A Shining City Teeming with People of All Kinds

by Shawn P. Healy, PhD, Democracy Program Director

On Tuesday, I had the great privilege of serving as the keynote speaker at a U.S. Naturalization Ceremony hosted at our sister site, Cantigny Park. My remarks follow.

232 years today, September 17, 1787, the United States Constitution was officially adopted at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The Framers set forth a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

But the question of who constituted “the people” has been a matter of perpetual national debate, as originally only white, male property owners over the age of 21 enjoyed the entirety of rights embedded in both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights adopted four years later as its first ten amendments.

Decades, even centuries, of fierce and sometimes bloody struggles have expanded the notion of citizenship, first to former slaves, then extending suffrage to women, and ultimately opening the doors of immigration from northern and western Europe to its south and east, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America.

By design, this is a nation of immigrants. Indeed, the Article I, Section 8 of Constitution specifies that Congress is empowered “to establish an uniform rule of naturalization” or a process through which immigrants can become citizens.

But the doors to the “Land of Liberty” have swung open and shut based on the political season. Poet Emma Lazarus echoed spring sentiments in 1883, writing, in words forever etched upon the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor,

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Some currently suggest that golden door be bolted shut. But this would mean turning our backs on history, the diversity that is our strength, the freedom and hunger and ingenuity that is America.

In these times of fierce political contempt and nativist debates over immigration policy, I take solace in looking back to a boyhood memory, that of President Ronald Reagan delivering his farewell address thirty years ago this past January.

In a live televised speech from the Oval Office, Reagan said, “I've been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant.”

“The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’''

“A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom.”

I’m hopeful in this winter of national debates about immigration and what it means to be an American, we can rediscover the true meaning of our creed and stand, again, for freedom.

Reagan often cited Massachusetts Bay colonial leader John Winthrop’s shining city on a hill when articulating his vision for America. “…In (his) mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

“After (243) years, (nearly) two (and a half) centuries, (the shining city) still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”

On behalf of my colleagues at the McCormick Foundation and our fellow Americans, welcome home! We salute you for the steps you have taken to become a citizen of this great country, and urge you to join us in reverence for, and forever vigilance of the Constitution and extending liberty’s light through open doors. Congratulations, and Happy Constitution Day!