A Welcome Holiday

By Mary Kay Zuravleff

Need a holiday from anti-immigrant rants? Let’s flip the narrative by going all out for National Immigrants Day on October 28. If you’re surprised to learn this holiday is on the calendar, you’ll be more surprised to learn it was Republican President Ronald Reagan who put it there in 1987, famously saying, “More than any other country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands.”

He should know. When the president was shot in 1981, immigrants saved his life.

Reagan was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where every doctor on his anesthesiology team was an immigrant. Dr. Vickie Sidou was born in Greece; Dr. George Morales was born in Nicaragua; Dr. Manfred Lichtmann escaped Nazi Germany for the US; and resident Maya Chin was born in Malaysia.

There are plenty of stories like this to refute the current fearmongering and demonizing. As to who is a legitimate American, the census bureau estimates that 98% of the population is descended from immigrants. That figure is 100% for presidents—including Donald Trump. Despite calling immigrants “animals,” who are “poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump is the son of the Scottish-born Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. The president is a first-generation American, as are four of his five children. Trump’s second wife, Czechoslovakian-born Ivana Trump, didn’t become a citizen until 1988, years after Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric were born. And his third wife, Slovenian-born Melania Knauss Trump, became a citizen in 2006, the year their son Barron was born.

Laws granting—and revoking—American citizenship are more fickle than most people know. I learned that when I volunteered to teach a citizenship class, and National Immigrants Day could highlight what people go through to become Americans. Trump wants to end birthright citizenship, despite the constitution granting citizenship to children born in the US or to at least one US-citizen parent—in 1868.

My own grandmother suffered from a little-known immigration law on the books from 1907 to 1922, which only applied to women. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she lost her citizenship for marrying my foreign-born grandfather! When American women got the vote in 1920, my American-born grandmother did not. She is listed as an “alien” on the 1920 census.

I drew on my family’s past for my latest novel, American Ending, and readers across the country have eagerly shared stories of their families’ citizenship and immigrant struggles. Some of their relatives are reluctant to reveal what they endured; however, the unearned shame of one generation is a source of pride and determination to the next.

On October 28, National Immigrants Day sits tidily between two fall holidays. In early October, more states have begun to hail Indigenous Peoples rather than Columbus, who neither discovered America nor set foot on the North American continent. Thanksgiving has also been updated. Along with giving thanks, we now recognize how the Pilgrims unsettled America. Having survived with the aid of the native population, the Pilgrims nearly wiped them out.

How is it we learned the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, but not the names of the Nevada, the City of Paris, and the Victoria, the three ships that landed at Ellis Island when it opened to immigrants on January 1, 1892? Why are Mayflower descendants proud of their lineage while other immigrants are made to feel ashamed?

You have a recent immigrant to thank if you Google anything, watch YouTube, get a COVID-19 vaccine, or eat your vegetables. As an alternative to doom scrolling, I urge you to start boon scrolling and broadcast the notable contributions of immigrants in every field. And don’t forget to ask your family for stories about your Pakistani ammi, Irish daideo, or Kenyan shangazi. National Immigrants Day could be a 24-hour marathon of storytelling about Americans who got their start elsewhere.

Celebrating National Immigrants Day, our ancestors might have better preserved their cultures, and the US might have become a multilingual, multicultural country that honored our differences.

Celebrating National Immigrants Day in 2025 could help us mine the wisdom of our ancestors, be honest about our country’s history, and exchange fear for understanding.

Mary Kay Zuravleff's most recent novel, American Ending, was an Oprah Spring Book Pick and finalist of the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction, and her third novel, Man Alive!, was a Washington Post Notable Book. Her stories and essays have been featured in the Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic, LA Review of Books, American Fiction, and The Oklahoman, where an earlier version of this essay was published. She lives in Washington, DC.