Trejbal: Immigration at Monticello
Jefferson smiles on new Americans
Christian Trejbal
Trejbal is a Roanoke Times editorial writer based in the New River Valley.
The national immigration debate focuses almost exclusively on the negative. Americans worry about border fences and deportation, about checking papers in Arizona and congressional inaction.
Yet there is another side of immigration, a legal side that manifests the great American experiment. It was on display last week at the annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony at Monticello.
On that hot, Virginia morning, beneath the blazing sun and the pale moon hanging high in an azure sky, more than 70 people from three dozen countries took the oath of citizenship on the steps of Thomas Jefferson’s home. Today, they are our fellow citizens and our fellow Virginians.
What better way to celebrate the nation’s most patriotic holiday?
Tracey Ullman’s keynote address at the annual Monticello Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony:
Part I
Part II
July 11, 2010 - 9:28 AM
our desire to explore the world has dimmed…..
1 – nil
darn right it has!!!!!!!!!
Jefferson was not worried about this issue. It is good that people who legally become citizens can have memorable ceremonies. I have a German friend who has been here 32 years running an import/export business who just got his citizenship and it was great.
But let us not give Jefferson too much credit for he was a great supporter of slavery. When Washington died he released all of his slaves. When Jefferson died he released none …not even his childrren and grandchildren by his slave mistress.
Madison,Monroe and Jefferson’s cousin John Marshall were organisers of a free slaves movement that founded Liberia and Monroeville there is named for James Monroe but Jefferson never bothered to help and in fact rejected their efforts.
So citizenship is great but Jefferson a talented writer is not to be so admired.