Elayne Clift: Immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and the myths of migration

Editor’s note: This commentary is by Elayne Clift, who writes about women, culture and social issues from Saxtons River.
When I was a child, I thought everyone was a first-generation American like me. I couldn’t believe it when friends said their parents and grandparents were born here. All of my maternal and paternal family – parents, aunts, uncles and their parents – emigrated to the United States and Canada to flee persecution as Jews in Russia. That history is, in par