[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14218]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 LONE STAR VOICE: MARIBETH BURGESS RAY

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, our individual heritage of the past is 
important, but our future as Americans is more important. Many 
Americans trace their past through Ellis Island. Mrs. Maribeth Burgess 
Ray of Baytown, Texas, recently went there, and she says:
  ``While at Ellis Island, I found a profound statement. An article had 
a picture of a mother and her two sons. The newcomers' attire was that 
of the country from which they had fled. The statement was, `If the 
ones who flee do not change their appearance and speech, they only 
bring what they fled from to America, thus changing America into the 
country that they were fleeing from.'''
  Today, we forget what America is and what it stands for. If what you 
are fleeing from is so bad, leave it behind and adapt to what it is you 
are looking for. Let us keep America America, with the beautiful quilt 
of immigrants that make it up, but let us not turn America into 
something it is not. Don't let our borders be penetrated by the baggage 
that some refuse to leave behind.
  Mr. Speaker, people who come to America should assimilate and just 
become Americans.
  And that's just the way it is.

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