Where is my America? The land of golden-paved streets, the land of opportunity and equality? Where is this place they call the melting pot? My family came here November 20, 1984, exactly three months prior my birth date. Without a lick of knowledge of American culture, nor any notion of the English tongue, they crossed harsh waters of the Atlantic only to flee the political violence surrounding a past homeland. Within a week, I will be eighteen, a legal adult subject to unlawful racial profiling and arrest. As I learn of the Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, the case of Sacco and Venzetti from my U.S. History class, and recall prior knowledge of the Japanese-American internment camps, my fears for my family and myself grow, and I must raise certain questions with my society. My name is Amir Kasseif, age seventeen, eldest of two of my mother's children, and fully-assimilated descendent of a proud Pakistani bloodline. .
From November 1919 to January 1920, over 6,000 people were arrested with limited evidence in the Palmer Raids (which, in total captivated over 10,000). Most of whom were foreign-born, as many as 500 were even deported. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered mass arrests of anarchists, socialists and labor agitators. Palmer also went as far as to establish a special office under J. Edgar Hoover, whose sole purpose was to gather information on radicals. Dare I compare my current situation with such Red Scare hysteria? It would not be fair to accuse the government of a second coming, but my paranoia is certainly justified. I have already witnessed resentful reaction from my environment without circumstance; it is another mass response like that of the Red Scare, which outlines my fears. .
In 1921, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti were convicted in Massachusetts of robbery and murder. However, there was no conclusive evidence. Liberals protested that the accusations" nature was based on their lowly stature of poor Italian anarchist immigrants.
