Family History and the Southern Border
A nation comprised mainly of immigrants must recapture the immigration narratives that animate our national identity.
News sources recently reported on the Biden administration’s order that restrictions be set on migrant asylum seekers when the southern border is overwhelmed. The left decried the lack of compassion (and promised lawsuits to follow). The right was unable to offer support, even though they are the party of “law and order,” because their political hopes in November make any support of a Biden policy politically inconvenient.
We do have a crisis regarding the southern border, but it is more about American civility and identity. We are unable to have a conversation about who we are and who we want to be. What role do borders serve? Why are many of these migrants seeking asylum? How do our declining birth rates shape our conversation around immigration? What is the legal immigration process? Why is there a perpetual fear of immigrants when we are largely a nation of immigrants?
It’s this last question that has haunted me recently. Part of this consternation is a product of a return to my family history. In 1967, my 3x-great-uncle, Nat Barnhart, produced a well-researched book entitled Barnhart Family History.
His book begins with John George Barnhart (1748-1832), known as “The Immigrant,” who emigrated to America in 1767. The third chapter, following two chapters discussing why many of German origin came to America, opens with these paragraphs describing the immigrant journey of my 6x-great-grandfather:
George Barnhart, I., the first known ancestor of our Barnhart Family in America, arrived at Philadelphia, Pa., October 5th., 1767, on board the ship “Sally,” under the command of John Osman. The ship has one hundred and sixteen passengers, of fifteen years old or older. It was from Rotterdam, Holland, and made its last stop at Cowes, a famous seaport on the Isle of Wight.
He came from Germany where he was born in 1748. Immediately upon arrival here he avowed his allegiance to America…[on] Oct. 6, 1767, at the office of Thomas Willing, Esq.
Genealogical nuances like Uncle Nat’s description often seem dull page fillers. But I would argue that these little nuggets in our family stories have much to tell us. For this particular passage:
We have a starting point (Germany) and an endpoint (United States), but much is left unsaid about what preceded, what the journey from Germany to the States entailed aboard the Sally and what George Barnhart’s hopes and dreams were.
We have a signature, written with a human hand, of someone who gladly submitted to the processes of the receiving nation. Someone whose desire for a better tomorrow is not that different from our own.
We have the captain’s name alongside the ship, which locates a man’s narrative in a particular place and time amid many other immigrants with similar desires seeking safe harbor in the States.
We have a rudimentary outlining of the process of receiving immigrants.
The crisis of our southern border often dehumanizes the migrants seeking a brighter future on American soil. But the conversation, or lack thereof, around the southern border, doesn’t just have a propensity of dehumanizing immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers; it often dehumanizes us. Those reading this have a John George Barnhart, who first signed your last name on American soil.
Our immigrant narratives enrich the American story and dream. Our family stories are what humanize us. While the political right calls for “law and order” and the left calls for compassion, the reality is that we cannot have one without the other. Our processes create pathways for compassionate reception and citizenship. But if we lose compassion, our processes and posture treat all those seeking a better life as a burden and a threat. We know the answer is a both/and, but our political discourse doesn’t talk like this.
It’s only when we open our family stories and share ones like that of John George Barnhart that we find the language necessary to sustain a conversation we need in this political moment. George Barnhart came to America seeking religious freedom. He got to the States and encountered the hesitancy of people like Benjamin Franklin, who, in a 1753 letter to Peter Collinson, wrote:
Yet I am not for refusing entirely to admit them into our Colonies: all that seems to be necessary is, to distribute them more equally, mix them with the English, establish English Schools where they are now too thick settled, and take some care to prevent the practice lately fallen into by some of the Ship Owners, of sweeping the German Goals to make up the number of their Passengers. I say I am not against the Admission of Germans in general, for they have their Virtues, their industry and frugality is exemplary; They are excellent husbandmen and contribute greatly to the improvement of a Country.
The anxiety and concern around immigration are not new to America. In fairness to Franklin, his closing lines are far friendlier to German immigrants than is the current discussion of migrants and asylum seekers. Amid our political morass, I am reminded of my family story, one that narrates a journey of compassion and hope wed with law and process. Rather than being mutually exclusive, both sides help frame the other and remind us of our collective immigrant identity.
My mother was an immigrant to this country. She came as a child with her parents and siblings and stood in line on Ellis Island waiting to be inter 8ewed and approved to cross the channel into New York.
Fortunately they were approved and made their way to Mansfield, Ohio, where friends had arranged a jod for my grandfather at the Ohio Brass Company. Others were not so fortunate, and had to return to the country from which they came.
The people crossing our southern border these days are criminals who have no regard for the laws and values of our land. They should be compelled to to return to their own countries and get in line just like my mother and her family did.
When they are approved to enter legally I will welcome them with open arms, just as my mother was welcomed a century ago.