Freedom Still Calls Pilgrims to Our Shores

Editorialist Melanie Kirkpatrick writes today about some modern "pilgrims". These "pilgrims" are students at Newcomers High School in Queens. The school boasts 850 students from 60 countries who speak 40 different languages.

The students report that they or their parents came '"seeking better lives" or "to make a better life for her children" or "pursuiting the happiness" (his spelling/grammar).

To quote from Kirkpatrick's article:
"Newcomers High School also has students who, like the Pilgrims, came to the U.S. seeking freedom of worship. A boy who says he's from Tibet notes that his family "couldn't practice the religion of the Dalai Lama" in China. An Indonesian girl, who is Christian, tells of being persecuted by Muslims in her neighborhood and fearing for her safety. An Egyptian, also a Christian, says she feared being kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. "We wanted to close all the bad pages of memory . . . and start a new page."

Many of the students mentioned in the editorial are celebrating Thanksgiving for only the first or second time. They're newcomers to America's shores. Kirkpatrick concludes by stating that these students, so new to freedom, understand well the struggles of those who first celebrated Thanksgiving. And they, too, give thanks.

Let us not forget Freedom. And let us always give thanks.