My People Came to this Country

My people came to this country
In need of a land that was free
And I think the only thing I can do
If a decent man I’d be,
Is to walk with my head held high and proud
For the blood that runs in me.
* * *
And God bless all the dipping fields
From the mountains to the sea,
And grant that I walk like a fearless man
For the blood that runs in me.
* * *

(Fragments from a poem by Struthers Burt in “The New Pioneer,” February 1943, published by the Cultural Association of Americans of Romanian Descent.)