The New America Immigration is about more than immigration. It is about renewing the soul of America. Immigration is about welcoming newcomers into our cultural and political traditions of citizenship. It means teaching them what it means to be an American and what a privilege that is. Archbishop José H. Gómez We need a new education in civic virtue and citizenship. Our new immigrants need to learn the story of America. Not the story of cynicism and hypocrisy that too often is told in our media and schools, but the true story of America—the story of a people struggling mightily in every generation to live up to the beautiful ideals of the Founding Fathers. America’s story is unique and exceptional among the nations of history. We are not a nation that originated in common ties to territory, blood, or kinship. There is no common or preferred race or religion in America. Our identity is spiritual. Americans are not just individuals who occupy the same geographical space. Americans are committed to a dream, to a vision of a world where men and women live in freedom, dignity, and equality. What unites us in all our beautiful diversity of cultures and ways of life is this shared vision of the dignity of the human person created by God. We need to start teaching that again—first to ourselves, and then to our new immigrants. We need to rediscover and proclaim the noble origins and purposes of America in order to renew the American spirit. America’s history is missionary and immigrant. America was never really a melting pot. America has always been a crossroads and meeting place of cultures—a world city, a cosmopolitan commonwealth. The American creed— with its faith in our common humanity, divine dignity, and destiny—is like the frame that holds in place the many pieces of this mosaic of peoples. From the beginning, America has always made room for people from many cultures, speaking different languages, holding different beliefs, customs, and traditions. 26
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Now it is our turn to help make our newest immigrants a part of this great American story. Integration and Americanization mean helping these men and women to join their stories to ours. We need to help them learn our history, our language, and our values. We need to learn from them and inspire them to make their own contributions to the dream of America. The new America is being determined by the choices we make as believers and as American citizens. By our thoughts and by our words, by what we do and by what we leave undone, we are writing the next chapters of our American story. ■ MOST REV. JOSÉ GÓMEZ is the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Catholic archdiocese. In his ministry, Archbishop Gómez encourages people to follow Jesus Christ with joy and simplicity of life, seeking to serve God and their neighbors in their ordinary daily activities. Excerpt from Immigration and the Next America © Archbishop José H. Gómez. Published by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. For more information and to purchase the book, please visit www.immigrationandthenextamerica.com photo credit: Page 26: Photo by Harry Chase. Copyright © 2015. Los Angeles Times. Reprinted with permission