I recently stumbled upon an amazing quote on immigration, one which, although spoken to a European audience decades ago, holds true for other countries and other times.

In particular I'm thinking of Latin American labor in the United States, which has a history of nearly two centuries but has almost always been associated with backbreaking work. Or Chinese labor, famously along the railroads that made an empire out of the US.

Or most importantly, black slaves, who, once emancipated, refused to return to "Africa," whatever that meant. We built this country; it's ours too, they said.

Anyway, the quote. It's Max Frisch, a Swiss novelist.

We called laborers, but humans came instead.