I am sure The Moderate Voice (TMV) has hundreds, if not thousands, of readers.
There are, however, about a dozen readers whom we have gotten to know quite well because of their frequent and incisive comments and contributions.
Perhaps confirming President Kennedy’s reference to the United States as “a nation of immigrants,” seven or eight of this dozen readers shared their or their ancestors’ immigration stories in a five-part series “Reflections of a ‘Nation of Immigrants,” about 18 months ago at TMV, starting here.
This author decided to bounce this “thesis” – that we are a nation of immigrants – against the extensive slate of Democratic presidential candidates we have had competing for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
We have had 28 Democratic candidates competing for the nomination. Eight* are still in the running as the results of the South Carolina primary are announced.
Relying on publicly available information – mostly from Wikipedia – I have come up with the following “findings”:
Twelve of the presidential candidates have at least one parent or grandparent who immigrated to the United States.
One candidate’s third great-grandfather was an immigrant.
Four candidates claim foreign ancestry.
One candidate claims “mixed ethnicity” and was born in American Samoa.
Some details:
Andrew Yang’s parents immigrated to the United States from Taiwan.
Pete Buttigieg’s father was born and raised in Malta and immigrated to the United States.
Both of Wayne Messam’s parents were born in Jamaica.
Kamala Harris’ mother immigrated to the United States from India and her father emigrated from Jamaica.
Bernie Sanders’ father was born in Austria-Hungary (now part of Poland) and immigrated to the United States in 1921. His mother’s parents were immigrants from the “Russian Empire.”
Amy Klobuchar’s maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Switzerland. Her paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Slovenia.
Michael Bloomberg’s paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Russia and his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from present-day Belarus.
William Bennett’s mother, a Holocaust survivor, was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States in 1950. Bennett was born in India while his father was U.S. Ambassador there.
Both Joe Sestak’s father and grandfather emigrated to the United States from what today is Slovakia.
Bill de Blasio’s mother was of Italian heritage, and his father was of German, English, French, and Scots-Irish ancestry. His maternal grandfather and his grandmother were from Italy.
Julian Castro is of Mexican descent. His grandmother came from Mexico.
Richard Ojeda’s paternal grandfather came from Mexico.
Joe Biden’s paternal third great-grandfather was born in England and immigrated to the United States. His mother was of Irish descent and his paternal grandparents were of English, French, and Irish ancestry.
Kirsten Gillibrand has English, Austrian, Scottish, German, and Irish ancestry.
John Delaney is of three quarters Irish and one quarter English descent.
Cory Booker has Sierra Leonean ancestry.
Tim Ryan has Irish and Italian ancestry.
Finally, Tulsi Gabbard, who was born in American Samoa, “is of mixed ethnicity, including Asian, Polynesian, and Caucasian descent.”
There cannot be any doubt that the slate of Democratic presidential candidates faithfully reflects that we are a “nation of immigrants,” in addition to it being a model of racial, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation diversity, inclusion and tolerance.
*Edit:
Now there are seven, after Tom Steyer, always a gentleman and truly a “good guy,” graciously conceded after a good fight that he does not see “a path to winning.”
