My family were Conservative Jews. My parents were both born in this country, but my father grew up on the Lower East Side, and my mother was born and raised in Harlem when there was a large Jewish 'colony' there. Eventually, they moved to Jersey City to get away from New York.
We should embrace our immigrant roots and recognize that newcomers to our land are not part of the problem, they are part of the solution.
All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.
My grandfather was an undocumented immigrant. My great-grandmother, my bisabuela, carried him over the border in her arms.
I'll also tell you that to no less extent my mom, who was the daughter of Irish immigrants.
I grew up in a Chinese American enclave where the person who lived down the street had literally lived down the street from my mother in Shanghai.
We should never forget that Hollywood was built by Europeans, and the old Jewish boys from Eastern Europe.
I came from an intellectual family. Most were doctors, preachers, teachers, businessmen. My grandfather was a small businessman. His father was an abolitionist doctor, and his father was an immigrant from Germany.
Most Americans descend from the very people who built this country with their bare hands.
My parents were both first-generation Irish Catholics raised in Brooklyn.
We have been, obviously both in Maine and nationally, enmeshed in this false narrative that's based on a fear of immigrants, when in fact we are country founded by immigrants.
Our ancestors who migrated hither were laborers, not lawyers.
