Letter to the editor from Marina Rosin Levine
Remember when Immigrants became Disloyal Americans? No? Me neither.
But leadership and media keep saying it. Nary a batted eye in sight.
Did Former Wisconsin Representative Sean Duffy just claim on CNN that Army Lt. Col. Vindman has questioned loyalty to the US for corroborating Trump’s controversial and treasonous Ukrainian call? Did Laura Ingram and Jesse Waters do the exact same thing on Fox news?
Lt. Vindman describes his immigration to the US as such; “My family fled the Soviet Union when I was three and a half years old. Upon arriving in New York City in 1979, my father worked multiple jobs to support us, all the while learning English at night.”
With minor variations in age and year, my personal Soviet Jewish immigration story is exactly the same. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we crossed paths as kids in our respective Russian-Jewish immigrant communities in either Queens or Brooklyn.
For years the GOP and Trump have been banging the drum of bigotry against immigrants and minorities. With an absence of national support, why do local representatives and leaders feign shock when we reach out to them for some sort of assurance that they do not share these frightening ideals?
LT Colonel Vindman is a Purple Heart decorated veteran who has solemnly taken a lifetime oath of loyalty to the country. Besides the preposterousness of this claim, it is also so ignorant. Only a shallow Google search is needed to learn that we fled the former Soviet Union because of dire economic conditions and near constant violent Anti-Semitism. We view our birth-homeland with complete disdain and with about the same amount of loyalty as Trump’s marital vows.
The sad thing is that these US born and bred GOP leaders have not bothered to ask why immigrants oppose the Trump narrative so much? Very simple. He sounds just like the birth-homeland leadership we fled.
How could it be ok to drag someone like Lt. Co. Vindman through the mud and not ok to condemn and remove the people who do the dragging or stand by and watch it happen? With their silence, GOP leaders signal that they are A-OK with this kind of hostile vitriol.