It is easy to say, “Come to America. It will be fine.” But nothing is that simple.
I remember when Hmong refugees were brought to America after the Vietnam War. Thousands of churches and individuals worked tirelessly to resettle the newcomers, family by family. It was hard.*
I hope all the folks calling us to open our nation to today’s refugees are ready to roll up their sleeves and open their arms. If you think it is the right thing for America to do, then it is the right thing for you to do.
*Read more about the Hmong people here. To understand the gap between cultures, I recommend ” The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures” — it’s a hard read that will leave you thinking that everyone is right and everyone is wrong.
Emma lazarus’ lovely words on the Statue of Liberty are an ideal, but ideals cannot in themselves be policy.
And policy alone doesn’t do the job. It takes people power. More people and more power than folks realize.