My father was an immigrant from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
My wife’s father immigrated from Russia. I’m blessed with three wonderful daughters-in-law. Two have immigrant parents; for one, both parents came from Japan, and for the other, her father came from Poland. All four grandparents of the third daughter-in-law were immigrants from Eastern Europe. Our family has lived, contributed to and been blessed by the American dream.
My primary care physician is a first-generation American whose family roots are in India. The man who installed the hurricane shutters on my house immigrated from Guatemala. He and his wife, also an immigrant, built a successful small business. One of the medical specialists who cared for me when I had cancer a few years ago was an immigrant from Israel, and two others were first-generation Americans with family roots in China.
The landscapers who maintain my community are from Central America. The crew that did a wonderful job on my bathroom renovations immigrated from Portugal. I could go on. This is the fabric that holds America together. We’ve always been a nation of immigrants, starting with the Pilgrims.
It makes us unique and it makes us great. We forget it at our peril.
David Feller, Boynton Beach
Protect the authorities
I’m appalled watching the California protesters riot and throw stones and other dangerous objects at police and National Guardsmen, blocking other citizens from their right to walk or drive, while covering their faces with masks. As an ex-Army officer, I had training years ago on handling riots, and my view is that we must do everything possible to protect our police and Guardsmen.
How do we do that? Sadly, I believe that the only way to control this crazy mob is to warn them that police and Guardsmen will shoot the rioters when they attack police and Guardsmen.
That will get their attention. I care about the safety of the police and Guardsmen and could care less about what happens to the lawbreakers. If the authorities injure or possibly kill a few rioters, they will realize that we have laws in the U.S. that must be upheld.
Howard Hatoff, Boca Raton
Not your father’s Guard
In the 1960s, I served in the Illinois National Guard, then moved to Washington and was a soldier in their Guard, activated when rioters attacked their own cities.
Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
Harry Belafonte greeted Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. as the widow of the slain civil rights leader arrived in Los Angeles on May 16, 1968 to seek funds to finance the Poor People’s March on Washington.
I was there when antiwar protesters marched on the Pentagon and at the “Poor People’s March,” where Blacks, many from the South, camped out during severe rainstorms and marched to request decent services. Other activations followed the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
My Guard’s presence tamped down potentially dangerous outbursts of anger and despair.
The riots in Los Angeles are completely dissimilar, as one of America’s major cities witnesses federal agents hauling away people whose purported crime was living among the rest of us without proper citizenship documentation.
This was a federal government-fomented riot. The apparent mission in L.A. seems to be to assist President Trump in sweeping up people who were leading normal lives and harming no one.
As a Guardsman, I felt my mission was to preserve and restore peace. The Guard’s current presence is complicit in government raids on homes and workplaces, and arresting people whose lives will never be the same. They should feel shame.
Sheldon I. Saitlin, Boca Raton
Where was the Guard?
Where was the National Guard on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol while Trump sat in front of a TV for three hours and watched Capitol Police get beaten?
Mario Signorello, Port St. Lucie
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