The Immigrants Quotes

The Malays were outstripped economically in their own country by the immigrant races. In the words of historian Lennox Mills, "when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor country; when they left he was a poor man in a rich country." British attitudes and policies, what the Malays did for a living, the strengths of the immigrants and the nature of the Malay value system all contributed to their backward economic position. ~ Anonymous

Why did you come to the United States? Perhaps no one knows the real answer. I know that migrants, when they are still on their way here, learn the Immigrant's Prayer. A friend who had been aboard La Bestia for a few days, working on a documentary, read it to me once. I didn't learn the entire thing, but I remember these lines: 'Partir es morir un poco / Llegar nunca es llegar' - 'To leave is to die a little / To arrive is never to arrive. ~ Valeria Luiselli

America was a land of machines, and it was through machines, the miraculous handmaidens of mob culture, that the muses of illiteracy brought America her voice and vision during the years of the immigrants' waves. Centuries ago, movable type had given literacy to the common man. Now, through these wondrous newer machines, he would give it back. ~ Nick Tosches

You coulld put girls' boyfriends in jail, and I could teach the immigrants how to dress!!! ~ Meg Cabot

The Democratic Party is the party that opened its arms. We opened them to every nationality, every creed. We opened them to the immigrants. The Democratic Party is the party of the people. ~ Richard J. Daley

Ollie was soon invited to attend public rallies and private meetings in which the crowd called for the expulsion of all foreigners from Sweden calling them parasites that sucked money and health benefits from the social security system. In fact, most of the protestors and demonstrators themselves lived on social security money while most of the immigrants were gainfully employed and paid their taxes regularly. But these facts were irrelevant since prejudice and xenophobia were dominant. ~ Charles Z. David

In 1900, as the immigrants come down the gangplank into Jersey City, they expect the streets to be paved with gold, and they were only paved with gold in Frank Baum's 'The Wizard of Oz,' of course. ~ David Levering Lewis

Look at the immigrants coming to America looking for a better life. What they got now? If they had the misfortune to be successful one of the most gruesome cultural straightjackets in history. ~ William S. Burroughs

both the immigrants from the tribe and bloodline and the activists of prosperity share a common delusion: they believe that it is possible to make this transition without paying the price of choosing between values. One side wants change in their circumstances without letting go of tradition; the other, overcome with guilt and pity, wants to help newcomers with the material change but cannot bring themselves to demand that they excise traditional, outdated values from their outlook. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Could it be that Americans are a restless people, a mobile people, never satisfied with where they are as a matter of selection? The pioneers, the immigrants who peopled the continent, were the restless ones in Europe. The steady rooted ones stayed home and are still there. But every one of us ... are descended from the restless ones, the wayward ones who were not content to stay at home. Wouldn't it be unusual if we had not inherited this tendency? And the fact is that we have. ~ John Steinbeck

In 'Colonization in Reverse'41 (a famous poem much anthologized) the speaker is presented as a more or less reliable commentator who implies that Jamaicans who come to 'settle in de motherlan' are like English people who settled in the colonies. West Indian entrepreneurs, shipping off their countrymen 'like fire', turn history upside down. Fire can destroy, but may also be a source of warmth to be welcomed in temperate England. Those people who 'immigrate an populate' the seat of the Empire seem, like many a colonizer, ready to displace previous inhabitants. 'Jamaica live fi box bread/Out a English people mout' plays on a fear that newcomers might exploit the natives; and some of the immigrants are - like some of the colonizers from 'the motherland' - lazy and inclined to put on airs. Can England, who faced war and braved the worst, cope with people from the colonies turning history upside down? Can she cope with 'Colonizin in reverse'? ~ Mervyn Morris

Jesus reveals salvation, as the Marxist critic and occasional atheist Terry Eagleton observes, to be a matter not 'of cult, law and ritual', but of 'feeding the hungry, welcoming the immigrants, visiting the sick, and protecting the poor, orphaned and widowed from the violence of the rich'. ~ Kenan Malik

Only people who suffer show the ravages of age. ~ Howard Fast

Many members of that early band of twentieth-century pilgrims must have yearned for the honesty of Southern landscapes where even if they were the targets of hate mongers who wanted them dead, they were at least credited with being alive. Northern whites with their public smiles of liberal acceptance and their private behavior of utter rejection wearied and angered the immigrants. ~ Maya Angelou

I also gained new perspective on this issue during the winter, when there were periodic power cuts to conserve electricity. My apartment had only electric heating, and sometimes these blackouts lasted for hours - long, cold hours, the dark apartment growing steadily more uncomfortable until my breath was white in the candlelight. I found that during these periods I didn't think too much about whether Fuling's new dike would hold, or if the immigrants would be well taken care of, or whether the White Crane Ridge would be adequately protected. What I thought about was getting warm. Cold was like hunger; it had a way of simplifying everything. ~ Anonymous

The tendency to separate war stories from immigrant stories means that most Americans don't understand how many of the immigrants and refugees in the United States have fled from wars - many of which this country has had a hand in. Although ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

One of the defining characteristics or difference between today's illegal immigration and the immigration of old is the immigrants of the late 1800s through the early 1920s came here desiring to become Americans. They wanted to become part of what was a unique and distinct American culture. They were all coming from tyranny of one kind or another. ~ Rush Limbaugh

The Sons of the Serpent - they want you angry. At the world. They need us all to feel like victims. And it's an easy get, because times suck. Every day is a battle. We all feel like we're on the wrong end of the wrecking ball. We feel at the mercy of forces beyond our control, and that makes us scared. And that's rocket fuel for S.O.B.'s like the Serpents. They prey on us when we're frightened. They tell us our enemies are the immigrants down the street, or the food stamp family next door. They encourage us to turn our fear into rage, and we fall for it because it's 'empowering.' Except it's not. We don't become 'empowered.' We become weaponized. ~ Mark Waid

He found himself grinning at her. His nervousness had disappeared, and suddenly he had a sense of his own size, his physical strength, his own brains and being. Four years, he had earned his own bread and keep, fended for himself, had not only remained alive and well but had put together a small fishing fleet of his own, and kept it alive and functioning and fought the wind and the weather and met a payroll of eleven men in his crews-and be damned with the lot of them if he'd go into a funk over which spoon or knife to use. ~ Howard Fast

I don't understand why people never say what they mean. It's like the immigrants who come to a country and learn the language but are completely baffled by idioms. (Seriously, how could anyone who isn't a native English speaker 'get the picture,' so to speak, and not assume it has something to do with a photo or a painting?) ~ Jodi Picoult

Keep the immigrants. Deport the Columbia faculty ~ Jason L. Riley

Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history. ~ Oscar Handlin

The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century. ~ John F. Kennedy

Will you keep this?" he asked, holding up the pendant. "Please. Don't show it to your folks. But keep it, please. I'm not asking for anything else. You're going away. God knows when I'll see you again. I can accept what you say about your feelings for me. I have to. But what harm will it do if you take this, and then at least, I'll know that something I got for you is with you. ~ Howard Fast

I suppose I have cause you grief and misery at times, but I have never intentionally caused you embarrassment and discomfort. ~ Howard Fast

People might feel sorry for a man who's fallen on hard times, but when an entire nation is poor, the rest of the world assumes that all its people must be brainless, lazy, dirty, clumsy fools. Instead of pity, the people provoke laughter. It's all a joke: their culture, their customs, their practices. In time the rest of the world may, some of them, begin to feel ashamed for having thought this way, and when they look around and see immigrants from that poor country mopping their floors and doing all the other lowest paying jobs, naturally they worry about what might happen if these workers one day rose up against them. So, to keep things sweet, they start taking an interest in the immigrants' culture and sometimes even pretend they think of them as equals. ~ Orhan Pamuk

This New World utopia, this promised land, was soon buried under the ashes and cinders that erupted over the Western World in the nineteenth century, thanks tot he resurrection and intensification of all the forces that had originally brought 'civilization' itself into existence. The rise of the centralized state, teh expansion of the bureaucracy and the conscript army, the regimentation of the factory system, the depredations of speculative finance, the spread of imperialism, as in the Mexican War, and the continued encroachment of slavery-all these negative movements not only sullied the New World dream but brought back on a larger scale than ever the Old World nightmares that the immigrants to America had risked their lives and forfeited their cultural treasures to escape. ~ Lewis Mumford

When it comes to ethnic markets, most of the shoppers really are very well informed. Most of the shoppers come from cultures - including China - where food preparation receives a lot more attention than in the United States. These shoppers also are largely immigrants or children of immigrants. Either they come from cultures where most food prices are lower than in the United States, or the immigrants have lower incomes themselves, or both. ~ Tyler Cowen

You seem damn sure of yourself for a man your age?"
"I am as old as I can be at my age. I don't know very much, but I know the water. ~ Howard Fast

They decided to let immigrants in and I am an immigrant. They gave us a chance to participate in this country's life and I took it. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Only very rarely are foreigners or first-generation immigrants allowed to be nice people in American films. Those with an accent are bad guys. ~ Max Von Sydow

My whole family has been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country. ~ Yip Harburg

If we want to set and enforce a limit on immigration, we have to be willing to say no to would-be immigrants who look a lot like our own ancestors, not because there's anything wrong with them, but simply because admitting them would exceed our legal limit. ~ Jan C. Ting

He is convinced--and what immigrant isn't?--that all Americans are crazy. ~ Sigrid Nunez

America was born as a nation of immigrants who have always contributed to its greatness. ~ Charles B. Rangel

Spelling is difficult because there are too many rules. Silent letters only exist to make it harder for illegal immigrants to learn English. ~ Daniel Tosh

We're a nation of immigrants - there's no question about that. But we're also a nation of laws. I think we have to honor both of those. ~ Dan Webster

I'm an immigrant and I will stay an immigrant forever. ~ Junot Diaz

I think immigrants, when they're stressed, think that there's something wrong with America, when it's really just difficult to leave a country and all that you know. ~ Akhil Sharma

To say that Reagan teaches us that we should be against amnesty for illegal immigrants is to contradict what Reagan himself stood for - that he was in favor of amnesty. ~ Eugene Jarecki

Every time, every time a tourist or an immigrant or a refugee shows up in another country there's a security risk. ~ Justin Trudeau

Immigrants do more than help us win our wars, or set up cleaning shops or ethnic restaurants. ~ Stephen Ambrose

Every country in Europe needs immigrants for its economic survival. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Muslim immigrants like himself encounter prejudice here [in U.S.] but also find political and religious freedom. ~ Tom Gjelten

French people should be prioritised; clandestine immigrants get 100 per cent refund on healthcare while two-thirds of French people can't afford medical help. Charity begins at home. ~ Marion Marechal-Le Pen

They say there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. But if you ask a Native American, that number is more like 300 million. ~ David Letterman

A recent Pew Hispanic survey found that more than 70 percent of illegal immigrants from Mexico are interested in a guest-worker program and then returning home. ~ John Shadegg

Canada has an immigration policy you might want to emulate. They want more skilled and educated immigrants. In fact, that's all they take. But, see, since nobody's watching them, and they're not a superpower, nobody really cares. So they are allowed to act in their best interests. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Stop scapegoating immigrants[Stop using] outrageous phrases like 'illegal aliens.' ~ Howard Dean

Conservatives forget that citizenship is more than a thing to withhold from immigrants. Progressives forget it's more than a set of rights. ~ Eric Liu

Like many immigrants, I had always kept my Eastern and Western lives compartmentalized. ~ Padma Lakshmi

We certainly employ a lot of immigrants at Fox ... and we do not take any consistent anti-immigrant line. ~ Rupert Murdoch

There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. ~ Emma Donoghue

We must fix our broken immigration system. That means stopping illegal immigration. And it means welcoming properly vetted legal immigrants, regardless of their race or religion. Just like we have for centuries. ~ Nikki Haley

Toronto is a very multicultural city, a place of immigrants, like my parents. ~ Melanie Fiona

Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants. If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you. ~ Rand Paul

We're going to create factory jobs for recent immigrants, and Donald Trump is going to take care of them. That's why his numbers, even right now, in this negative period, are holding pretty strong, because people want a leader that's going to make this country great again and have a strong economy. ~ Jeff Sessions

Let me be clear: we are still a nation of immigrants, and we honor all those immigrants who are working hard to become new citizens. ~ William J. Clinton

All art comes from other art, and all immigrants come from other places. ~ Jerry Saltz

It seems to me that America is constantly reinventing what "America" means. ~ Ronald Reagan

You and I. We are both immigrants. We both know it is hard to find your place in this world. You want to make your life better, work hard in country that is not your own - you make new life, new friends, find new love. You get to become new person! But is never a simple thing, never without cost. ~ Jojo Moyes

My father was a Muslim immigrant; when Donald Trump started talking about banning Muslim immigrants from this country, I grew my beard out. My mother hated it. She never wanted me to look particularly "Muslim." She thought if I grew my beard out that people would know, right? "Don't make it hard for yourself. Don't let people know." ~ Andrew Aydin

Illegal immigrants have been a problem in America for hundreds of years ... Just ask any Indian. ~ Peter Jennings

Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant - conservatives are pro-legal immigration. ~ Marco Rubio

I used to have a sort of soft spot for Huckabee. He seemed to have a genuinely saintly streak, which caused him to defend illegal immigrants and give pardons to criminals who were perhaps a little less rehabilitated than he had imagined. ~ Gail Collins

All of us who grew up before World War II are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before. ~ Margaret Mead

We are indeed a nation of immigrants. People who choose to come to America have always been one of our greatest sources of national vitality. They keep our economy strong and our communities dynamic. They are some of our greatest patriots. ~ Thomas Perez

No country has been more invigorated by immigrant culture, more rewarded by immigrant labor and immigrant ideas than America. ~ Marc Veasey

There is an insuperable problem about introducing immigrants to British values. There are no British values. Nor are there any Serbian or Peruvian values. No nation has a monopoly on fairness and decency, justice and humanity. ~ Terry Eagleton

That should be our test regarding immigrants. Those who come to America to tear it down or live off of others should not be welcomed. ~ Marvin Olasky

Inequality provokes a generalized anger that finds targets where it can
immigrants, foreign countries, American elites, government in all forms
and it rewards demagogues while discrediting reformers. ~ George Packer