OUT OF MANY, ONE

The former president takes up brush and pen to portray nearly four dozen immigrants and highlight their contributions.

Bush’s latest book reveals a couple of things. One is that any discussion of immigration reform is likely to be difficult and even a little schizophrenic. The author argues for strongly enforced borders, a thorough reform of the immigration system, and “full assimilation of immigrants into the American economy and culture.” Another is that the former president has, like Dwight Eisenhower, become a serviceable painter in his retirement. The political point is the more important, though Bush protests that he withheld publication until the 2020 election had passed lest any of his subjects become political hostages. As well they might have: One of the immigrants is a Mexican man who arrived illegally as a teenager, worked as a mechanic and painter, and then founded a produce company that nets $60 million per year. Though he became a citizen along the way, that’s just the sort of thing to set a nativist’s blood boiling. Arnold Schwarzenegger, depicted with a horsey grin and an Uncle Sam top hat, subtly addresses those nativists: “I wish every American realized that being born here is the greatest opportunity. You don’t know how lucky you are. And because of that, it’s our duty to do everything in our power to leave a better America to the next generation.” Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright take their places alongside a North Korean refugee who works in Bush’s organization and an Iraqi interpreter who legally changed his name to Tony George Bush. A few of Bush’s subjects are of modest achievement, but many, including Dominican baseball star Albert Pujols and Swedish-born golf celebrity Annika Sörenstam, have made outsize marks. The author also includes a two-page flow chart that shows the impossibly complex ways (there are four of them) “to obtain a green card” in the U.S.

A surprisingly satisfying tribute to the vigor that immigrants bring to the nation’s culture and economy.