The first ‘anchor baby’

The Republican Party can be defined by who it hates, and sadly that list grows longer every day. In addition to people of color, gays, progressives, organized labor and those who refuse to whistle “Dixie,” we can now add “anchor babies” to their vitriolic list.

On Aug. 18, 1587, Elinore and Ananias Dare gave birth to the first English baby born in the New World. Virginia Dare, our first anchor baby. Her parents and all the colonists that followed were boat people who had the courage – some might say the audacity – to undertake a perilous journey to a new land – uninvited and unwelcomed by its inhabitants – to make a new life for themselves and their children.

We as a nation celebrate those colonists, but now callously try to deport those who have done the exact same thing as the parents of our first anchor baby. Can it be that because the colonists were white, Protestant and spoke English, we give them a historical pass? Do you think Donald Trump’s minions and misfits would consider the new arrivals and the parents of the modern-day anchor babies in another light if they too were white, Protestant and spoke English?

Johnny Erp

Spokane