Rebuts immigration remarks
To the editor:
This is a rebuttal to Jack Mattachione who attempted to ridicule my letter about Illegal Immigration. I wonder if we met, could we ever come to agree about anything.
He needs to know where I come from. I am the son of immigrants. Both my parents, on separate ships, fled pogroms in Eastern Europe, so I think like an immigrant. I have taken advantage of the gifts from taxpayers that immigrants have been given all my life. I paid my dues, though.
I am a WW II veteran. I would never have gone to college if it hadn’t been for the Veteran’s Bill of Rights. I went to a Land Grant College that lives on taxpayers’ largess. Then I became a teacher, and if it had been in his district, his taxes would have paid my salary (incidentally, that salary was $2,300 a year in 1950.)
Later I taught at a New York City college where, again, taxpayers not only paid my salary, but the students I taught attended tuition free, at taxpayers’ expense.
Oh, yes, all of this son of immigrants background made me a liberal. My dad was a blue-collar worker, but a union man. I’ve never crossed a picket line in my life. I’ve fought for the poor and the beaten down for my entire career.
So, maybe the really significant thing that separates Mr. Mattachione and me is that I have been raised to be compassionate and caring, but never a victim.
Sidney B. Simon
Sanibel Island