enewsSEMIMONTHLY COMMUNICATION FROM SOUTH CENTRAL COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

December 20, 2018

HIGHLIGHTSIn memoriam• Sister Rosina Bayliss• Sister Elizabeth Anne

Corcoran• Sister Mary Sheridan

Tech talk How to protect yourself from online scams during holidays

CALENDARDecember 25, Christmas; January 1, New Year’s DayMercy Administration Center will be closed December 24-25, 2018, and Monday, January 1, 2019

Sisters of Mercy – South Central Community101 Mercy DriveBelmont, NC 28012-2898704.829.5260www.mercysc.org

Advent is a time of hopeful anticipation

Click on the blue words below to see a video message from Sister Mary Rose Bumpus. The text of the message also is included with today’s attachments.

Hope: An Advent Reflection

Christmas blessings from the Community Leadership Team

Click on the icons below to follow the Sisters of Mercy on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

In memoriamSister Rosina Bayliss died peacefully on December 6, 2018, at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium, Maryland. She was 82 years old and had been a Sister of Mercy for 64 years. Sister Rosina was raised and educated in Bal-timore, Maryland. Her ministries in education took her to many places,

including Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. She is remem-bered especially for her role as principal and president at Mount de Sales Academy in Macon, Georgia.

After retirement from active education ministry, Sister Rosina often was called upon by educators and a variety of other organizations for consulta-tion and speaking engagements, and she served on numerous boards and committees.

Sister Elizabeth Anne Corcoran, 88, a Sister of Mercy for more than 65 years, died peace-fully on December 5, 2018, at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium, Maryland. Her brief time in hospice care was one of only a few occasions when she was not living in her beloved home at Mercy Medical Center in Balti-more, Maryland, the hospital where she was born.

Sister Elizabeth Anne began her ministry at what was then known as Mercy Hospital, first as a floor nurse, and quickly became a supervisor and then nursing school instructor. She was sent to St.

Joseph’s Infirmary in Atlanta, Georgia, to teach in its nursing school, where she remained for seven years. In 1965 she returned to Mercy Hos-pital in Baltimore, where she served as assistant director of nursing for a decade and was named director of nursing in 1975.

In 1989, she became assistant to the president for hospitality, in charge of Mercy’s conference facilities and information personnel and was fondly regarded as the welcoming face of Mercy Medical Center. Sister Mary Elizabeth Sheridan died peace-fully on December 12, 2018, at Mercy Springwell retirement convent in Baltimore, Maryland. She was 98 years old and had been a Sister of Mercy for 80 years.

Sister Mary’s fam-ily home in Macon, Georgia, was within walking distance of Mount de Sales School and Academy, where she was educated for 12 years by Sisters of Mercy. After graduating from high school in 1937, she came to Baltimore to attend Mount St. Agnes College and entered the Community at Mount Washing-ton on September 8, 1938.

During her ministry in education, Sister Mary moved more than a dozen times. She taught English and home economics and served as principal of several schools, sometimes while also teaching classes. Later she was a librarian at Mercer University in Macon and, after formal retirement, was an active volunteer at Mount de Sales.

Extended obituaries of Sister Rosina Bayliss, Sister Elizabeth Anne Corcoran and Sister Mary Sheridan are included in today’s attachments.

2 | December 20, 2018

Sister Elizabeth Anne Corcoran

Sister Mary Sheridan

Sister Rosina Bayliss

December 20, 2018 | 3

’Tis the season for internet securityWhile Christmas brings opportunities for giving and sharing, increased online activity also makes it an optimal time for cyber crime. Follow these guidelines to stay safe online:

1) Create safe passwords for ALL online accounts;2) Avoid clicking pop-up ads;3) DO NOT click on suspicious emails.

Unfortunately, sisters and staff see an increase in fake emails, also known as “phishing” scams, during the holiday season. Please be mindful of this threat, and when in doubt, contact your Sisters of Mercy Technical Support Team at 1.844.428.6372.

Click on the blue words below to watch a video:

Internet safety tips

Foundation Day gathering

Justice updateWhat is asylum?The U.S. asylum system was created after World War II to provide refuge to those fleeing vio-lence and persecution. It allows refugees, like many families in the migrant caravan, to apply for protection in the United States. The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act establishes that “any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival) may apply for asylum.” Asylum claims depend upon the ability to show that a reason-able person in his or her circumstances would fear returning to the country of origin. This fear must be “credible” and “well-founded.” The applicant’s experience of persecution also must have been based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular group. Those represented by immigration law-yers are much more likely to receive asylum. For more information, click on the blue word below:

Asylum

National Migration Week, January 6-12Our country is experiencing an immigration crisis as harsh new policies separate families and devastate lives at the border and within the United States. You as an individual, a family or a community are invited to share in this beautiful novena for immigrant families: Novena. Through this novena, you can pray in solidarity with families fleeing poverty, violence and oppres-sion to seek peace and freedom in the United States. If you live alone, consider sharing it with others via social media. Immigration issues are closely connected with racism in the United States, since until 1965 immigrants who were not white could not become citizens. Today’s attachments include an article, Tainted Legacy, which describes the historical context and cur-rent reality in which the goal of the immigration restriction is to reduce the number of non-white immigrants to the U.S.

Sisters, associates and staff at Mercy Center in St. Louis, Missouri, celebrated Foundation Day on December 9, 2018, with a Eucharistic Liturgy and meal. Here, Sister Christine Blair chats with Bishop Mark Rivituso, auxiliary bishop of St. Louis.

TechTalk

4 | December 20, 2018

NC Heritage Room opensSharing 175 years of Mercy Moments of MercyMercy Volunteer Corps has compiled “175 Moments of Mercy,” including photos, quotes and blogs cel-ebrating the Sisters of Mercy. Click on the blue word: Moments

History quiz continues

10. Which was the first Sisters of Mercy community that Frances Warde founded from Pittsburgh?

a. Loretto b. Chicago c. Baltimore d. Hartford

11. Where was the first Sisters of Mercy community in New England?

a. Manchester b. Portland c. Providence d. Hartford

12. After Pittsburgh Mercy, where is the oldest hospital founded by the Sisters of Mercy still in operation?

a. San Francisco b. Baltimore c. Iowa City d. Savannah

Click on the blue words below for the answers and more questions.

Mercy History Quiz

The North Carolina Heritage Room at Sacred Heart Convent in Belmont, North Carolina, was dedicated with a prayer service December 12, 2018. Above, Sister Ray Maria McNamara (right), who spearheaded the project with Sister Mary-Andrew Ray, North Carolina archivist, blesses the room before opening it. With her is Sister Maureen Dees, at 93 the oldest living member of the former North Carolina Community. Below, staff members Mark Paterniti (left) and Jack Bartley view the exhibits.

December 20, 2018 | 5

A centennial Mass at St Paul of the Cross Cathedral in Mandeville was concelebrated by Archbishop Kenneth Richards of Kingston, Arch-bishop Charles Dufour of Mandeville, and other priests and deacons.

Sister Paschal has blazed a unique trail in edu-cation and hospital administration. She was St. Catherine High principal from 1972 to 1990, responsible for its growth into one of the largest high schools in the Caribbean, with more than 3,000 students.

She resolved to make the formerly all-girls school co-educational despite many protests, and two of its outstanding male graduates who emerged are Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Archbishop Richards. Sister Paschal’s stewardship at St. Joseph’s Hospital was also legendary – it is said that under her leadership, it was the only time that the hospital made a profit. The many tributes at her celebration spoke of a woman whose sim-ple way of living made a profound difference to thousands.

Mercy in the newsMedical center marks centuryMercy Health St. Rita’s Medical Center cele-brated 100 years of serving the community of Lima, Ohio, with a centennial Mass led by Bishop Daniel Thomas of the Toledo Diocese. Mercy Health was founded by four Sisters of Mercy during the height of an influenza epidemic. Click on the blue words below to read more:

St. Rita’s milestone

Anniversary Mass

Sisters’ contributions cited The East Tennessee Catholic highlighted the con-tributions by Sisters of Mercy in a story about the closing of the former St. Mary’s Hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee. The issue published December 9, 2018, also includes a profile of Sis-ter Mary Martha Nabor and her ministry at the hospital, which will close at the end of Decem-ber. Click on the blue words below to read more:

Decades of healing

Ohio sisters in spotlightThe Fremont (Ohio) News Messenger published a story, “Meet Your Neighbor: Sisters of Mercy mark 175 years in U.S.,” in its December 17 edition. The story, quoting Sister Moira Kenny, presents the sisters’ history in the United States and their ministries in northwest Ohio. Click on the blue word below to read more:

Neighbor

Celebrating a centurySister Mary Paschal Figueroa’s 100th birthday was celebrated Saturday, December 8, 2018, hosted by Sisters of Mercy led by Sister Susan Frazer, Sister Mimi Krusling and Sister Benedict Chung at the St. John Bosco complex in Man-deville, Jamaica.

Sister Mary Paschal Figueroa greets friends as she walks down the aisle after Mass celebrating her 100th birthday at St. Paul of the Cross Cathedral in Mandeville, Jamaica.

Sister honored for voice

Looking a lot like ...

Enews gets a face-liftWatch for a fresh new look when the next issue of enews comes out Thursday, January 3, 2019. We hope you’ll find it inviting and more readable.

As always, we look forward to receiving your news and photos. Send them to Beth Thomp-son, writer/communications strategist, at bthompson@mercysc.org by Friday, December 28, 2018, for publication in the next issue.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Communications Department!

Today’s attachments• Directory changes for December 20, 2018• Extended obituaries for Sister Rosina Bayliss, Sister Elizabeth Anne Corcoran and Sister Mary Sheridan

• “Hope: An Advent Reflection” by Sister Mary Rose Bumpus

• “Tainted Legacy” from the Jesuit Social Research Institute

6 | December 20, 2018

On Friday, November 30, 2018, Sister Mary-Andrew Ray was honored at Sacred Heart Convent in Belmont, North Carolina, for her 50 years of cantoring.

Sister Patricia Ann Pepitone recently spent time with the AIM (Alive in Mercy) girls in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Lou-isville, Kentucky. Here, one of the Louisville AIM partici-pants helps decorate McAuley Convent in Cincinnati.

South Central Directory Changes

December 20, 2018

Last Name

First Name

Section

Category

Information

May Sr. M. Amata Sister New Direct Residence Phone 443.451.1795

Plaskon Sr. Mary-Anne Sister New Mobile Phone New Ministry

706.662.7248 St. Anne Catholic Church 2000 Kay Circle Columbus, GA 31907-3229 706.561.8678 Phone 706.565.4845 Fax stanneweb@gmail.com Email Social Work Title

Sebera Sr. Elaine Sister Ministry Address Update Mercy Springwell 2211 West Rogers Ave #106 Baltimore, MD 21209-4420 443.810.2330 Phone esebera@mercysc.org Email Community Life Coordinator Title

Sheridan Sr. Mary Sister Deceased RIP 12/12/2018

Catherine McAuley

Sister Rosina BaylissReligious Sister of Mercy

March 28, 1936 – December 6, 2018

Will we all meet in heaven? Oh what joy even to think of it.

Sister Rosina Bayliss, born in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, was the daughter of John Bayliss and Julia Concavage Bayliss and was

baptized Virginia Theresa.Sister Rosina was raised and educated in Baltimore, Maryland,

attending St. Alphonsus Elementary School, and then Seton High School, graduating in 1958. She began post-secondary education at Mount St. Agnes College and entered the Sisters of Mercy at the end of her freshman year. Sister Rosina continued her studies at the college, earning a BS degree in chemistry/mathematics/education. Later she studied at Clarkson Institute of Technology (now University) in Potsdam, New York, graduating with an MS in chemistry and physics. Sister Rosina continued her education throughout her ministerial life, taking courses and completing certification programs related to her growing responsibilities in teaching and administration.

Her ministries took her to many places, including Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Throughout those busy years, and after her retirement in 2002, she often said how grateful she was for her varied experiences, as she learned so much from different school systems and different cultures. She is remembered especially for her role as principal and president at Mount de Sales Academy in Macon, Georgia. During her 14-year tenure there, one building, Sheridan Hall, was constructed and another, Zuver Hall, was begun. Cavalier Fields for athletics also were developed, more proof that Sister Rosina was a champion fundraiser. She instituted new academic programs and strengthened others at Mount de Sales.

Even after retirement from active education ministry, Sister Rosina often was called upon by educators and a variety of other organizations for consultation and speaking engagements. She remained active in the Georgia Independent Schools Association (GISA), serving on several evaluation teams for GISA schools. She chaired numerous committees and served as treasurer of the Loveday Foundation, a group that supported those independent schools. She served on numerous boards of trustees, working on committees and chairing the boards. Among these were Our Lady of Mercy High School in Fairburn, Georgia; Mount Vernon Presbyterian School in Sandy Springs, Georgia; the Macon Symphony Orchestra; and Goodwill Industries. Sister Rosina was especially devoted to Goodwill, sometimes speaking as the group’s representative, chairing its board, and working on numerous committees. She was a charter member of the Goodwill Works Foundation.

Over the years, she met many famous people, among them President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Sister Thea Bowman, and well known poet and writer Sister Joyce Rupp. Sister Rosina received many awards, both national and local, but she believed that her contact with those she served was most important. She wanted to be remembered as a “compassionate Sister of Mercy, and a true daughter of Catherine McAuley.” She moved to Mercy Villa retirement convent in Baltimore in 2015 after several health issues. During her years there, as well as at Mercy Springwell where she recently had moved, Sister Rosina said she had found “pure joy,” making new friends and reconnecting with old ones, including some sisters she had not seen for more than 60 years.

Funeral Mass: December 14, 2018, Stella Maris chapel, Timonium, Maryland

Interment: Woodlawn Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Catherine McAuley

Sister Elizabeth Anne CorcoranReligious Sister of Mercy

June 21, 1930 – December 5, 2018

Will we all meet in heaven? Oh what joy even to think of it.

Sister Elizabeth Anne Corcoran, a Sister of Mercy for more than 65 years, spent most of her life and ministry at her beloved Mercy Medical

Center in Baltimore, Maryland, the hospital where she was born. At 88, she was young at heart, still ministering in the hospital during the final weeks of her life.

The daughter of J. Neil Corcoran and Elizabeth “Bess” Daily Corcoran, she was one of eight children and was baptized Joan Daily, given her mother’s maiden name as her middle name. Later she would request, and be given, her mother’s baptismal name as her name in religion.

Educated in Catholic schools, she spent her elementary years at Saint Philip and James on 25th Street, followed by Mount St. Agnes High School, graduating in 1948. Since childhood she wanted to become a nurse, a desire strongly supported by her aunt, Sister Mary Veronica Daily, who was head administrator at Mercy. It was natural then for Elizabeth

Anne to enroll in the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. After earning her license as a registered nurse, she went on to earn a BS degree in nursing from Mount St. Agnes College. Later she would go on to study at Notre Dame College (now University), where she was awarded a master’s degree in healthcare administration. Sister Elizabeth Anne was a founding member of the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association, in which she would remain active throughout her life.

She began her ministry of nursing at what was then known as Mercy Hospital, first as a floor nurse, but quickly became a supervisor and then nursing school instructor. Her talent as a teacher was so valued that she was sent to St. Joseph’s Infirmary in Atlanta, Georgia, to teach young women in that hospital’s nursing school, where she remained for seven years. In 1965 she returned to Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, where she would hold many positions and play many roles. She served as assistant director of nursing for a decade and then was named director of nursing in 1975. During those years, she worked closely with her mentor and Mercy president, Sister Mary Thomas Zinkand, developing a close working relationship and an enduring friendship. —“They were a dynamic one-two punch during their time leading the hospital,” said Sister Helen Amos, executive chair of the Mercy Board of Trustees.

Sister Elizabeth Anne was named vice president of nursing, remaining in that position until 1989, when she became assistant to the president for hospitality, in charge of Mercy’s conference facilities and information personnel. According to Sister Helen, “After a long and illustrious career in nursing, Sister Elizabeth Anne modeled and trained others to practice Mercy’s core value of hospitality. It was a responsibility that was perfectly suited to her personality.” Long known by the hospital community as chief nurse, she soon gained—and enjoyed—another honorary title: Queen of Hospitality. She was honored again when the new Mary Catherine Bunting Center opened, and Mercy CEO and President Tom Mullen named its new casual eatery the Corcoran Café.

Always with a smile and a cheerful word, Sister Elizabeth Anne seemed ever-present in every part of the hospital, somehow finding time to see everyone—co-workers, patients and visitors. She was indeed, for more than a half century, the representative and beloved face of Mercy Hospital. For a full day, Sister Elizabeth Anne’s body lay in state in McAuley Chapel there, offering hundreds of people a chance to say farewell.

Funeral Mass: December 11, 2018, chapel at Stella Maris, Timonium, Maryland

Interment: Woodlawn Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

Catherine McAuley

Sister Mary Elizabeth SheridanReligious Sister of Mercy

September 15, 1920 - December 12, 2018

Will we all meet in heaven? Oh what joy even to think of it.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Sister Mary Elizabeth Sheridan was one of seven children born to Edward and Alma Kennington Sheridan, and

was baptized Mary Elizabeth. The Sheridan family home was within walking distance of Mount de Sales School and Academy, where she was educated for 12 years by the Sisters of Mercy.

After graduating from high school in 1937, Sister Mary came to Baltimore, Maryland, to attend Mount St. Agnes College, once again taught by Sisters of Mercy. During her freshman year, she grew certain God was calling her to religious life, and she entered the Community at Mount Washington on September 8, 1938. She knew she had been influenced by the sisters, but she felt that it was truly the example and spirit of her parents that led her to enter a religious community.

As a novice, she was given the name Mary Fides, meaning “faithful,” and she loved the name. But her parents had found it hard to see her enter the convent, and her father disliked her new name. When sisters could choose to return to their baptismal names, Sister Mary was among the first to make the change, based on her father’s dislike of Fides. As a young sister, she had no particular desire for a certain ministry, later recalling, “In those days choice was not involved. . . . We had no desires!” She was assigned to teach school and soon began studies and training, not sure she would like being a teacher but “doing what I was told.”

Sister Mary began her teaching ministry at Mount St. Agnes Lower School and was then sent to Catholic High in Pensacola, Florida. It was during her years there that she realized how much she enjoyed working with children and saw that she could be a successful teacher. She expected to be moved from one school to another, as most young sisters were, but Sister Mary was moved more than a dozen times, rarely remaining in any one school for more than a year or two. She taught English and home economics, and served as principal of several schools, sometimes while also teaching classes.

Her own education was not neglected. Over the years, she studied at Mount St. Agnes College in Baltimore and at St. Louis University in Missouri, earning a master’s degree in education. Later in her busy ministerial life, Sister Mary was a librarian at Mercer University in Macon, and, after formal retirement, she was an active volunteer at Mount de Sales School in Macon. Because of failing health, in 2004 Sister Mary came to live at Mercy Villa retirement convent in Baltimore, where she joined other sisters in the ministry of prayer and works of mercy.

Funeral Mass: December 20, 2018, in the chapel at Stella Maris in Timonium, Maryland

Interment: Woodlawn Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland

HOPE

An Advent Reflection

This is the season of Advent, a season in which we wait with anticipation, a season marked by hope. We hear hope articulated in our liturgical readings from the prophets during these days. And we dwell in the hope that the incarnation of Christ represents for us. So, we might ask ourselves: Just what is hope? If you ask Emily Dickinson, she would say: “Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me. The thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Hope is first and foremost a gift. It cannot be grasped nor completely defined. And yet we can say something about the qualities or characteristics of hope. Take a moment right now and imagine a person you know – a friend, a mentor, a historical figure living or deceased – who exhibits hope. What do you see or hear or sense in him or her? Pause

Do you see people who have a vision toward which they live? Martin Luther King’s, “I have a Dream?” Someone who expects the good? Someone who has confidence in God and humanity? Someone who has the conviction that reality, at its deepest, is primarily loving, good, and just? Then you know a hope-filled person. A hopeful person imagines. As William Lynch asserts, a hopeful imagination envisions what cannot yet be seen. It is the gift that “constantly proposes to itself that the boundaries of the possible are wider than they seem,” constantly proposes to itself that the boundaries of the possible are wider than they seem. Hope sees a future that is realistically possible but not yet visible.1 Hope is not imagining that you can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Hope is, for example, acknowledging our confidence in God’s abiding, loving presence and activity in our world. In Advent, we wait. We wait to see and hear and discover all the ways the incarnate love of God comes to surprise us even in the midst of these most troubling times. Can we be on the lookout? Can we wait with hopeful anticipation? This is the invitation of the season of Advent.

1 Lynch, William F. Images of Hope: Imagination as a Healer of the Hopeless. 1965. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.

JESUIT SOCIAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

JustSouthQUARTERLYFALL 2018

INSIDE

The position Donald Trump has taken towards immigration since he launched his campaign for the presidency is undeniably racist and divisive. From calling immigrants rapists, murderers, and animals and their homelands “shithole countries,” Trump has forsaken the “dog whistle” appeal to voters’ worst instincts favored by many modern nativist politicians for blatant and crude race-based fearmongering and scapegoating. The major objective of his policy and legislative actions on immigration, from ending DACA to decimating the U.S. refugee resettlement program and terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for tens of thousands of

immigrants who have lived here for many years, is clear: to reduce the number of non-white immigrants in the U.S.

At the time of our country’s founding, chattel slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies, so perhaps it is no surprise that racism has long shaped U.S. immigration policies and practices. One of the first naturalization laws, the 1790 Naturalization Act, denied citizenship to all but “free white persons of good character.” The legal boundaries of “white” were contested throughout the nineteenth century regarding who was eligible to naturalize, culminating in two Supreme Court decisions

—Continued on page 2

Bain News Service, Publisher. Ellis Island. , . [No Date Recorded on Caption Card] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014719587/.

COLLEGE OF ARTSAND SCIENCES

TAINTED LEGACY

Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Racism in Historical Context

BY SUE WEISHAR, PH.D.

Messy Discourse page 6

The Expansion Broadens page 4

Catholic Social Thought and Asylum page 3

2 JustSouth Quarterly, Fall 2018

TAINTED LEGACY — Continued from page 1

in the early 1920s. In Takao Ozawa v. U.S. (1922), the Supreme Court ruled that since only Caucasians were white and Japanese were not of the Caucasian race, they were not white and therefore ineligible for U.S. citizenship. Three months later in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), a national of India was found to be Caucasian as defined by anthropologists of the day. The court nevertheless ruled that Mr. Thind was not a “white person” as “used in common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man” and that he, too, could not naturalize.1 According to historian Mae Ngai, these two decisions cast Japanese and Asian Indians with Chinese as “unassimilable aliens” and helped constitute the racial category of “Asian.”2

Earlier, in 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, one of the first attempts by the U.S. to regulate immigration along racial lines. This piece of legislation was driven largely by concerns to maintain white “racial purity” and a widespread anti-Chinese movement in California where Chinese workers were blamed for declining wages and economic malaise. The Chinese Exclusion Act paved the way for a series of laws between 1882 and 1904 that severely restricted immigration from China and provided for the deportation of many Chinese immigrants already residing in the U.S. Restriction on Chinese immigration would last until 1943.3

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe began arriving in the U.S. in greater numbers during the last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. This change in the demographic status quo alarmed many Americans, including the editors of the best-selling magazine in the U.S., Saturday Evening Post, who warned that continuing migration patterns would yield “a hybrid race of people as worthless and futile as the good-for-nothing mongrels of Southeastern Europe.” The 1924 National Origins Quota Act was developed to curtail such migration by establishing immigration quotas based on two percent of each nationality’s proportion of the foreign-born U.S. population in 1890, before widespread immigration from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia, and other countries of southern and eastern Europe had begun. President Calvin Coolidge enthusiastically signed the bill. He wrote that “racial considerations [were] too grave to be brushed aside” and that “divergent people will not mix or blend.”4

The offensively named Operation Wetback was a massive immigration enforcement effort executed as a military operation in 1954 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to apprehend and deport undocumented workers from Mexico, especially in the Southwest. At its outset three thousand workers a day were returned to Mexico by bus, train, and boat, often

with little concern for their welfare or legal status. One Mexican labor leader reported that “wetbacks” were brought into Mexico “like cows” in the back of trucks and unloaded in the desert 15 miles south of the border. Eighty-eight braceros (temporary agricultural workers recruited from Mexico under a 1942 Mexican Farm Labor Agreement) died of heatstroke in a round-up conducted in 112-degree heat. A Congressional investigation described a cargo ship that transported workers to Vera Cruz as an “eighteenth century slave ship” and “penal hell ship.”5 By the time the program was terminated in 1955, it is estimated that as many as eight hundred thousand Mexican workers had been deported.6

At the height of the civil rights movement and a global Cold War debate over the merits of western democracy vs. communism, the National Origins Quota Act had become a national embarrassment. Fulfilling a campaign promise of John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA) at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. This act literally “changed the face of America” by ending an immigration-admissions policy based on race and ethnicity for one based on immigrants’ family relationships with U.S. citizens and legal residents and, to a lesser degree, job skills. The act unexpectedly set into motion widespread changes in the racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. when immigration from Europe fell flat and interest in emigrating from non-European countries after the end of colonial rule grew. In parallel with the termination of the Bracero program in 1964, the INA also inadvertently contributed to steep increases in undocumented immigration by limiting legal immigration from countries in the Western Hemisphere (which previously had no cap).7

The oldest trick in the political playbook is divide and conquer. Politicians throughout our history have stoked fear of the immigrant “other” to great effect. Pope Francis reminded legislators not to repeat such injustice in his address to Congress in 2015:

When the stranger in our midst appeals to us, we must not repeat the sins and the errors of the past. We must resolve now to live as nobly and as justly as possible, as we educate new generations not to turn their back on our ‘neighbors’ and everything around us. Building a nation calls us to recognize that we must constantly relate to others, rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity, in a constant effort to do our best.8

We would “do our best” by rejecting the racist, nativist Trump agenda.

—Endnotes on page 8

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ENDNOTES ENDNOTES

TAINTED LEGACY THE EXPANSION BROADENS—Continued from page 2 —Continued from page 5

1 Lee, J. & Bean, F.D. (2007). Reinventing the color line: Immigration and America’s new racial divide. Social Forces, 86 (2), 565.

2 Ngai, M.M. (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal aliens and the making of modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

3 Wu, Y. (2018). Chinese Exclusion Act. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Exclusion-Act

4 Roediger, D. R. (2005). Working toward whiteness: How America’s immigrants became white. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 139.

5 Op cit, Ngai, 156.6 Sealy, I.G. (2015, November 11). Operation Wetback, the 1950s immigration

policy Donald Trump loves, explained. Vox.com. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2015/11/11/9714842/operation-wetback.

7 Christi, M., Hipsman, F., & Ball, I. (2015, October 15). Fifty years on, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act continues to reshape the United States. Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states

8 Roberts, D. (2015, September 24). Pope Francis urges Congress to treat immigrants in ‘human and just’ way. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/pope-francis-congress-speech-immigration-climate-change-abortion

1 Judith Solomon. (2012, June 28). Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Health Reform’s Medicaid Expansion Is a Very Good Deal for States. At https://www.cbpp.org/blog/health-reforms-medicaid-expansion-is-a-very-good-deal-for-states

2 Ibid.3 National Academy for State Health Policy. (2018, August 22). Where States

Stand on Medicaid Expansion. At: https://nashp.org/states-stand-medicaid-expansion-decisions/

4 LSU Media Center. (2018, August 20). New Report Shows Medicaid Expansion Cuts Uninsured Rate in Half. At: https://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2018/08/20lahealthinsurancesurvey.eb.php

5 Fred Kammer, S.J. (2013, Winter). Catholic Social Thought and Health Care. JustSouth Quarterly, 3.

6 U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Letter of January 26, 2010 to U.S. Senate. At: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/health-care/upload/health-care-letter-to-congress-2010-01-26.pdf