Meet the woman confronting public figures with their immigrant histories

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Retweeted by RogueAltGov: https://twitter.com/RogueAltGov

Yesterday I got to talk to @CleverTitleTK about her brilliant project, #resistancegenealogy. Talk ignorant smack about immigrants at your own risk:

Link to tweet

Meet the woman confronting public figures with their immigrant histories

JANUARY 17, 2018

Jennifer Mendelsohn uses census records and ship manifests to put anti-immigrant hypocrisy on blast with #resistancegenealogy

Earlier this month, White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino Jr. tweeted out an enthusiastic call to end “chain migration.” ... Also known as family-based migration—or, in the parlance of our immigration system, family reunification—chain migration is the common-sense process by which immigrants to the U.S. gradually bring their families over to join them. It’s as old as the Mayflower and a favorite buzzword of the Trump administration, typically followed by exclamation points and fear mongering over the very bad hombres moving to our fair land.

Scavino had no idea that Jennifer Mendelsohn was watching. ... “So Dan,” Mendelsohn wrote on Twitter. “Let’s say Victor Scavino arrives from Canelli, Italy in 1904, then brother Hector in 1905, brother Gildo in 1912, sister Esther in 1913, & sister Clotilde and their father Giuseppe in 1916, and they live together in NY. Do you think that would count as chain migration?”

A Baltimore-based freelance journalist, Mendelsohn is a passionate genealogist and the creator of #resistancegenealogy, viral Twitter burns in which she confronts anti-immigration public figures with their own family histories. The ancestors she finds often have plenty in common with the immigrants they’re now condemning.
....

What’s been the most interesting thing you’ve uncovered so far?

I guess the one that got really big was Tomi Lahren from Fox News. That one was almost too good to be true. … What was sort of puzzling was the records connected to her great-great-grandfather. One popped up in a database on Ancestry that usually indicates there’s some sort of irregularity with the naturalization. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything sinister. When I looked at it, it said prosecuted for forging his [naturalization] papers. So I ordered the grand jury indictment from the national archives, and it’s quite a document. He was indicted by the grand jury; he was acquitted by the trial jury. So he was allowed to stay and become a citizen. ... People in genealogical glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and we’re all in genealogical glass houses metaphorically speaking.

So Dan. Let's say Victor Scavino arrives from Canelli, Italy in 1904, then brother Hector in 1905, brother Gildo in 1912, sister Esther in 1913, & sister Clotilde and their father Giuseppe in 1916, and they live together in NY. Do you think that would count as chain migration?

Link to tweet

[malaise]

1. Brilliant

Get thee to the greatest page

Expose them all

[Lucinda]

2. Excellent!

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Beautifully done!

[MadCrow]

4. Chain migration in my family

My great grandmother was left a widow in Barbados in 1912 with 8 children to raise. She attempted to bring 5 of the older ones to the U.S., but they were turned back at Ellis Island even though she did have family here. She later came by herself and by working various jobs such as waitressing in a tea room and selling newspapers on the street of New York, she was able to eventually bring all 8 of the children to New York. I found a letter in the Bureau of Immigration archives that the government of Barbados had given her some assistance since her husband had been a civil servant as an hospital administrator.

[Leghorn21]

5. K&R and love this stuff!! Many thanks for posting, jeeves!! nt

[lagomorph777]

6. Well done.

Can somebody do something with DNA testing sites to show the (statistically very likely) mixed-race backgrounds of prominent racists? That would be so COOL.

[sheshe2]

7. I have a copy,,,

I have a copy of one that has my grandfather and other family members names listed.

Thanks for your post, good work on Jennifer Mendelsohn's part.

[Iggo]

8. There's a reply there from someone called Libra Dex.

S/he says: "100% irrelevant. 100 years ago we needed lots of cheap labor. We don't anymore."

Gave me an irony itch, is all.

[erronis]

10. "We don't anymore." What a privileged little snot.

I think this exposure of roots will be a wonderful antidote to those little snowflakes who think their "drops" are as pure as...

There ain't no purity amongst us humpin apes (including all you righteous christianists.) People/chimps/primates have done it to each other millions of years before the adam/eve thing.

The only ones that talk purity are the ones screwing everything that walks and lives. They don't care since they don't feel any responsibility for this planet.

Thanks, Iggo. I hope this effort gets very long legs. We should be able to show the dump that his ancestors were pushed out of the tree long ago since they weren't playing fair.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. Every one of us comes from somewhere else

Unless we're Native American.

[erronis]

11. To be fair, we don't know who were the first "human" americans.

We keep finding new evidence of earlier and earlier encounters between groups of humans traveling from the east (Europe/Africa) and the west (Bering land bridge and Polynesian ocean crossings.) Let alone those times when the land masses were much more in touch such as Europe/North America and Africa/South America.

I think we need to stop saying "Who's on first?" because that also leads to the thread of "We are here before you." When you break this down into the various ethnic/language/tribal/familial groups you end up with the current, and perhaps inevitable, contention and violence.

I'd like to be able to look at "Who could figure out how to share/cohabitate?" Who has succeeded in contentious times? Which bloodlines (bad word) are the most amenable to getting along? Which are not? We know from the great apes that some species are much more forgiving and others act like repuglicans.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. I agree, though it does tell us a lot to learn about human history

And I am interested in learning where I came from. Though three quarters of my family "came over on the last boat," as my mother has described it. My maternal grandparents both emigrated from Poland, my paternal grandfather's parents both came here from Ireland, while my other paternal great grandfather could trace his ancestors back to early Dutch settlers.

And most people I know have similar stories, my best friend growing up had a Mom who came from Japan and two of my good friends as an adult had grandparents who came here from Italy and Syria. Most of us have backgrounds like that. As a kid, I just figured everyone did.

[raven mad]

13. My dad's folks were, maybe, both born on boats on the way here

from Ireland.

GO IMMIGRANTS!