"Euro Trash"

 

In the early 1980s, many Americans in the southern town where we lived called us “Euro trash.” It was their way of telling us that we did not belong among them and we were thus not very welcome.

We were educated Christian white women who escaped communism and wanted to make a free life for ourselves and our children and grandchildren. We were contributing to society and, once we became naturalized citizens, we proudly flew the American flag and celebrated its culture and traditions.

The rejection did not stop with us; it eventually included our children and grandchildren. There were few American children who were allowed to play and associate with our children. Usually, military children became friends with my children – their parents were better traveled and open-minded to the cosmopolitan nature of America.

My children were embarrassed when their mom and grandma spoke another language and we were watched and followed in public like pariahs. They begged us not to speak in public and, if we did, to speak in hushed tones. At the time, they seldom told other people that they also spoke well another language in addition to English.

We learned to cope with the overt rejection of us as “foreigners” and “Euro trash.” After all, we were told, time and time again, Americans could not include us in their lives because “they could not accept just anybody off the streets” and “you had to be seven generations removed in America in order to be considered an American.” Even to this day, I have been told that I am not American because I am naturalized and was born elsewhere, therefore papers stating so do not count.

My children grew into wonderful human beings and Americans, well-educated and productive members of society.

I often wondered what these same Americans think today when they are being overtly conquered and their culture changed day by day, forty-five years later by third world, mostly uneducated and unvetted illegals, Christians and non-Christians, who have been allowed to invade towns all-over small-town America and are now on the welfare rolls?