We Sing of America
- Smith
- Oct 27, 2024
- 5 min read
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We sing of America from its purple mountain majesty to its oceans white with foam. We proudly sing of America as a haven for those escaping persecution from other countries. Written in 1942, “The House I Live In” is one such song included in many patriotic programs. That song extols the beauty of America in small things, “a plot of earth,”"a street”—“the little corner newsstand.” From that arises its powerful lyric, “All races and religions, that’s America to me.” I learned the song in elementary school. I believed it then and I believe it now.
It’s a head-scratcher that some of the same people who proudly sing, “The House I Live In” support Donald Trump who has said, “Immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” in language evoking Hitler, and who has threatened mass deportations if reelected.
Donald Trump is wrong. Immigrants contribute greatly to this country:
Immigrants comprised "20% of all US entrepreneurs in 2021…and generated $95.6 trillion in business income,” according to the American Immigration Council. That includes multimillion dollar companies as well as the “butcher and the baker”mentioned in the song.*
Immigrants paid more than $524.7 billion in taxes (2021).**
46% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by US immigrants or their children.***
More immigrants (69%) were classified as essential workers than were native-born workers (65%) during the pandemic.**** (That would include, but not be limited to, doctors, nurses, home health aides and police.)
Sen. Mitt Romney said, “We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.”
From the song:
"The house I live in,
the goodness everywhere,
a land of wealth and beauty
with enough for all to share."
But what about crime you ask? “Research indicates that immigrants commit less crime than U.S.-born people." "Since the 1960s ”immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people,” according to one Stanford University study.*****
So what is happening? Donald Trump is employing an age-old strategy of equating immigrants with crime. “Historians go back to at least the 1850s when German and Irish immigrants were targeted as degenerate thieves, wrote Elliot Spagat in the article, "Donald Trump is the most prominent politician to link immigrants and crime, but not the first" (AP). "An undercurrent of popular belief that immigrants breed crime persisted through the 20th century and into the 21st," he added.******
The fear-mongering playbook has proven effective for Donald Trump. In addition to disparaging comments about Mexicans, Haitians and other groups, this year he tampered with policy that would have helped resolve the issue. He told Republicans in Congress to vote against the landmark bipartisan-negotiated border bill, so he could use immigration as an election-year weapon to rile his base. The bill would have otherwise passed.^
The song doesn’t mention discrimination but it is a reaction to it. “The House I Live In” was written the same year that Pres. Franklin Roosevelt signed the order to uproot and inter American citizens of Japanese descent, known as Executive Order 9066. The composers would also have witnessed other signs of discrimination. For example, the “Selected Clientele” signs that my dad remembered seeing in the 1950s outside some stores and hotels. He said that meant they didn’t want Jews or African-Americans. Readers may remember or heard from relatives about jobs in which “No Irish need apply.”
Instead, the composers selected the America they also saw. They wrote,
“The house I live in,
my neighbors White and Black,
the people who just came here
or from generations back,
the town hall and the soapbox,
the torch of Liberty,
a home for all God's children,
that's America to me.”
Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson recorded the most famous renditions of the song (links to both versions are below and at the top). Sinatra once introduced “The House I Live In,” by saying, “It’s a song about this great, big, wonderful, imperfect country. I say imperfect because if it were perfect it wouldn't be any fun trying to fix it, trying to make it work better, trying to make sure that everybody gets a fair shake and then some. My country is personal to me because my father, who wasn't born here, rest his soul, he made sure that I was born here. And he used to tell me when I was a kid that America was a land of dreams and a dream land. Well, I don't know if our country fulfilled all of his dreams while he was alive, but tonight with all of us together for this hour, it sure fulfills my dreams.”^^
So let’s recalibrate. Maybe the song is about an America that never fully existed for everyone. But it is the America most of us want. Let “The House I Live In” be our beacon, and let all who sing it, take it to heart.
In a future blog, I'll talk about Louis Armstrong's, "What a Wonderful World."
"The House I Live In" Renditions By Frank Sinatra and Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3syulBjkng
Frank Sinatra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmTzX_XygrE
Lyrics: The House I Live In
What is America to me
A name, a map, or a flag I see
A certain word, democracy
What is America to me
The house I live in
A plot of Earth, a street
The grocer and the butcher
And the people that I meet
The children in the playground
The faces that I see
All races and religions
That's America to me
The place I work in
The worker by my side
The little town the city
Where my people lived and died
The howdy and the handshake
The air a feeling free
And the right to speak your mind out
That's America to me
The things I see about me
The big things and the small
The little corner newsstand
Or the house a mile tall
The wedding and the churchyard
The laughter and the tears
The dream that's been a growing
For a hundred and fifty years
The town I live in
The street, the house, the room
The pavement of the city
Or the garden all in bloom
The church the school the clubhouse
The million lights I see
But especially the people
That's America to me
Written by: LEWIS ALLAN (pen name of Abel Meeropol) and EARL ROBINSON
The Paul Robeson version includes verses that were excluded in the Sinatra version:
The House I Live In
What is America to me?
A name, a map or a flag I see,
A certain word, "Democracy",
What is America to me?
The house I live in,
The friends that I have found,
The folks beyond the railroad
and the people all around,
The worker and the farmer,
the sailor on the sea,
The men who built this country,
that's America to me.
The words of old Abe Lincoln,
of Jefferson and Paine,
of Washington and Jackson
and the tasks that still remain.
The little bridge at Concord,
where Freedom's Fight began,
of Gettysburg and Midway
and the story of Bataan.
The house I live in,
my neighbors White and Black,
the people who just came here
or from generations back,
the town hall and the soapbox,
the torch of Liberty,
a home for all God's children,
that's America to me.
The house I live in,
the goodness everywhere,
a land of wealth and beauty
with enough for all to share.
A house that we call "Freedom",
the home of Liberty,
but especially the people,
that's America to me.
But especially the people--that's
the true America.
References
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