My maternal grandfather was an illegal alien immigrant or, in the language of the early 20th century, a “wetback,” according to a family legend.

These days, there is debate about whether the 2020 Census should include the question, “Are you a citizen?” My heritage probably affects my opinion about that.

Giuseppe Critelli supposedly came to this country as a stowaway on a freighter bound from Naples, Italy, to New York City.

Would he have been antsy to be asked about citizenship by a census taker?

Not when I knew him in the 1940s/50s. He was proud to have become a citizen.

I am delighted to have a confirming document. It is No. 375207, Certificate of Naturalization, confirming that he was naturalized by the Common Pleas Court of Warren County at Warren, Pa., on March 17, 1914. As a child, I saw that certificate, and his wife’s companion certificate, proudly displayed on a wall in their living room.

The family legend has Grandpa sneaking into New York a few years before 1914, staying with extended family for a while, and then following the railroad’s need for workers into Warren. The stowaway circumstances supposedly followed a young Grandpa’s decision in Italy to beat up a fellow Italian – who was “connected” to a Mafia family. Bad move. A “contract” was put out on Grandpa’s life and taken seriously. A cousin, a deck hand on a freighter, supposedly lowered a rope or a chain to Grandpa, who had swum out into the Bay of Naples.

I got the story from Mom, but never from Grandpa himself. He spat whenever “Mafia” was mentioned. He angrily refused to discuss the circumstances of his immigration.

But immigrate he did — and, as the certificate I inherited displays, he “got himself right” with Uncle Sam rather quickly.

He was proud to have become an American.

In my childhood, Grandpa and I could converse with a mixture of Italian and English, talking about the weather, about the pizzas and calzones he would bake when he came to our house to visit after Grandma died (principally because he was then a lonely old man), and the like.

We were not linguistically adept enough to have discussed politics, including whether the Census Bureau should ask that citizenship question.

But Grandpa’s attitude was clear. This country had been good to him. He worked. He paid his taxes. He learned English. He became a citizen. And every other immigrant should become a citizen — or get the hell out.

I agree.

You don’t agree? Hey, this is a free country. Grandpa liked that, just as I do. You have a right to be a “stoopida…” as he used to say. Grandpa was never wishy-washy.

He could tolerate someone being wrong; heck, he tolerated Mom marrying Dad, even though he disliked Dad’s family. But Mom had to endure Grandpa’s description of Mom’s in-laws as “stoopida….”

Asking that “citizen” question might make today’s illegal aliens uncomfortable. I think illegal aliens ought to be uncomfortable about having cheated to get into the country, even as I can understand the desperate circumstances that drive them here.

Because of Grandpa’s circumstances of immigration, I do not support the immediate deportation of all illegal aliens. Our government has tolerated their presence for years, decades or even generations.

I think that those who are here now, whether they sneaked in or overstayed temporary work visas, ought to be given a path toward citizenship. That path could include penalties, e.g., fines or requirements to attend citizenship classes, pass rudimentary English literacy tests, etc.

Wait. What? You don’t believe in forcing immigrants to learn English? In my view, as well as Grandpa’s, that position is “stoopida.” Here is President Theodore Roosevelt from 1907: “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Yep. I especially like TR’s distinction. He did not recommend loyalty to America’s government, but to America’s people.

So lets enact a path to citizenship law – with teeth in it. Any subsequent illegal aliens should, in my view, be arrested, imprisoned and deported. Children? Yep. Babes in arms? Yep.

This is our country, not theirs. We have a right to defend our borders, by killing people who breach them, if necessary.

We should debate specific provisions of a path to citizenship law. But we should not dawdle. Our “stoopida” Congress should earn its pay and enact that law this year, instead of fulminating about impeachment (Democrats) or blindly ignoring President Trump’s missteps (Republicans).

We need accurate numbers to decide about what to do about immigration.

So let’s ask the “Are you a U.S. citizen?” question. Grandpa would approve.

¯¯¯

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.