Our country's acceptance for immigrants has grown larger, but is currently at a declination due to the current distress and myths surrounding "The Wall" being put on the Southern border. America has a lot of acceptance overall for immigrants though, as many people in America have ancestors who were at one point immigrants. We still have an issue with giving proper rights and consolidation to the Native people of America, who many years ago had their land stolen. Also, immigration is more closely watched and picked through, which in turn, makes immigrating particularly difficult, which causes illegal immigration.
Kind of, everyone who came over 100 years ago were made railroad workers and miners and lived very poor lives but better then where they were coming from. Now days they are still treated not greatly, ie: the ICE camps and ICE deporting illegal immigrants.
Answer: Symbolism takes something that is usually concrete and associates or affixes it to something else in order to give it a new and more significant meaning.
