As real estate professionals, we believe that helping families achieve the American Dream is at our core. But it’s worth asking: whose dreams was America built for?
Because in this nation’s DNA and its slogans, monuments, money and most sacred documents, there is a message that cannot be forgotten. That is, America was built by immigrants, strengthened by immigrants, and still depends on immigrants to thrive.
Participate in the INMAN Intel Index Survey
At a time when immigrants are currently being targeted, stigmatized, and attacked, the real estate industry has a moral obligation to be on the right side of history. We are in the business of housing, opportunity, and upward mobility. We help people put down roots and find stability. For generations of newcomers, buying a home is the real first step into American life.
If there is a front door to the American dream, you, the real estate professional, hold the key to it.
So let’s remember what this country is about. Not the political version discussed on cable news, but the actual historical version carved in stone and stamped in metal.
“Out of many, one”: the founder’s original vision
One of America’s earliest mottos is E pluribus unum, which in Latin means “out of many, one.” It was proposed for the Great Seal by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and adopted in 1782. Originally it meant 13 colonies becoming one nation, but over time it came to mean something bigger: many people becoming one nation.
The founders literally carried this message into our hands. The motto is printed on U.S. coins, embedded in the national seal, and even hidden in microprint on the $5 bill. This was no poetic embellishment. It was a declaration that America should be built of many things, not one thing.
Immigration is not a side story. it’s a story
From 1892 to 1954, Ellis Island alone processed 12 million immigrants. Two-fifths of Americans today may be descendants of someone who passed through that building.
The island is home to the American Immigrant Wall of Honor, inscribed with the names of nearly 1 million immigrants. It is the only national monument that officially commemorates the family’s immigrant history.
We literally built a wall in New York Harbor. Not to keep people out, but to carve their names and say, “You belong here.” That’s us.
All historians, even critics of immigration, agree on the basic fact that immigration is one of the defining forces of American history. America did not “add” immigrants to the finished product. Immigration was a product of that.
If we’re being intellectually honest, Indigenous people were here first. Enslaved people were forcibly brought here and, along with the immigrants, built the rest. That’s the real foundation of America, not a slogan, but the mechanics of how this country has grown.
Statue of Liberty: America’s generous landmark
No symbol expresses this more powerfully than the Statue of Liberty. Emma Lazarus’ 1883 poem, “Give me your weary, your poor, your crowds longing to breathe free…” was added to a bronze plate within the plinth in 1903.
Her poem literally renamed the statue “Mother of the Exiles.” She turned this statue into a lighthouse for the homeless. The symbol Americans chose for themselves reads, “We welcome the stranger.”
Constitution: Immigration is written into the law
The Fourteenth Amendment makes it clear that anyone born on U.S. soil is a citizen. In 1898, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruling that even in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was undoubtedly a U.S. citizen.
Birthright citizenship has been around for more than a century. This is not a loophole. That is the philosophy of the Constitution. “Once you’re here, you belong.”
“The past is prologue”
Outside the National Archives, where I have been visiting almost every Independence Day for the past 10 years, there is a statue inscribed with Shakespeare’s words: “What is past is prologue.” The passage contains a warning: “Do not rewrite the future without understanding the past.” And our past is immigrant-rich, messy, and essential.
The truth is simple. With the exception of Native Americans, we all came from somewhere else. The first Europeans to colonize America were the Spanish, followed by the British, French, and Dutch, all of whom were immigrants. Our founding fathers also came from immigrant families. Immigration is not an interruption in American history. It’s American history. That’s not a political opinion, but a high school level fact.
But today, ideas like “reverse immigration” are being thrown around that seek to rewrite our nation’s moral DNA. America has never defined patriotism by ancestry, purity, or exclusion. America’s founders understood that America’s strength came from that mix, so they stamped money and monuments with “One of many.”
Displacing people doesn’t make America stronger; it makes America smaller.
Why this matters to us
So why did I write this article for this industry? Because housing is where the promise of America meets the reality of life. You and I help families, including immigrant families, take the first steps toward stability, wealth, community, and dignity. Buying a home isn’t just about finances. It’s emotional. I belong to it.
When the political winds are moving toward fear, exclusion, and division, we cannot pretend that it doesn’t concern us. We help people become part of America. Every closing is an act of participation. Every key given is an extension of “one of many.”
Every immigrant homeowner strengthens our neighborhoods, our markets, and our country. You can’t make a career out of helping people achieve the American Dream, and you can’t stay silent while being told some people don’t deserve it.
The blueprint is clear
Immigration is not just a corner of American history. They are the story. They are the raw materials upon which this country was built. If you remove them, the entire structure will collapse. Diversity is not a drawback. That’s the blueprint for starting a business.
If America is home, we in the real estate industry are its gatekeepers. This moment in history calls us to uphold the same principles that are written in our monuments, etched in our marble, stamped on our currency, and written into our Constitution: Out of many, one.
Darryl Davis is the CEO of Darryl Davis Seminars. Connect with him on Facebook and YouTube.
