When I was in Elementary School, one of the happiest times in the school year was choosing which paperback books to buy from Scholastic.

One of my favorite books was Call Me Bronko by Rosa Eichelberger. I read it over and over as a boy.

In recent months, I have often thought of this book as hooded ICE agents grab people off the street or out of their houses, and as we make it so hard for refugees to come here to pursue Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Call Me Bronko was first published in 1955—the year I was born. World War II had only ended 10 years earlier. My young world was full of stories about our glorious victory over the Nazis.

This book was set immediately after World War II. Europe was full of refugees. Many children were orphans who could not find any survivors of their families.

Bronko was such a Polish refugee and orphan. He was about my age.

During the War, he was befriended by a GI who was an entertainer in New York City. For example, he gave Bronko chocolate, just as I remember my father said he gave chocolate to boys and girls when he was a soldier fighting in Italy, and after the War.

When I first read the book, I remember that I was puzzled by references to Bronko’s fear of “a knock on the door”. I wondered, “Why would anyone be afraid of a knock on the door”? I was never afraid when someone knocked on our door.

Eventually, I realized the reference was to the dreaded knock on the door by the Nazi secret police, known infamously by its German name Gestapo.

Bronko was thrilled to realize that he now lived in a nation where no one feared a knock on the door. He now lived in a nation that fulfilled the vision of the poet Emma Lazarus that was inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor:

Give me your poor, your tired,

Your huddled masses yearning to be free. . . .

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I never dreamt that here in the United States itself there would be dreaded “knocks on the door” by hooded, secret police.

This was not the America that my father fought for when he gave chocolate to boys and girls in Italy—a fascist power that had been fighting the United States on behalf of Mussolini and Hitler.

Furthermore, I never dreamt that the United States would refuse to accept refugees—the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to be free.

To be sure, those who come here should come in compliance with our laws.

But our laws should be compassionate and wise:

—welcoming those whose lives are threatened like the lives of the Jews who were being persecuted and exterminated by Hitler;

—welcoming as guests those who have benefitted us peacefully for many years while working hard and paying taxes, even though they (or their parents) did not comply with our laws when they entered the United States many years ago; and

—welcoming (either temporarily as guests, or permanently as future citizens who assimilate) those who strengthen us in many ways after entering the United States in compliance with our laws.

Furthermore, to reduce the pressures that cause people to come to the United States without complying with our laws, we should take compassionate and wise actions such as foreign aid and trade policies that create jobs in other countries, and curtail violence in other countries.

In these wise ways, we will once again become a beacon of freedom for ALL Humanity wherever people live and whatever their religion, opening wide the gate to America (literally and figuratively) for the poor, the tired, and all the huddled masses yearning to be free.

We will once again lift our lamp of freedom for ALL Humanity—both for those living in the United States and for those living in other countries.

We will once again lift our lamp of freedom to open wide the door for ALL Humanity to live in the ideal America that was first discovered by the hearts and wisdom of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. The ideal America where:

—ALL people are blessed (Abraham; Genesis 12:3);

—ALL pharaohs are challenged to set ALL people free (Moses; Exodus 8:1);

—ALL hurting people are healed (Jesus; Luke 10:25-37); and

—ALL means ALL (Genesis 12:3; Isaiah 2:1-4; Matthew 28:18-20).

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Do you fear “a knock on the door? Why? Why not?

Do you want the United States to change its laws about immigration or deportation? How? Why?

Do you support foreign aid and trade policies to curtail violence worldwide and to encourage the creation of jobs in other countries? How? How not? Why? Why not?

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For related ideas, please read my blogs “Lara: Habeas Corpus and Due Process of Law”, “Spilling Coffee”, “Raising the Star-Spangled Banner: Americans”, and “Raising the Star-Spangled Banner: FDR and Churchill”.