Remarks:
This went to #8 on the US pop chart in 1981. Just a reminder that immigrants and refugees do not have to be seen as a threat to the US.
See also:
- songs, the 1980s
- Eagles: The Last Resort – a different sort of song about America
- Barbra Streisand: The Way We Were – a song by a high school classmate
- Statue of Liberty – featured in the video as a symbol of immigration
- models of US society:
Lyrics:
Far,
We’ve been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star
Free,
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream
On the boats and on the planes
They’re coming to America
Never looking back again,
They’re coming to America
Home
Don’t it seem so far away
Oh, we’re traveling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm
Home
To a new and a shiny place
Make our bed and we’ll say our grace
Freedom’s light burning warm
Freedom’s light burning warm
Everywhere around the world
They’re coming to America
Ev’ry time that flag’s unfurled
They’re coming to America
Got a dream to take them there
They’re coming to America
Got a dream they’ve come to share
They’re coming to America
They’re coming to America
They’re coming to America
They’re coming to America
They’re coming to America
Today,
Today,
Today,
Today,
Today
My country ’tis of thee (today)
Sweet land of liberty (today)
Of thee I sing (today)
Of thee I sing
Today, Today, Today
Today, today……
Source: AZ Lyrics.
Abagond 
Reblogged this on Mixed American Life.
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You must understand, it is not immigrant that people are discussing it is people of color. The president wants to return the quota back to the way it was before 1965. Mainly north Europeans.
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Mmm.. let them try singng that now.
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re: Allen Shaw
Before 1965, there was no quota on immigrants from the Americas (except for those of Chinese descent 1882-1943). Quotas on Latin America were ADDED in 1965.
If we want to go back to a pre-1965 era situation, then there should be no quotas on the ones coming in across either the northern or southern borders.
Latin American Immigration to the United States
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638184/
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@ Abagond
The source you used for the lyrics has a lot of mistakes.
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@ Solitaire
Ugh! Thanks. I will avoid Vagalume in the future and check past lyrics I have posted from them. Generally, one lyrics website is just as good as another.
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@ Allen Shaw
Right, “immigrant” is code for “Brown people”. It allows the right to self-righteously push racist policies that do not “sound racist” – well, at least not racist to them.
The video celebrates the Third Wave that Neil Diamond himself is a product of as a Jewish American New Yorker. His grandparents and others like them were seen as a threat to White America. Just ask the senators who passed the Immigration Act of 1924. Or ask Madison Grant, who wrote “The Passing of the Great Race” in 1916.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/madison-grant/
But to Diamond’s credit, he was singing not about his grandparents but about 1981, the “today” that he keeps repeating in the song. That was a year after the Mariel boatlift and not long after the US took in hundreds of thousands of refugees from South East Asia.
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@jefe I suggest you look at how the quota system was rigged. It was based on a period of time when almost all people coming into the nation were from Northern Europe. Therefor hardly any other nations had many people coming into the nation.
It is not what is say it is what it means!
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This video reminds me of a Schoolhouse Rock segment called “The Great American Melting Pot”:
(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M)
The segment is far from perfect. For example:
~ It shows the US owning Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and part of Quebec
~ It lists “Africans” along with groups like the Armenians, the Italians, and the Chinese, as if Africa were a country
~ It says, “You simply melt right in/It doesn’t matter what your skin/It doesn’t matter where you’re from/Or your religion”. If only!
On the other hand, the segment demonstrates a welcoming attitude towards diverse immigration. It has faith in the potential of many, varied groups to unite and create a better society. My favorite line is, “How great to be American and something else as well!”
Like the Neil Diamond song, “The Great American Melting Pot” serves as “a reminder that immigrants and refugees do not have to be seen as a threat to the US”. Now, assimilated Americans just have to work on actually accepting people of all skin tones, ethnic backgrounds, and religions. Someone should sing a song called, “You can’t become a part of the stew when the lid of the pot slams shut on you!”
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This song is awesome! I’m going to assume that you are saying people who are against illegal immigration, don’t , or can’t agree with this song! Many of us do! Borders not only protect against people, but ideals. We have voted to have us governed a certain way, and those who come here should respect those votes. When people burn the flag, while flying the flag of their homeland, it is hard to get behind that for me! I think they need to expand legal immigration and work visas. Imagine when people were coming in masses by boat. Many of them were put in holding tanks, and quarantined! But lets say there was a limit, as there is today, and they had to wait longer because the number couldn’t be increased, possibly because of illegals filling all of the holding facilities! I think that is probably how people from Guatemala and El Salvador feel who are trying to come the right way! If all of these immigration courts, and facilities who are housing asylum seekers are filled by “line cutters,” they may as well join the “caravan” and jump the border like everyone else is doing.. Frankly putting their children in a dice roll! Why isn’t Mexico helping them more? Blaming Trump , who is one guy, for all this is not correct or well thought out!
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