Sep 24, 2016 2 min read

Timothy Egan’s column that appeared in the Sept. 7 edition of the Observer-Reporter concerning Donald Trump’s proposal of “extreme vetting” when it comes to immigrants really hit home with me. America’s door would have been closed to both sets of my grandparents, who came to America in the early 1900s, if Trump’s policy had been law then.

My father’s family came from Italy. My mother’s family came from Yugoslavia. Although from different backgrounds, they had much in common. They were dirt poor, largely uneducated and unskilled. They also shared a common dream – to be free, and to have a better life. Everything my father’s parents owned were in two steamer trunks, which we still have in our cellar.

I will speak mostly of my father’s family. My three siblings and I were raised in an extended Italian household. Often as many as 12 people lived under our roof. My grandfather sold fruit and vegetables off a horse-drawn wagon before he started a mom-and-pop store in Cokeburg. During World War II, they sent their three sons off to war. Fortunately, all three returned.

After the war, my parents took over the store and raised four children. All four of us are college graduates because of our parents’ sweat and thrifty way of living. My mom was fond of saying that we lived with both feet in our shoes.

I am proud of my family and the effort they expended so I could have the good life I enjoy. I also fully realize that if America had built walls around our country in the early 1900s, my grandparents probably would not have been permitted to come here. They would have been “vetted” because they couldn’t speak English too well.

Building walls is not the answer. Deportation is also not the answer.

We have some really smart people in Washington, D.C. Let’s put those big brains together and rework our immigration policies to assimilate those who come from different cultures and make America great not by exclusion, but by inclusion.

Richard A. Berardinelli

Cokeburg