Immigrants: Legal, Illegal Or Just Human (I)

by Jacob Jaffe


Ever since Lucy and her band of our Homo Sapien ancestors left Africa some 70,000 years ago, our species has been migrating. From our savanna homeland, we have spread over the entire globe so that almost every nook and cranny of our planet has been populated with our species. There are some who even talk of colonizing Mars. While we are known as a tool-making primate, we should also be recognized as confirmed travelers.

There are many reasons for our wanderlust. Whether we are enticed to improve our lives, evicted by harsh circumstances or just plain curious, we do get around. Not that this constant migrating has necessarily been easy. We've had to adjust to new climates, master the earth to provide food or, if the land was already occupied, confront its occupants. While this commingling of newcomers and strangers can be peaceful and mutually beneficial, it frequently results in conflicts. All too often, warfare is the means by which one group conquers another people's land and lords over the vanquished.

To bring this situation to our own country, weren't even the first Europeans who settled here immigrants who didn't speak the local languages and certainly didn't pass inspection by the local inhabitants. The millions of people misnamed Indians were here for an estimated 15 to 25,000 years before they were "discovered" by the Europeans. These two peoples replayed a theme familiar to our species: the newcomers believing the land and people were for their taking while the indigenous, even if curious and initially friendly, quickly resented the intruders. Not that there weren't periods--no matter how brief--of friendship and mutual accommodation. Would the Pilgrims have survived if it weren't for the aid of the local tribe?

But humans, unfortunately, are very parochial and dichotomize people into We and They. We cling to our own family, nation, co-religionists and others similar to ourselves and are prone to be suspicious, if not hostile, to strangers. The meetings of two peoples may range from raised eyebrows and avoidance to hostility and wars. Misunderstandings play a role. For example, the concept of the Europeans was the ownership of land with the building of fences while the Native Americans' was of sharing and, and if not mutual respect, live and let live, including benefiting from trade. But let us not romanticize the Native Americans. Despite their common ancestors, they were not always cooperative with neighboring tribes or nations; hostilities and subjugation were all too frequent.


Dr. Jacob Jaffe is a psychologist who has taught at Columbia and City Universities. He is also a psychotherapist and the author of two novels,"Hobgoblins"a political-psychological thriller and "Land of Dreams,"based on his family's immigrant experience. Find out more, visit http://www.jaffeauthor.com