I usually write about education data in Los Angeles. But after the recent Executive Orders that stop or limit refugees from several countries, I am going to use this platform to talk about a different little hobby of mine: genealogy.
This is Rivkah Kotkin, my Great Great Grandmother. She was born in Greater Russia, probably Vitebsk, which is now in modern day Belarus.
In the 1880s, a wave of Pograms swept over the southern Russian Empire. Many Jews were killed or left homeless. Fearing for their safety, my family fled to the United States. First my great grandfather, Max Kotkin, and then his family. I have been able to trace down Rivkah’s transit papers as she crossed the Atlantic with three of her children in 1907:
When she arrived, she was admitted to the United States, despite having conjunctivitis. They settled in the Lower East side of Manhattan. In 1910, they applied for Citizenship, as documented in these naturalization papers:
My family survived by coming to the United States. Survival would have been impossible if they had stayed in Russia. If they had managed to survive the Pogroms, then they would have made it only as far as 1941.
In 1941, the Nazis captured Vitebsk. JewishGen has extensive history of the tragedies that occurred there, but I think this line summarizes what you probably already know:
“When the Russian army freed the city on June 26, 1944 no Jews were found there. The exact number of Jews from Vitebsk that were murdered in the Holocaust is not known.”
I am the product of refugees. All branches of my family came from Eastern Europe in similar fashion.
And if any of them had tried to come after 1924, they probably wouldn’t have been allowed in. Under the Immigration act of 1924, only 2,248 immigrants from Russia were allowed in per year. This was a dark time in U.S. History; it was a time when we sent people back to Europe to die in concentration camps.
Our country is a nation of immigrants, many of them refugees. I’m not saying anything radical here. This is the entire story of America.
Let me take you up a different family tree this time:
This is John Lathropp, my wife’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.
In 1625 Charles I became King of England and decided to take a stab at Absolute Monarchy. He, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury, cracked down on all religious divergence, burning books and quashing dissent.
Lathropp was arrested in London in 1632 for his puritan beliefs. He was released only on the condition that he leave England. He found a home in Massachusetts – a refugee in a new world.
When I think about Rivkah and John, I think about my daughter, Chloe. Chloe is a very lucky child. She is the product of ancestors who consistently dodged persecution by moving to America just in the nick of time.
When we close ourselves off to refugees, like President Trump’s executive order has done, we deny more stories like my family, and, like most families in America.
To quote a friend, Immigrants and refugees don’t just make America great. They make America. Period.