My ethnic lineage is not Native American. I'm of Polish and Irish descent so I'm an American because someone somewhere in my heritage immigrated to the United States. Because of this fact, I'm constantly annoyed at the outrage people express about Mexicans immigrating to the U.S.
My feelings on this issue are, if you're not of Native American descent, thank an immigrant.
This weekend, my significant other and I went out to dinner with a couple with whom he works. We've had drinks with them a few times before and the wife and I are both avid fans of books on neuroscience and psychology so when the husband invited us out for her birthday, we were happy to accept. The problem for me is, however, the husband. He is an unapologetic bigot and is constantly complaining about one non-white person or another who has committed some slight against him for which he blames their entire race.
At dinner Saturday he quoted something he had heard on Fox News (my favorite) about how California schools spend more annually on teaching EASL than they do on all other subjects combined. I find that "fact" dubious but that's a given for anything coming from Fox News. He went on to say that he didn't understand why "these Mexicans" would come to a country when they didn't speak the language. Before he could get any steam behind the argument I simply said, "My ancestors did, too." He stopped speaking and stared at me. I continued, "You might be a descendant, but I'm not. My great-grandparents were from Poland and Ireland. My dad told me that his grandfather barely spoke any English and his grandmother never spoke anything but Polish." Then my significant other chimed in that his grandfather, who had immigrated from Sicily, spoke almost no English as well.
Our bigoted friend admitted he was not of Native American descent and that his lineage was mostly German. I noted that "these Mexicans," like our forefathers want so badly for their children to have a better life that they are willing to endure the hardship and distain of coming to a strange, foreign land. For the first time since we've known this guy, he was actually speechless.