The story goes that my paternal grandfather, Nathan Goldberg (originally Majofis), walked across the Canadian border into the United States in about 1896. A young man, he was born in the Russian Empire and left around 1894 to look for his father who had emigrated to what was then Palestine. After a very long, arduous journey, he discovered that his father had been murdered several months before.
Without a reason to stay in the middle east, he headed to America, making his way first to Canada and then to the United States. He knew he couldn’t go back to Russia because he would face potentially deadly discrimination. Although he never got to know it, several of his siblings and their families never made it out before catastrophe descended on them in the mid-twentieth century.
In my grandfather’s time, there were very few restrictions on new immigrants: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was one. Mostly, anyone could get off a ship or simply walk into America – like Nathan. Once here, he kept walking – months of walking – and ended up in Lowell, MA, probably because he had heard that there were jobs in this bustling, industrial city. He did what most other immigrants did: located a place to live, worked extremely hard, and found a wife. He and Rebecca Wernick, also an immigrant, married in January 1900. They toiled ceaselessly, lived in poverty, became citizens, and had seven children, one of whom died in childhood.
Nathan was killed in an accident in 1918, leaving Rebecca with six kids from age sixteen to two-and-a-half. She kept going, found a way to make money (including illegally), and made sure her kids graduated from high school.
This is not an unusual story. Putting food on the table, endless, grueling struggle, and ultimate survival are universal themes of impoverished immigrants. Rebecca and Nathan produced good, productive children.
I consider what would have happened If my grandparents had stayed in the old country. I, along with them, my parents, and siblings would have been murdered. I would have been about four years old.
This forces me to reflect on current anti-immigrant policies and attitudes. Certainly, in my grandparents’ time there were hostile attitudes towards immigrants. “No Irish Need Apply,” “No Dogs and Jews Allowed,” “No Italians Allowed.” And, yes, there were dangerous criminals among these groups as there are today. But most people then and now come to the U.S. to flee life-threatening circumstances, escape overwhelming poverty, and establish a future for themselves and their children.
In the twenty-first century, although it is hard to determine exact numbers, a 2024 study by The National Institute of Justice in Texas, for example, found that undocumented immigrants were arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes. Arrest rates were used as proxies for actual rates of commission. Yet, in sickening irony, while immigrants are targeted for deportation, the new administration, pardoned fifteen hundred – mostly white – Americans who were convicted of violence against individuals, police and property. How can that be?
One potential answer for me is that we are approaching, or already in, an era of tyranny – “a government or situation where a small group or single ruler has too much power and uses it in a cruel and unfair way.” In this case, against immigrants and for a favored constituency.
In 2017, Timothy Snyder published “On Tyranny” in which he explores how tyranny can quickly take over democratic governments and institutions. He notes that our “…Founding Fathers sought to avoid…the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit.” (p. 10) Is this is what is happening here and now? Yes, and it’s alarming!
One thing I – just one person – can do about this ominous situation is write about it.

Nathan with Family, 1917
Fabulous piece- thank you for citing facts and anecdotes to help contextualize our current situation. Beautifully and passionately written!
Thanks Sharon. I have to keep writing about these issues. It is one of the few ways I can have a voice.
Sharon,
I try to ‘fact-check’ my own positions on things. I feel i have to do this so that I can believe I am credible in what I write. However, there are those who only state lies and people still believe them.
Your story is one that so many of us share. It is important that those who support the Administration’s anti-immigrant actions are reminded how racist and cruel it is. Thank you for sharing your story.
Barry,
Yes, racist and cruel are the apt words. Unfortunately, there are those who think these attitudes are ok.
As always Marian, you touch the head and the heart with your beautiful writing. Bless Nathan and Rebecca!
Fran,
I feel I must speak out – more and more. It is one of the very few things I can do as one person.
Here is another sickening irony, both Trump’s parents and two of his wives are also immigrants!
He is indeed a cruel and heartless tyrant.
Your essay is excellent and a sad commentary on America in 2024!
Ellie, Yes, it is true that the Trump family has immigrant members. The big difference is that they are rich and powerful, while so many immigrants are poor and powerless.
It’s so important – a gift to all – that you to be willing to share your story. Thank you.
Liz,
We must not forget what our relatives went through to create a future for themselves. We must acknowledge their bravery and fortitude. Perhaps this will help in our own efforts to combat what is happening her and now in the U.S.
I have just read “On Tyranny” which is a precise handbook on fascism, how it works: how it grows: and how we can resist :a primer for all of us in these frightening time.s Your story, Marion, and similar stories, are an important antidote to the campaign for dehumanizing immigrants coming from the present Administration..
Heidi, So many of us have stories about how our not-so-distant ancestors struggled for a better life and took the risk to come to an unknown country in the hopes of a promising future. We must speak out against the tyrannical policies being implemented in this current administration.
Thank you for your thoughtful article, Marian. Yes, we now have a leadership that has opened the prisons and closed the borders. As an immigrant who fell in love with this country and chose to move here many years ago, I am appalled and deeply saddened at what is happening. It is indeed “alarming.” I experienced the cruelty and violence of oppression as a child in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, and I think that Timothy Snyder’s little book “On Tyranny” should be required reading in all schools.
I can only hope that enough people will have the wisdom, the will, and the skill to lift our nation out of its current descent into hate and division, as my mother and others did when they joined the Resistance in WWII.
Hendrika,
I remember your wonderful book “When a Toy Dog Became a Wolf and the Moon Broke Curfew…” It was an eye-opener for me about what you, your family, and Dutch citizens went through under the Nazis during WWII: how you ate tulip bulbs to survive. Yes, Snyder’s “On Tyranny’ should be required reading for children and, strongly recommended for adults! Two things scare me a lot. One, is that there are people who truly want an authoritarian regime with a policy that actively discriminates against powerless people. The second is that there are those who truly don’t or prefer not to understand the implications of an authoritarian regime. Both can have deadly, life-demeaning consequences. To good to hear from you.
A wonderful and poignant piece, Marian! It’s hard to know what to do, but you’ve found something meaningful.
Laurel, The only way, so far, that I don’t feel helpless if to write about what is going on. Maybe I can find another pathway to fight the insanity.
Thanks for this very timely essay. Yes, Trump is a tyrant, a despot, an authoritarian, an autocrat, and a dictator. But don’t worry about the last one because he said he would be a dictator only on day one and that day has come and gone. (Me: a fake sigh of relief!)
Les, As usual, I think Trump is lying. I think he wants to continue to be a dictator, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The amount of immigrants causing crime is like today–far less than citizens born here.
It just never ends. Man’s inhumanity to man.
I believe that discrimination is now worse than it has been since the 50s. We all must do what we can do to stop it and not watch and just hope.
Thanks Marian, as always, an articulate, heartfelt and hopeful piece. Love you.
You are right. There is endless, forever inhumanity and discrimination. Unfortunately, it seems clear that this is now official U.S. policy. We have to do whatever we can to fight it.
Hi. As so many of your readers commented, I find your writing a much needed piece of the solution.
Thanks for writing.
Javad
Thanks so much Javad. If you think other may be interested in reading this or some of my other articles please forward them!
Marian, thank you for articulating so well what many of us have been thinking. I intend to read “On
Tyranny.”
Eve, I hope to keep writing about these issues. Hopefully, they will reach a few people who will find some comfort from what I write.
Thank you for sharing your touching family story. What you addressed in the post is a sensitive issue that has divided America. Although I’m not clear on the legality of immigration, I agree with you that millions of people (including myself) fled their homelands from poverty, war or systemic persecution. We should treat everyone, who is here legally or illegally, as human beings.
Jonathan
Jonathan, So much of America is made up of good, productive people with a current or past history of being poor and oppressed in other homelands. It is pretty hard to understand how supporters of the current administration want to ignore this.
As usual a very timely essay..we need a course on immigration laws,past and present. As a first generation American, I remember stories frommy Mom that a sponsorship was necessary from American family members in order for them to emigrate from Poland after WWl.
Tommi Myers
Yes, immigrants in the days of my grandparents – late 19th century- needed to pass an exam to detect an eye infection and to show some indication that the new immigrant would not become a public charge. I think requirements and restrictions were more prevalent in the early 20th century. thanks for your comment. Very important!
Marian, very interesting article on your Grandfather and the struggles he went through. It is so
pertinent especially what our current administration is doing with the immigrant population. Maybe it is time we all collectively speak up.
Nancy,
It is so hard to know what to do as one person. I have decided that I can write about it and get my thoughts out to people I know. But, you are right about collectively speaking out! Any ideas about how to do this?!
Bravo, Marian. I tear up each time I read something that you have written about our family. The range of emotion is exhausting, since I also get so angry when I read about what is going on today in the U.S. It’s certainly easier to give up and accept “whatever,” but then thinking about what our relatives experienced in order to move and live here brings a renewed determination and strength.
Paula, I was inspired to write this article after I had an encounter with an immigrant from an unstable, chaotic country who had come to American many years ago. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen working hard to feel safe and to make sure his kids went to school. The problem was that his mother and other relatives were in his former homeland and lived with terror every day. He had relatives here, who, unfortunately were not citizens. He worried about everyone, here and abroad, all the time. He didn’t really know what to do.