Did Christopher Columbus Need a Green Card?

[Published August 8, 2010]

Another recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune caught my attention.  On the front page of the August 6^th, 2010 edition was a story about St. Paul hosting The National Poetry Slam.  Think raucous wrestling-crowd behavior combined with rhyming in a competitive environment and you begin to get an idea.  This is a big deal to those involved and attracts spoken-word artists from across the country.  This weekend’s competition is the Super-Bowl event of the field.

While a national slam poetry contest is interesting in and of itself, it’s part of a poem recited by a New York man that caught my attention.  The Tribune article quotes Jamaal St. John, a New Yorker, giving a reading of a poem on immigrants and U.S. History, saying in part,

“Then ask them what their life would’ve been like if the Indians had had tighter immigration policies.” 

This line hit me hard.  I think he has a point. What would our world be like if the Native Americans had insisted that the first Europeans climb back upon their ships and sail back home?  Would there even had been an “us” to have this discussion if this had happened? 

When we debate immigration policy in America, we need to remember that our ancestors came to this land without an invitation and the first peoples of America did not ask us to see a “green card.”  

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