This 4th of July, the Virginia Historical Society will host a Naturalization Ceremony for U.S. citizens following completion of its education program for U.S. citizenship. This year, one hundred candidates from nearly 50 countries will participate.
That brings to mind the early role of immigrants that was of such importance, 19th century Midwestern states awarded state citizenship and the right to vote earlier than was possible for U.S. citizenship as a draw for immigrant settlement on the frontier.
In 17th century Virginia bounties of land were granted to those who sponsored immigration, fueling the indenture system of labor until Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676 and the promotion of hereditary slaves for cash crop production in the eastern part of the state. 18th century Virginia saw the influx of the Scots-Irish and Germans into the Valley and west into the transmontane regions that became Kentucky and West Virginia.
In the 19th century, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted into Virginia’s Constitution of 1870, making citizens of all born in the United States, regardless of any earlier condition of slavery. In the 20th century, Virginia has had substantial numbers of Asian, and now Latin American immigrant streams.
Recently some have blamed job dislocation on immigrants when mechanization, computerization and robotics are mostly to blame in low paying or unskilled jobs. Many immigrants fill jobs that native-born Americans do not fill. The United States still sponsors more legal immigration than the rest of the world combined.
Immigrants who are well educated contribute to U.S. corporate growth or initiate entrepreneurships employing many more than their family members. Bill Gates has proposed that U.S. citizenship be awarded to every immigrant PhD to reinforce America’s “brain drain” effect from around the world that ever renews the United States.
Problems with illegal immigration include the fraction who are gang members preying on the legitimate and law-abiding immigrant communities, making their full integration into American society and economy impossible because of persistent intimidation, extortion and drug-dealing enslavement. They should be seen as an existential threat to a free society such as ours. See First Principles at The Virginia Historian website.
In the name of personal liberty, economic opportunity and mutual safety, I join the Virginia Historical Society in celebrating our newly minted fellow citizens this 4th of July. – R..G. Zimermann, the Virginian historian.