What makes it hard to welcome immigrants? If it wasn’t hard, I wouldn’t be
writing about it, so go on, think of why it’s hard to welcome immigrants…
Let’s see… they look different, they speak different, they
eat different, they work different, they live different, they worship
different. In addition, some are
here illegally, costing us a lot, and we don’t know which ones are here legally
and which illegally. What
else? Some have snuck into our country and blown up stuff in
terrorist attacks. I’m sure
there’s more, but does that at least suffice as a summary of reasons why it’s
hard to welcome immigrants?
So what should
we do? I guess that depends who
the “we” is. I hear some people
talk as if we have the power to keep immigrants out, when really that requires
political process and government policies. That is a broader, less personal “we”, and not one that we
can quickly or easily influence.
My question is, what should the personal “we” do about immigrants?
Our personal options are limited, and that can be frustrating to us
sometimes. It’s too expensive to
personally round up the ones we suspect to be illegal and deport them, we
probably don’t trust the law process to actually get rid of them, so I guess we
can either kill them, or let them live.
Since the result of killing them is undesirable (going to jail), we
settle for the lesser of two evils and let them live, frustrating as it is. I’m making this dramatic on
purpose. My point is that personal
frustration from involuntary tolerance can grow and become an issue much bigger
than the matter that caused the frustration. How does the old saying go, “don’t throw the baby out with
the bathwater?” Well, don’t let
hate for immigrants or foreigners grow wild, just because you know some are
here illegally.
If you’re struggling with holding a grudge against
immigrants, ask yourself, “what would it take for me to not hold this attitude against them?” You can’t make them disappear, we already covered that in
the last paragraph. Would you
agree that it would help if they would assimilate more into American culture
and values and life? We all get
frustrated over language barriers, and we get annoyed by people that don’t seem
to understand “the laws of the land.”
If they would just be more like us, right? Some immigrants do assimilate very well, others don’t. WHY? There’s plenty of factors that determine this, but I believe
one of the biggest ones is whether or not they feel welcomed and cared
about.
Now here’s the whole point that I’ve been leading up
to: You have a powerful influence
on immigrants. You can influence
them to love Americans, or hate Americans. It’s pretty
easy to influence immigrants to hate Americans, just ignore them, suspect
they’re illegals, mutter slander about them, turn the other way when they’re
approaching, you know, anything that portrays that they’re not welcome.
It’s not any harder to influence them to love us, but it takes a
different attitude and approach.
So many immigrants come from cultures that value hospitality. Then they come to America, and they
never get an invite into an Americans home. In college my wife used to take a whole armload of flowers
to east African bazaars and hand them out to the women working there. Many of them said they’d never been
welcomed like that by an American.
Whether or not an immigrant feels welcomed by Americans sets
them on a path of building their attitude about us. If they feel welcomed by us they will be more open to
learning who we are. If they know
we care, they’ll share their struggles with us, and we can minister into their
lives. If they do not feel
welcomed by us, they will be hardened by feeling like an alien. A person that feels unwelcomed and
insecure in a new setting will seek solace by looking backwards at their home
culture and religion for guidance.
Many Muslim women who did not veil their heads or faces in their
homelands have decided to veil after they reach America, because they don’t
trust a culture that didn’t welcome them, and they became more conservative and
devout to Islam as a way to cope with their insecurity. Shocked?
We have an influence on immigrants, and this is a powerful
opportunity to change the world, as it comes to us. Want to curb the growth rate in the number of mosques in
America? Respect Muslim
immigrants, invite them to your home for a meal, and let them see that they can
find people that respect and care about them outside of the religious identity
they’ve had since birth. Invite
the person in to your home, and you
are giving them an opportunity to look out
of the religion that you fear.
Scary? Sure it
is, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever done. Let’s say you work with a Muslim, or see one regularly. Warm up to a house invitation by beginning
to greet him or her every morning with a handshake, and ask them how their
family is. Make eye contact, show
you care, stick around for their answer, listen to them. If this person never warms up to you, don’t
give up and generalize all Muslim people as cold or mean. Try again, and keep trying, and you
will help turn feared foreigners into people that you and me can say, “I’m glad
they’re here, they have taught me something, and I’ve had a positive influence
on them as well.”
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