Former congresswoman Mia Love has died at the age of 49 of a brain tumor. She was the first Black Republican congresswoman elected to the House of Representatives.
She was the daughter of Haitian immigrants. In the story about her, this passage struck me.
Love said her parents immigrated to the US with $10 in their pocket and a belief that hard work would lead to success. She said she was raised to believe passionately in the “American dream” and “to love this country, warts and all”. America at its roots is respectful, resilient, giving and grounded in gritty determination, she said.
I see this trope of “my ancestors arrived in the US with just $10 in their pockets” in many stories about immigrants who later became successful. $10 seems to be the magic number, not more, not less.
Yabbut Love’s parents rolled in a few waves of inflation ago.
Tomorrow’s US immigrant success stories will have to arrive with $100 or more.
I was the exceptionally rich fella. I came to the US in about 2001 with more than $2000 (in Amex travelers checks, no less!) -- my net worth at that time.
Mano, both accounts clearly specify “in their pocket”. They nothing at all about the amount stuffed in their socks.
Could the $10 be analogous to the righwing’s “just ONE…”? As in, “everyone LOVED opening the school board prayer with a prayer to Jesus, but just ONE person complained so now blah blah blah”. Or, as I was told last summer, “Skin cancer never existed before just ONE doctor wanted to get rich so he invented sunscreen”.
Katydid @ 4
Ronald Reagan: they are talking of welfare queens [plural] who drive cadillacs.
[One single Black woman felon who cheated]
.
The numbers of Americans that died of COVID are more nebulous.
Fauci: hundreds of thousands of Americans died of COVID.
MAGA: *some* Americans died of COVID.
@birgerjohannson: I live among these people, and their response is “No, *some* Americans died *with* Covid! Someone could fall off a cliff and if they had Covid, THOSE PEOPLE are trying to blame COVID! COVID doesn’t even exist, and anyway, it’s no worse than the flu!” (Did you catch the contradiction? They can’t allow themselves to admit it if you point it out to them.)
However, my friends in Holland who are FB nuts are completely down the rabbithole, the same as any American-born nut.
Whenever I hear one of those “I arrived here with only $10 in my pocket” stories, I always ask “So how did you keep from starving back then?” Did all of these poor struggling immigrants immediately find jobs before their $10 ran out? Did they have to rely on friends or family at first? Or was there maybe some kind of, gee I dunno, PUBLIC ASSISTANCE available to tide them over till they got on their own feet moneywise?
Cue Monty Python’s Yorkshiremen sketch: “Ten whole dollars? US dollars? Men my parents arrived with ten wooden buttons and a Mexican peso!”
When*
Actually, scrap men or when entirely… quality control failure.