Bill Palmer
Daily News Bin
The destruction of Syria due to a civil war conflict and the rise of ISIS has led to an impassioned debate as to whether the United States should act as a world leader by allowing Syrian refugees to immigrate into the country. All the usual arguments are being made by political conservatives against such a move: What if they’re untrustable? What if they’re incompatible with our way of life? What if they take our jobs? But perhaps the more relevant question may be this: what if one of them ends up fathering the guy who creates Apple? Because that’s precisely what happened the last time we allowed Syrian refugees into the country.
Few people are aware of this because he had the name and physical appearance of a white man, but Steve Jobs was half Syrian. His father, Abdulfattah Jandali, fled to America in 1954 as a political refugee. He worked hard. He drove a taxi. He fell in love with an American woman. She got pregnant. Her conservative father forced them to break up, and the baby was given up. It’s why Steve Jobs was raised by adoptive parents, and why his last name is Jobs instead of Jandali. But he was very much the son of an Arab refugee.
The story of Steve Jobs and his father is a striking reminder of two things. Most immigrants who come to America end up contributing to our society in ways big and small, some bigger than others. And the only real villains in such stories are the conservatives who allow racist paranoia to cause them to act out against immigrants in ways which are simply un-American.