Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays

Rainbow Bridge to the Land of the Free

In the mythology of the Northwest Indians there is a story about a rainbow bridge from a far off land to America. Of course, the Northwest Indians did not call their home “America” but it was this place, the land of the free. People came across the bridge and settled here. The description of those people resembled the Chinese and some anthropologists suggest that the “rainbow bridge” was actually a land bridge which eventually broke up and became the Aleutian Islands. These early Chinese settled and became the Eskimos, Canadian and American Indians. All this, of course, is myth, passed down from hut to hut, from chief to tribe, or was it?

Today we live in the 21^st century in America. Is there still a rainbow bridge, bringing people to this place of freedom, opportunity and diversity? It is a phenomenon that the world has never seen before. A walk around the sports scene in Texas is filled with examples of the rainbow bridge bringing athletes to these shores. The Dallas Mavericks have a team from North and South America, France, Germany, Canada, and others. The Houston Rockets main hope for the future of their team is Yao Ming, a seven foot five inches center, called the Ming Dynasty in one commercial. He is not the first Chinese basketball player to come to the NBA and certainly will not the last. China is the vast, new market for talent. In the NFL, a few years ago a place kicker from Europe was the first to kick the ball with the side of his foot, soccer-style, and now it is hard to find anyone who kicks any differently. The business of hiring pro athletics looks to winning as the criteria for selection of their players, not the country of origin. It will not be many years until the football lines and backfields of teams will be a rainbow of shades of color. European athletes have long been the main players in the National Hockey League. Before the Berlin Wall went down, Russian sportsmen with a puck were greeted with open arms. The Boston Marathon would not be the same now without the African runners who win most of the races. Tennis players from many countries come to Baylor University to improve that school’s record in the national standings.

Open the telephone book here in Waco and we see the names of doctors from all over the world, such as Fung and Okani. America fills its borders with whatever human expertise that is needed. From 1900 to the early years of the 1960’s, most immigration was from Europe, over 90%. Since the 1962 Immigration Laws Europe is only 70% of immigration,  and by 2020 it will be closer to 50%. The United States of America is becoming a world nation, the first of its kind in history. Every individual and family who wants a better life and opportunity to fulfill his or her potential looks to come to “the land of the free” to pursue that dream. The complexion of skins in America will change, have changed. In 1900, the color of America was white (over 90%); by 2000 that percentage moved to 70%; and by 2050, America will be half white and half all the other colors of the world’s rainbow. Race may not be as great an issue in the 21^st century since intermarriage has already risen: black, 3% in 1900 and 8% now; Hispanic, the low teens in 1900 and 31% now; and Asian, 30% in 1900 and 64% today. The history of China is a lesson learned long ago that intermarriage is a way that competing cultures can survive together as partners.   

Not only is the rainbow face of America changing but “diversity” is now more than a catch word for change. It is fact. The many colors of the middle class have now what the upper class had in the early 20^th century: access to information, transportation on a high level, and universal opportunity for education, medical assistance and protection under the law. The daily face of America mirrors the world. Long before 9/11, we named those two towers the World Trade Center, not the American Trade Center. For some time, the color of America has been green and dollars are the hope to equalize the racial rainbow.

Will the experiment in a multi-colored democracy work?  Will the rainbow bridge create a new governmental creation that our founding fathers could have only glimpse dimly? The three major religions of most of the 20^th century: Christian, Catholic and Jewish are now expanded with Islam and a hundred others. Problems will surface from this rainbow bridge but we must consider it a marvelous challenge to create a new nation which embraces and frees the whole world.