why else come to america?

The few times my grandmother actually shared stories of her arrival to America, she would usually talk about how all the cousins, aunts and uncles, how the Mishpucha, would gather round together and fend for one another. She also, made it very clear that no one received favor and that anyone from the youngest child to the cousin who was old enough to vote, had to pull their own weight with no excuses permitted for anyone!

When a relative born in America would show concern and demonstrate such concern with ‘I know it must have been difficult’, or ‘I bet it was hard’, my grandmother would puff her lips together like a fish, take her index finger find the nearest body part of the person talking and gritting her teeth whisper in a deep moan, ‘you don’t know what you are talking about because you were not there, and you did not experience it. So what is difficult or hard means nothing at all’! Usually the conversation ended with that and then an almost 15 minute rumble of silence.

My grandmother was not the warmest or mushiest grandma around, and unless you knew her, you might think she was the person the witch in Hansel and Gretel was based upon. She was a survivor and in every detail of her life she was going to make sure whatever happened before in her life would not attempt to find her again and for that matter anyone in her immediate family. She knew her story and unless you lived her life or came close to living it, my grandmother had little tolerance for ‘I can only imagine’. She would often times say, throwing some Yiddish along with her English, if you have to imagine it then it is not real, so don’t talk about something you create that was not created for you to endure.

In politics of America 2011, we now have people who have no idea how poor women in particular thrive. We have people in politics in America 2011, who manage to see their Primary Physician whenever needed and people who get their medication prescribed, and who exercise, and maintain as healthy a life style as possible. In America 2011 we have politicians who think because they can afford visits to doctor, because they can call their physician when anything hurts and schedule and appointment, because that is how they live their life everyone else in this land of opportunity does the same. The poor women whose last outpost was Planned Parenthood to even live a semi healthy life, the women who now are being denied coverage for even the sanest of treatment must look at those politicians and cry ‘you don’t know what you are talking about because you are not here, and you don’t experience it. And if you have to imagine it, it is not real.’

In politics of America, we have those who no matter how many times they practice adultery, infidelity, cruelty to their heterosexual partner, insist that only straight opposite sex couples have the privilege and can enjoy the power and benefits of marriage. In politics of America 2011 we have politicians who would rather not look at what makes their marriages fall apart, what distaste or distrust they have with their partners but insist that marriage is one man one woman. In the politics of America 2011 we have politicians who say to the Gays and Lesbians unions/ domestic partnerships are good enough for you or you wouldn’t know how to be married, or marriage is sacred, scared, but not when they are cheating. You are better off not marrying, it is un-natural they say for a man to love a man, not un-natural for a married man to fool around with another woman.And the LGBT community wants to tell the hypocrites, the uninformed, you don’t know what you are talking about because you are not me, and you haven’t experienced the denials, and you can’t even imagine my life’.

In my grandmother’s latter years, she did break down and discuss her life coming to America as a young girl. Her reason for being more open to her immediate family consisted of two parts. First, she spoke of her trials and tribulations to set the record straight. That record was the recording of the facts, the details, the honesty of what she went through, and her fight to succeed. She wanted no one to think she hadn’t earned everything good she received, and wanted no one to think she took any of it for granted. If she worked for it, achieved it, it was hers.The second bit of reason she shared, was simple. I am human she said, like anyone else. I don’t expect more but do expect the same. Those who deny have no right to do so, and never ever give any of them permission to do so.’ Remember me if only to remember no one deserves more or less then you do.’ After all she would say why else come to America?