The Audacity of Hope

activist accused Danny of having forgotten where he came from—of not really being
Latino.
When I heard what had happened, I was both angry and frustrated. I wanted to call the
group and explain that American citizenship is a privilege and not a right; that without
meaningful borders and respect for the law, the very things that brought them to
America, the opportunities and protections afforded those who live in this country,
would surely erode; and that anyway, I didn’t put up with people abusing my staff—
especially one who was championing their cause.
It was Danny who talked me out of the call, sensibly suggesting that it might be
counterproductive. Several weeks later, on a Saturday morning, I attended a
naturalization workshop at St. Pius Church in Pilsen, sponsored by Congressman Luis
Gutierrez, the Service Employees International Union, and several of the immigrants’
rights groups that had visited my office. About a thousand people had lined up outside
the church, including young families, elderly couples, and women with strollers; inside,
people sat silently in wooden pews, clutching the small American flags that the
organizers had passed out, waiting to be called by one of the volunteers who would help
them manage the start of what would be a years-long process to become citizens.
As I wandered down the aisle, some people smiled and waved; others nodded
tentatively as I offered my hand and introduced myself. I met a Mexican woman who
spoke no English but whose son was in Iraq; I recognized a young Colombian man who
worked as a valet at a local restaurant and learned that he was studying accounting at the
local community college. At one point a young girl, seven or eight, came up to me, her
parents standing behind her, and asked me for an autograph; she was studying
government in school, she said, and would show it to her class.
I asked her what her name was. She said her name was Cristina and that she was in the
third grade. I told her parents they should be proud of her. And as I watched Cristina
translate my words into Spanish for them, I was reminded that America has nothing to
fear from these newcomers, that they have come here for the same reason that families
came here 150 years ago—all those who fled Europe’s famines and wars and unyielding
hierarchies, all those who may not have had the right legal documents or connections or
unique skills to offer but who carried with them a hope for a better life.
We have a right and duty to protect our borders. We can insist to those already here that
with citizenship come obligations—to a common language, common loyalties, a
common purpose, a common destiny. But ultimately the danger to our way of life is not
that we will be overrun by those who do not look like us or do not yet speak our
language. The danger will come if we fail to recognize the humanity of Cristina and her
family—if we withhold from them the rights and opportunities that we take for granted,
and tolerate the hypocrisy of a servant class in our midst; or more broadly, if we stand
idly by as America continues to become increasingly unequal, an inequality that tracks
racial lines and therefore feeds racial strife and which, as the country becomes more
black and brown, neither our democracy nor our economy can long withstand.
That’s not the future I want for Cristina, I said to myself as I watched her and her family
wave good-bye. That’s not the future I want for my daughters. Their America will be
more dizzying in its diversity, its culture more polyglot. My daughters will learn