BARBIERI: Let us not be afraid

As I read Vito Barbieri’s recent confirmation of his intelligence with his cry of “be afraid, be very afraid, the others are coming,” I thought of our country’s history. Italians from Southern Italy began immigrating to America in 1820, and with the addition of Northern Italians, reached more than 100,000 a year by 1900. They met with prejudice, allowed only hard labor jobs and referred to as “guineas, dagoes and wops.”

In the mid-1840s the potato famine led millions of Irish Catholics to flee to this country. Many Americans became uneasy about the “Catholic hordes.” Immigration unleashed many fears and insecurities, and in the case of Catholics it was their religion that caused that fear.

That said, I wonder about recent laws that sanction the right of individuals, using their religion, to treat others who aren’t just like them, badly. Isn’t that a form of legal bullying?

JANET CALLEN

Coeur d’Alene