Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

    March 25, 2011 marked the one-hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 175 people in New York City.  The vast majority of those killed were Jewish immigrants; mostly women as young as 14 years old, most in their teens and early twenties.
    Most were the children of immigrants who had come to this country to create a better life for themselves. What they found, however, was poverty, deplorable living conditions, work days that lasted 14 hours and more, and working conditions that often broke their spirit, if not their backs. And in the case of the Triangle fire, took their lives.  But in 1911, the dream for a better life could become a reality.  A path to citizenship existed, and we, the descendants of those immigrants, stand as testimony to that dream.
     Today, it is estimated that there are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who have the same dream that our parents and grandparents had.  Immigrants who came to this country, as our ancestors did, in search of a better life for themselves and their children – to work in factories, on farms, in hotels and restaurants. Who work for low pay and no benefits as day laborers at menial jobs that no one else will perform. But yet, these immigrants do not have the promise of a path to citizenship.  They and their children will forever live in the shadows of America’s affluence, unable to fulfill the dream of citizenship.
     As we reflect on our heritage and remember the 175 people who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, let us also remember that there are literally millions of people across this country, throughout Colorado and in our own neighborhoods who only ask for the same opportunities that our parents and grandparents were given.