refugees have
significantly helped the USA? Azian
Americans brought more of the work ethics we love to recognize.
Yes,
we realize that Tea Party types like me don’t mind at all talking of legal
immigrants or ‘accepted refugees’ such as Albert Einstein’, a man so important
to the USA’s winning of WW II with its allies over the evils threatening us.
Immigrants
who assimilate into our value systems are welcome in the USA today to the
extent that they want to be Americans and it is visible in their groups.
I
have been recently been substitute teaching in mainly middle schools and high
schools. For eleven year olds, such as
many sixth graders are, I can see some as ornery and some more earnest than I
and my schoolmates were back in 1943 while WW II was going strong. The kids I see and the wonderful regular
teachers are just as worthy of being protected as our kids were of that day.
It
all causes me to wonder: Who should want
to kill the wonderful children and their hard-working elders who have worked so
hard and built this “free” country? All around
us here, we see faces of
very good American people, the psyches of whom God knows even more intimately.
There
is wider division between the evil and the good since our 2016 elections, but I
continually pray that God’s wishes will continue strongly in All American
Christians.
There
is world-wide evidence that there are those who would remove all good by their
own declarations and actions.
America
must maintain vigilance to remain a free and leading country for a free world.
My
wonderful Christian voluntary editor cannot fully agree with my anger towards
the leftists. God, please keep my anger
subsided and let me practice your Christian love for all of your creation.
I
still strongly feel that our countrymen must wake up to the dangers confronting
the free world.
Sam
Kegley
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