December 2005
Doug MacCallum called me Sunday, 4 Dec with the sad news of the passing of Emory Parrish on Friday, 2 Dec. I will forever remember Emory as a soldier, a gentleman, a family man and a friend. My condolences to Shirley and the family. He will be missed.
Citizenship
Tomorrow, 6 December, would have been my father's 101st birthday. My father
was born in Sweden and immigrated to this country in 1912. He was processed
through Ellis Island and his Swedish surname was Americanized as was the
policy at that time,--Nilsson to Nelson. He joined the US Navy in 1913 and
was stationed at Pensacola, Fl. In order to remain in the service he had to
learn to read and write English. He was given six months to accomplish this.
He succeeded and served five years as a Carpenter's Mate in the US Navy Air
Service. His specialty was making wooden propellers for seaplanes. He made
the propellers for CPT Byrd's polar exploration aircraft. He received his US
citizenship when he was discharged from service.
From these beginnings, my father taught his children what citizenship meant.
He was an American-not anything else. He was the only son in six sisters. I
have one aunt still alive in Sweden. I have 21 first cousins in Sweden. My
father and mother at their table, also had us children recite the Pledge of
Allegiance, as we also did in school at the start of the school day.
Today, we seem to ignore our history and how this country evolved. Let us
realize that no country's history is without blemishes. We learn from the
past or we will continue to make mistakes. We should not allow our history
to be revised to make it palatable to a few. My father was an American. Not
a Swedish-American.
President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, made this observation in a speech. "In
the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in
good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be
treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to
discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or
origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an
American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance
here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an
American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American Flag, and this
excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and
civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to
which we are hostile--We have room for but one language here, and that is
the English language--and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is
a loyalty to the American people.