My family came to join America, not change it

The story of one American family’s journey from Hungary to Philadelphia encapsulates what has been lost in today’s immigration debate—the distinction between coming to a nation to join it versus simply moving to a new place to live.

Writing in the Washington Examiner, Samuel J. Abrams recounts how his great-grandparents deliberately shed their accents after arriving from Hungary and settled in Philadelphia. They spoke less Yiddish at home and actively worked to help their children sound like Americans—not because they were ashamed of their heritage, but because they understood citizenship as something earned through commitment and integration.

The family maintained Hungarian cuisine at their table and remained observant Jews. Yet their approach reflected a fundamental belief that America was not merely a geographical destination but a nation requiring active participation and loyalty. That outlook, Abrams argues, stands in stark contrast to contemporary attitudes toward immigration and national identity.

Gratitude defined their understanding of what it meant to become American. These Hungarian Jewish immigrants did not view America as owing them acceptance. Instead, they believed they owed America their loyalty and dedication. The country represented something nearly miraculous to them—a place where they could worship freely, raise children openly, speak without fear, and participate as equals in civic life.

Their response was not resentment but responsibility. They became involved in civic organizations, volunteered in their communities, voted after gaining citizenship, served on juries, and raised children with the goal of strengthening the nation. They displayed the American flag with the same devotion they brought to Passover observances.

Abrams notes that some object to the term “assimilation,” interpreting it as a demand for immigrants to erase their identities. Yet his great-grandfather’s experience proves otherwise. America never demanded he stop being Jewish—it asked him to become American. Those two identities were not contradictory but complementary, with assimilation serving as the pathway to genuine belonging.

The process was never unilateral. America evolved as immigrants arrived, just as immigrants transformed as they became Americans. The objective was not cultural uniformity but the development of a shared national identity transcending both the old world and the new.

This historical reality challenges both sides of the contemporary conservative debate over whether America constitutes a creed or an inheritance—whether the nation is bound by the principles of the Declaration of Independence or by a specific people and culture. Abrams contends his great-grandfather’s life refutes both extremes.

To those who reduce America to mere philosophical propositions, he points out that nobody pledges loyalty to abstract arguments. His great-grandfather loved a tangible country—its language, holidays, streets, and promise. But to those insisting America is an ethnic inheritance requiring birthright membership, his great-grandfather’s journey offers an even sharper rebuttal. He was not born American but became one nonetheless.

A creed cannot sustain itself in isolation. The Declaration of Independence does not raise children, teach language, preserve holidays, or transmit traditions across generations. Principles endure only when people actively pass them forward through families, religious communities, schools, neighborhoods, and the countless associations that bind a nation together. Culture does not oppose the creed—it carries the creed from one generation to the next and provides newcomers with something concrete to join.

Abrams’s great-grandparents never asked how America might change to accommodate everything they brought with them. They asked how they might prove worthy of what America offered. Yet that immigrant gratitude also created obligations for America itself. A nation cannot expect newcomers to embrace an identity if it no longer believes that identity deserves inheriting.

When schools neglect national history, when cultural leaders treat patriotism as naive, and when assimilation becomes suspect, the country undermines the very process earlier immigrant generations eagerly embraced.

Abrams’s great-grandfather appears in a Supreme Court case. In Hines v. Davidowitz decided in 1941, the court struck down a Pennsylvania law requiring resident aliens to register annually, carry identification cards, and present them on police demand. By the time the ruling came down, however, his great-grandfather had already become an American citizen. He had not crossed the ocean to remain an alien—he came to join the nation.

The column reflects on what contemporary children should understand about their ancestors—the prayers, traditions, and heritage that shaped previous generations. Yet equally important is understanding what those ancestors chose to become and why they made that choice.

With information from Washington Examiner