June is National Immigration Month in the United States—an appropriate time to reflect on the special role immigrants have played and continue to play in enriching this country.

Far from being a threat to the vitality of America, immigration has been a life-giving force that in every generation has helped the country grow. This fact is on display in communities across the United States as new immigrants and refugees come not only with their hopes and dreams for a better life, but also with their energy and determination to prosper and provide for their families. They also have brought their unique cultural characteristics that contribute to making America the country it is today.

All of this is too often forgotten in times of economic stress or political polarization, as xenophobic bigots rise up demanding that America’s doors be closed. Immigrants are presented as a threat to the economic well-being of citizens. They argue that there is an “American culture” that the immigrants do not share. They raise slogans like “you will not replace us” or “immigrants don’t share our values or culture” or they’ll “pollute the blood of the country.”

Not only will they become American, but also America itself will be transformed by them and their contributions.

What these anti-immigrant bigots forget is that their own ancestors were often greeted by the same fears and exclusionary slogans when they first came to America. And they forget that that there is no uniquely American culture without the contributions of immigrants who made our culture what it is today. What would American culture be without the Scots-Irish and African Americans who brought their music and dance, or the Italians, Chinese, Mexicans, Greeks, and Arabs who contributed their food, or the Eastern European Jewry who gave us their arts and humor, not to speak of the countless others whose contributions to science, medicine, art, and business have made us the country we are today.

It’s important to understand that these two competing visions of the country have come in successive waves. And it’s particularly sad to see the descendants of the earlier waves of immigrants who were reviled a century ago, now becoming the xenophobes of this era. But thankfully, the bigots of every period, after doing short-term damage, have always lost as the more inclusive spirit of America has triumphed. And when inclusion wins, America wins.

I saw this on display during a recent visit to my hometown of Utica, NY. For most of its more than two centuries of existence, Utica has been a community of immigrants. First came........

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