Word: alienable
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...uniformly, not without exceptions. Every generation has its Know-Nothing movement, its fear -- often understandable -- and hatred of alien invasion. That is as true today as it always was. In spite of all this, the American attitude remains unique. Throughout history, exile has been a calamity; America turned it into a triumph and placed its immigrants in the center of a national epic. It is still symbolized by that old copper-plated cliche, the Statue of Liberty, notwithstanding the condescension and the awful poetry of the famous Emma Lazarus lines ("the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...
Most disaffected immigrants join gangs for the conventional reasons: a sense of belonging, easy money, the need to define themselves against a bewildering, alien culture. "They group for protection, then quickly graduate up when they see the big profits in crime," says Garrison. Many authorities believe that the problem is here to stay. "Today the fellows do not leave the gang," says University of Chicago Sociologist Irving Spergel. "They are not educated. There are no more unskilled jobs. There is no place to go." Others think the new bands will fade, just as most older ones did. "Gangs last only...
...which this account is indebted.) Another observer recorded the anxiety that rent the hordes in steerage as they were taken off the steamships, loaded into lighters, taken to the quay: " 'There is Ellis Island!' shouted an immigrant who had already been in the United States and knew of its alien laws. The name acted like magic. Faces grew taut, eyes narrowed. There, in those red buildings, fate awaited them. Were they ready to enter? Or were they to be sent back? 'Only God knows,' shouted an elderly man, his withered hand gripping the railing...
Communism has not taken hold in Cuba, he believes, and when Castro dies the island will move away from its alien ideology. At that moment, Padilla predicts, thousands of exiles will return home and start new businesses with the money they have made in the U.S. But they will not forsake their new home in Florida: they will shuttle between the two countries as easily as if they were going from New York to Washington. Cuba will become half American, and the great irony, Padilla concludes, is that Castro, who tried to expunge the American image from the island, will...
...described the scene to their captives. If they did, it surely summoned up bitter memories. While probably none of the hostages thought the ordeal would last 444 days, as it had for the American hostages in Tehran, the parallels were nonetheless disturbing: they too had become pawns in an alien struggle over which they had no control...