March was Women’s History Month, so I looked for new movies that honored women and found Cabrini.[i]  It tells the true story of Frances Cabrini, whom Pope Pius XII canonized in 1950—the first U.S. citizen to receive such an honor. I admit it; I had never heard of her before I saw the movie. Here is the trailer for Cabrini:

Mother Cabrini was the youngest of thirteen children, born in a small village outside Milan, Italy. 1880 she established the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with seven other young women. She desired to travel to China, but Pope Leo XIII told her to go West instead. In 1889, Cabrini and her fellow sisters found themselves in New York City. The women immediately discovered the deplorable conditions Italian immigrants lived in. She tried establishing an orphanage and hospital but found little support from the local government or Catholic church. But with the help of a journalist, she brought attention to immigrants’ plight using the headline, “Even the Rats Have it Better” than Italian immigrant children.

The end of the movie summarizes some of Saint Mother Cabrini’s remarkable worldwide accomplishments, and she is deserving of our praise, especially during Women’s History Month:

Mother Cabrini became the Patron Saint of Immigrants. So, let’s shift gears and talk about immigration.

If you have listened to the news lately, you might feel that immigrants are overrunning America, especially at our borders. However, to fully understand the current situation, we must separate immigration from border security. In 1958, then-Senator John F. Kennedy wrote a book entitled “A Nation of Immigrants” to respond to the nation’s rising anti-immigration rhetoric. But the nation had been anti-immigration long before then. In 1924, the U.S. government enacted the National Origin Act. That law banned all immigrants from Asia. That’s right, all of them! The Act also limited the number of immigrants from every country to two percent per year of the number of immigrants living in the United States, according to the 1890 census. Why go back to 1890 in 1924? It was after 1890 that most immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe came to America. The Act was a deliberate attempt by Congress to keep out Jews, Catholics, and others seen as undesirable. But Senator Kennedy was right. We are a nation of immigrants, as almost every American can trace their roots back to an immigrant. Even Native Americans originally migrated here and were the first to do so.  

Here are a few facts[ii] about immigration in America that might surprise you:

• Although the percentage of immigrants in America is only 14 percent, that is more than three times the global percentage of 3.6 percent.
• Roughly 50 million people living in the United States were born elsewhere.
• According to a recent Gallup Poll, 160 million people worldwide would like to move to the United States permanently.
• The U.S., however, permanently admits only about one million immigrants annually and allows another three million here under temporary work programs.
• Of the one million permanently admitted each year, 60 percent are related to another U.S. citizen, 25 percent are admitted under employment preferences, and 15 percent are a mix of refugees, asylum seekers, and diversity lottery winners.
• Currently, there are about 10 million undocumented persons in America.

Why do 160 million people want to immigrate to America? For one thing, studies show that the typical immigrant can increase their earnings by 300 to 400 percent (and this is across the board, not just Asians).  

But immigration helps America as well. Immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start a new business than those born here. STEM immigrant workers were responsible for an increase of 30 to 50 percent in U.S. productivity growth between 1990 and 2010. Immigrants secure thirty-six percent of all patents. Immigrants have also founded about half of the current Fortune 500 companies. And if you watched Oppenheimer, you know that we never would have developed the atomic bomb without immigrants.

Another reason we should support immigration is because immigrants often do the jobs that Americans don’t want, such as construction, housekeeping, lawn care, and landscaping. It reminds me of what an Italian immigrant once said: “I came to America because I heard the streets here were paved with gold. But when I got here, I learned three things: the streets were not paved with gold; they were not paved at all. And I was expected to pave them.” Or, as another said in Cabrini as he protested the treatment of Italians in New York City in the 1890’s. “Don’t worry, they won’t kill me, for then, who would clean their toilets?”

Congress last passed comprehensive immigration legislation in 1990, and it has been deadlocked ever since. A bipartisan proposal could not gain the necessary votes. Somehow, Congress needs to figure out how to streamline the immigration process, allow more immigrants in, if only to work, and do a better job of securing our borders. But if we can accomplish those first two objectives, the borders will take care of themselves.

Here are a few of my favorite movies dealing with immigration:

Brooklyn (currently streaming on Max) is about a young Irish woman who migrates to New York in the 1950s. It is a love story at heart, but it shows some of the challenges facing immigrants, even when the language is the same, and the pull that the country of origin has on an immigrant. I also loved how those who immigrated earlier helped the new immigrant manage to live in their new country.  

Terminal (currently streaming on Paramount) is about a man from Eastern Europe who gets caught in red tape and bureaucracy and is not allowed to enter America. Instead, he must live in an airport terminal for nine months before he is allowed to leave. The film demonstrates how complicated the immigration process can be, even for visitors. But it also reminds us that behind all the documentation requirements are real people with exciting and sometimes heartbreaking stories.

Avalon (currently streaming on YouTube) is the fictional tale of a Polish-Jewish family that migrated to the United States early in the twentieth century. While first-generation immigrants often have one foot in America and one foot in their country of origin, their children and grandchildren more often than not become successful, fully assimilated U.S. citizens.

District 9 (currently streaming on AMC+) is science fiction, but it is an excellent analogy of how we often poorly treat those around us who are different, such as immigrants.

A Day Without a Mexican (currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video) is a parody of the typical day if there were no immigrants to do the labor that most Americans refuse to do themselves.

In closing, here is the final scene from Brooklyn.[iii] In it, Eilee returns to America after a trip to Ireland, where family and friends try to convince her to stay. As she helps a new immigrant on her way to America, Eilee realizes that America is where her life is now. And that is fine with her.

As we learned from watching Hamilton: “Immigrants! We get the job done!”

---

[i] Cabrini:

• Production Company: Francesca Film Production NY
• Director: Alejandro Monteverde
• Screenwriters: Rod Barr and Alejandro Monteverde
• Starring: Cristianna Dell’Anna, John Lythgoe and David Morse
• Release Date: March 8, 2024

[ii] Most of the facts in this blog post came from a series on immigration on the Freakonomics podcast.

[iii] Brooklyn:

• Production Companies: Wildgaze Films, BBC Films, and Parallel Film Productions
• Director: John Crowley
• Screenwriters: Nick Hornby and Colm Toibin
• Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, and Domhnall Gleeson
• Release Date: November 25, 2015