Who Are “We”?

June 26, 2026

Speaker Mike Johnson, addressing a reporter’s question about birthright citizenship, says that while “we” embrace immigration, “we also expect that people will come, they will follow the spirit and the letter of the law, they will assimilate to our country and not try to transplant Sharia law and all these other cr— you know, things, and change who we are.” [my transcription]

Well, that certainly got the old synapses firing on all cylinders—these bits especially: 1. “they will assimilate to our country”; 2. “and not try to transplant Sharia law”; 3. “and change who we are.”

Hey, Mike. our country is very large and diverse. Have you noticed? How are immigrants supposed to “assimilate”? Do they have to pick a city, a state, a region, and then stay there, adopt the accent and the vernacular, the culinary specialties, the music, and other aspects of culture that are unique to that place? What if they want or need to move to a different part of the country? Do they have to assimilate all over again? (Do Americans have to “assimilate” when we move from one part of the country to another?)

Have you noticed that there are Chinatowns and Little Italys and other ethnic enclaves in big cities and small towns all across our country? Have you noticed how popular ethnic restaurants are in our country? I live in Milwaukee. We have a Greek Orthodox church that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We have the Basilica of St. Josaphat, built by Poles from materials salvaged from a post office and customs house in Chicago that had been razed. The first sentence of the history page on their website says this: “The Basilica epitomizes the striving of early Polish immigrants to express their ethnic heritage, spiritual devotion, and patriotic pride by building impressive houses of worship.”

Milwaukee also has a mosque, synagogues, and other churches (some now closed) with such names as St. Mary of Czestochowa, Blessed Virgin of Pompeii, and Our Lady of Guadalupe. And if you come to Milwaukee in the summer you’ll find a different ethnic festival almost every weekend: Polish, Scottish, French, Italian, Indian, German, African, Irish, Mexican, and Puerto Rican, among others. The small town in Indiana where I grew up—and sang patriotic songs in a community choir on July 4, 1976, to celebrate our country’s bicentennial—has a festival every summer to celebrate its German heritage. Is this okay with you, Mike, or do we have to close our restaurants, tear down our places of worship, and stop celebrating our immigrant ancestors?

Assimilate to our country? Did the first Europeans assimilate to the culture of the people who were already here and whose ancestors had been here for thousands of years before any Europeans ever set sail for whatever lay beyond the western horizon? What happened to those people, to their descendants? What did “our country” do to them? Is that assimilation? What about abducting people from other continents and bringing them here to be sold as property and enslaved? Is that assimilation? What about putting citizens in internment camps because their ancestors came from a country we were at war with? They had “assimilated.”

[Deep breath.]

Let’s move on. I think it’s interesting, Mike, that of all the different ways immigrants might “change” our country, transplanting Sharia law is top of mind for you. It doesn’t surprise me, though. Republicans have engaged in hysteria-mongering about Sharia law since the attacks of September 11, 2001 (at least).

So let’s think about this, shall we?

First of all, how do the hysteria-mongers think Sharia law would supplant the U.S. Constitution and all federal, state, and local laws? Did you forget, Mike, that you and your Congressional colleagues took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance” to it?

Do the hysteria-mongers even know what Sharia law is? Did they do their due diligence and learn about it before trafficking in misinformation and disinformation for the express purpose of spreading fear of Muslims? Did you, Mike? Methinks not.

So I did, and here’s what I found: “Sharia law” is a misnomer. Shari’a is translated as “the way,” “the path,” “the correct path,” or “the path to the water,” and is a set of guidelines and principles for how to live a moral and ethical life. Islamic law is derived from Shari’a, but they are two different things. And in the United States, neither poses a threat to civil law.

And guess what? Judaism has a similar set of guidelines and principles called Halakhah (also spelled “Halachah”). I found a few translations of “Halakhah”: to go or to walk; the way; the path one walks. So, pretty much the same as Shari’a.

And oh look: the Catholics have a Catechism (beliefs and teachings) and a Code of Canon Law. Look what I found in the Catechism: “The law of God entrusted to the Church is taught to the faithful as the way of life and truth” [italics mine]. Should we fear Canon Law? After all, there are a bunch of Catholics on the U.S. Supreme Court and in the president’s administration. Also, Catholic bishops and some members of Congress don’t seem to be shy about turning a blind eye to the “wall of separation” to join forces and write legislation that favors the faithful; for example: a small business owner’s denying service to LGBTQ customers because serving these customers would conflict with the owner’s religious beliefs, or a pharmacist’s refusal to fill a prescription for contraception because doing so contradicts the pharmacist’s religious beliefs. Never mind the rights of individuals to buy a custom birthday cake or wedding invitations at a business open to the public or to have a valid prescription filled at a commercial pharmacy.

And then of course, there’s that little matter of some states passing or attempting to pass laws to require the posting of the ten commandments or the study of the Bible in public schools (looking at you, Texas).

Speaking of Texas, the Republican party there is incorporating Islamophobia into their strategy for the midterm elections. What’s got them all riled up (aside from their basic Islamophobia) is a plan for a mosque and residential community in a suburb north of Dallas. The community would be open to anyone, but it was designed for the convenience of Muslims, who are called to prayer five times a day. Living within walking distance would make getting to the mosque a whole lot easier for those who wish to pray there.

What’s wrong with wanting to live near your place of worship? And if Muslims are not allowed to live within walking distance of their mosque, should Jews who do not drive or use public transportation on the Sabbath be prohibited from living within walking distance of their synagogues? And how many towns or neighborhoods in our country were built around a church? Are we going to break up Amish and Mennonite communities? The first church (and school) of my early childhood in Iowa was St. Patrick’s, in a neighborhood called “Hibernia.” Any guesses as to the ethnicity of the people who established that parish?

The First Amendment of our Constitution begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This means that the United States will never be a theocracy. It also means that I, as an individual, am free to practice the religion of my choice, or none at all, with no fear of having any particular religion imposed upon me. And it means that if an Islamic congregation wants to build housing near their mosque to facilitate the free exercise of their religion, they have a constitutional right to do that.

If there is a real threat to the First Amendment, it comes from Christian Nationalists, especially those already working within our government. They are the Christian version of the Taliban. They want to use their distorted version of Christianity to gain political power and subjugate anyone who is not a straight, white, Christian male. And some Christian Nationalists are planning “charter communities” for far-right Christians. These would not be simply for the convenience of the residents; they are interested in political power.

Finally, Mike, there is your fear that immigrants will “change who we are.” And who are “we,” exactly? Are we all alike? Are we all expected to be alike? Are we no longer allowed to be “rugged individuals”? We may not all be rugged, but we are a nation of individuals, and our country is much richer for our diversity. Oops, there’s that D-word again. Don’t be afraid of it, Mike. You would do well to get outside of your comfort zone and get to know some people whose heritage, experiences, and lives are much different from yours.

Who we are, Mike, is members of tribal nations, descendants of enslaved people, and people whose immigrant ancestors faced discrimination just because of where they came from. (Was your Italian grandfather one of these? Can you empathize even just a little tiny bit with what current immigrants to our country are suffering?) And yet we are a country that people still come to, sometimes at great risk to their lives, to chase their dreams of a better life than their native country can provide.

We can point to many achievements and successes, but we are also responsible for some catastrophic failures, including your boss’s cruel policy against documented and undocumented immigrants, legal residents, and naturalized citizens. And we must own all of it. That’s how we learn; it’s how we move forward and keep making progress toward our more perfect union.

This part of “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus was set to music and was one of the songs we sang on Independence Day in 1976:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

And I’m sure, Mike, that you’re familiar with the lesson from Jesus that says, of God, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.”

We are a multitude, Mike, of sizes, shapes, colors, languages, personalities, religious beliefs, political views, talents, skills, ideas, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. We are a vast garden, tended by God, nature, and each other. Let us grow.


Sources:
Johnson press conference; question on birthright citizenship at about 33:55:
https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/house-republican-leadership-news-conference/681628

Basilica of St. Josaphat: https://thebasilica.org/history

Shari’a: https://ing.org/resources/a-closer-look-at-sharia-in-the-united-states/

Shari’a: https://www.mpvusa.org/sharia-law

Shari’a: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/understanding-sharia-intersection-islam-and-law

Halakhah: https://www.jewfaq.org/jewish_law

Halakhah: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/halakhah-the-laws-of-jewish-life/

Halakhah: https://library.law.miami.edu/research/guides/jewish-law/

Halakhah: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/religions/judaism/resources/judaism-law-and-ethics

Ten commandments: https://apnews.com/article/texas-ten-commandments-law-public-schools-scotus-43e679cf473e6b98b091d575578824eb

Texas mosque: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-republicans-midterms-islamophobia

Charter communities: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/06/14/highland-rim-ridgerunner-tennessee-abbotoy-cover-00951382

Charter communities: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ridgerunner-right-wing-christian-communities-1235450418/

Charter communities: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/20/kentucky-far-right-community-real-estate-development

Catechism, paragraph 2037: https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_three/article_3/i_moral_life_and_the_magisterium_of_the_church.html

What canon law is: https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/canon-law

The Code of Canon Law: https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/cic_index_en.html

The New Colossus: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus
https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/emma-lazarus.htm