When Ignorance Goes On Tour

As part of her "One Nation" bus tour of American landmarks — and an ego trip with even more mileage — quasi-presidential candidate Sarah Palin went to New York City last week and used Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop to take an embarrassing and quite misinformed stand against illegal immigration.

She said she was visiting a place where "legal immigrants" had waited in line to enter the country. But she should know that the 12 million immigrants who came through Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924 came here without prior permission. They were people who, by today's standards, would be considered illegal immigrants!

Following the conservative extremists' playbook, Palin ignored Emma Lazarus' poem enshrined in the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

And she remained adamant in her position against today's undocumented immigrants, even the young ones who were brought here by their parents and have been raised as Americans. She said the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, legislation that would give these young people a path to legalization, would somehow "usurp" the immigration policies established during the Ellis Island years — policies that didn't exist! There were no immigration laws when the bulk of the Ellis Island immigrants arrived.

"The immigrants of the past, they had to literally and figuratively stand in line to become U.S. citizens. I'd like to see that continue," Palin said, according to Politico. "And unfortunately, the DREAM Act kind of usurps that."

It's idiotic. Using the Statue of Liberty to promote an anti-immigrant agenda never has been a good idea. In 1995, then-California Gov. Pete Wilson also used Miss Liberty as a pedestal from which to launch an anti-immigrant presidential campaign, and he proceeded to go nowhere. Such hypocrisy rarely is rewarded by the voters. Americans know that Miss Liberty stands for much more than photo opportunities for politicians.

Yet if she knew anything about immigration history, Palin would know that "the immigrants of the past" arrived at a much more welcoming nation, that you had to be terribly ill and contagious to be rejected at Ellis Island, that only 2 percent of those who came to the island were forced to return to their homelands. That's a grand total of 250,000 rejections over more than three decades — compared with the 400,000 undocumented immigrants now deported by the Obama administration every year.

Obviously, Palin lacks the ability to put things into proper perspective.

If only she and her immigrant-bashing followers would allow the 11 million undocumented immigrants already here the same leniency as the 12 million who came through Ellis Island, the DREAM Act would not be necessary. There would be no illegal immigrants!

Seeing as she is visiting American historical landmarks on a tour that could lead to a presidential campaign, you would think that Palin would brush up on her American history before going around the country making a fool of herself. But nah, she keeps demonstrating what an enormous embarrassment she would be as president.

The only thing that prevented her ignorance on immigration history from becoming a bigger news story last week was the fact that from New York, she went to Boston and told an amazing tale of the ride of Paul Revere.

"He ... warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free," Palin said at an event in Boston.

Really? Paul Revere warned the British? He fired guns and rang bells?

When her distortion of history became the subject of ridicule, she went on Fox News Channel on Sunday and insisted, quite incoherently, that she had been right. "You know what? I didn't mess up about Paul Revere. ... Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that 'hey, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to take American arms.'"

Amazingly, in an apparent effort to rewrite history to suit Palin's version, her followers reportedly may have contributed to the series of changes that were made over the weekend on Paul Revere's Wikipedia page, causing the site to put a padlock on further entries on that page and to remove the blatant distortions, some of which reportedly were based on Palin's interview.

In the street carnival known as the tea party — where Palin is a prominent clown and where people behave as if they own the patent on the Constitution, patriotism and American history — why do people keep sticking their feet in their mouths?

Conservative extremists have been trying to rewrite U.S. history for many years. To suit their xenophobia and discrimination against new immigrants, they wanted us to believe that only "legal immigrants" came through Ellis Island, even though in fact, those immigrants came during a period of practically unrestricted entry. And now, to cover up the ignorance of a potential presidential candidate, they want us to believe that Paul Revere warned the British.

When ignorance goes on tour, things can get scary.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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