Poem

Poetry: Immigration 

by John Myers

Push and Pull

Like many who came before
From distant corners of the globe
Pushed from home
Fleeing calamity
Hunger, Poverty, War

The United States
Land of Dreams
Pulling those seeking a better life
Offering hope and optimism
To the downtrodden, the desperate

They've come to this New World
For several hundred years now
In crashing waves from different places at different times
Only to face new struggles
In a new land

"They're taking our jobs."
"They're stealing our money."
"They don't want to speak English."
"Send them all back to where they came from."
They've all taken turns bearing the brunt

Eventually each group melds into the giant pot
Becoming a part of a new America
Time and time again
And the wave we have crashing over our shores now
Will, too

This poem talks directly about immigration and how it is viewed negatively and positively in the eyes of immigrants and Americans. The poem talks about why people want to immigrate to America. They want to leave their country that's full of poverty, hunger, and war. America is the land of opportunity. Thomas Jefferson wrote in The Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal". That right there is welcoming immigrants into our country, the fact that everybody should have equal opportunity in life. Our country wanted to be treated equally when Britain was in control of us. There are four lines that explain how America feels about immigration in the poem. They are "They're taking our jobs," "They're stealing our money," "They don't want to speak English," and "Send them all back to where they came from." These are racist tensions that American people have on immigrants coming over. From our history though we shouldn't be thinking like this. We were all immigrants at some point in time. The best line in the Poem has to be  "Eventually each group melds into the giant pot, Becoming a part of a new America" This line is saying that eventually we accept these people and they all blend in to American Society, the land of opportunity. Eventually we won't even notice that these people are foreign because they need time to learn their own American dream.