To the Editor: On Immigration and the American Dream

Space does not permit me to express the totality of my disagreement with Vander O.B. Ritchie’s Feb. 13 op-ed, “The American Dream Is in Danger at Harvard,” but a correction is in order. It is tendentious in the extreme to refer to John Harvard, who moved from one constituent part of his native empire to another — specifically, to a city which was founded by his own countrymen less than a decade earlier — as an “immigrant.” The correct word is “settler,” and the distinction is not trivial.

The acts of moving to an existing nation and of carving one out of the wilderness are manifestly different; the qualities required, the burdens imposed, and the privileges gained by each are distinct. Each results in a different relationship to the nation. Ritchie is entitled to make the case for immigration, but he must do so without claiming for immigrants the glory achieved by America’s founders, including John Harvard.

Nor is he right to portray both Harvard and America as essentially reliant on immigration. That the world’s elites and would-be elites are desirous of studying here may indeed be a testament to our University, but the lion’s share of our reputation has been forged by generations of American students. By the same token, as opposed to the “melting pot” theory Ritchie seems to accept so uncritically, immigrants do not strengthen America simply by crossing our borders if they do not assimilate into our culture. Indeed, his editorial is at its most absurd when he criticizes President Donald Trump for treating immigrants “as foreign… and other.” Until immigrants assimilate — and are granted citizenship on terms set by Americans — they are foreign by definition.

Ritchie concludes by declaring the American Dream is “that you can come to this country from any corner of the earth and become an American.” Beyond openness, he never stops to articulate what it actually means to be an American. Perhaps he ought to ask himself why, if America’s virtues are not inborn, if her greatness is not rooted in something unique, immigrants are so desperate to come here.

—Alexander D. Hughes ’25