Watertown was such a quiet little place. Elizabeth and I lived there when we first married -- our marriage certificate still sits in the town hall. Before this morning, its main claim to fame was as home to the highest concentration of Aremenian immigrants in the United States. Our landlord was Armenian; his elderly mother used to tend a small plot of tomato vines outside our window. Our cat would sit in the open window on warm summer days and hiss at her when she came near. She would just laugh. I'll always have fond memories of that place and that time.
To the rest of the world, Watertown will be remembered very differently after today. The events of this week have hit increasingly closer to home. This evening, while dining on a Torta here at O'Hare airport, I read of Senator Grassley's linking of the events in Boston to the current debate over immigration reform. I suppose Grassley is imagining a new immigration policy that will somehow prevent individuals like the brothers involved in today's manhunt from ever entering the United States, let alone settling here permanently.
It would be wonderful to have a magic crystal ball that would enable immigration authorities to look at a nine-year-old child and foresee that they would one day make a bomb out of a pressure cooker and place it in a crowd watching a major sporting event. For if such a crystal ball were to be formulated, it would undoubtedly provide additional assistance in identifying the American-born children responsible for similarly heinous crimes.
Immigrants come to the United States in search of something they cannot obtain in their homeland. Refugees and asylees from the war-torn corners of the globe come in search of peace, many others come in search of education or basic economic opportunity. Our nation is blessed with a relative bounty of all these things. To craft an immigration policy under the supposition that migrants come here in search of chaos and destruction is to fall prey to the worst kind of paranoia.
Watertown is like America, in a way. For more than 300 years, it has led a peaceful and fairly prosperous existence. One day, some outsiders come in and wreak some havoc, and the event leads many to forget about the hundred thousand days where no such event happened. Watertown could respond by sealing its borders with Cambridge, Allston, Newton, Waltham, and Belmont. But in the process it would lose immeasurably more than it would gain.
I forgot that Sam used to hiss at her while she was gardening...that was hilarious. Great post though. Grassley's comments really ticked me off.
Posted by: Eliz V | 04/19/2013 at 06:54 PM