I'd like to tell you a bit about one of my ancestors, who was an immigrant to America. He always spoke his birth language by preference, although he could speak enough of the new language to get by. He was an adult when he arrived here, and his wife died soon after their arrival. He remarried, a women from the old country, and they tried hard to make their lives in America as much like the old country as they could. He was an educated man, but his education was useless to him in America. He mostly earned his living in agriculture.

His name was William Bradford, and he arrived in America on board the Mayflower, in 1620. He was one of the first immigrants to this country.

America is a country of immigrants. We are almost all immigrants or their descendants. New immigrants in the past have frequently been treated poorly; that is still true today. But it is immigrants and their descendants who have made America what it is, and it is immigrants and their descendants who can make America great again. We forget our own immigrant roots at our peril.

Andrew Derr

New London