Immigrants didn't always have to be exceptional to seek a new life in America. There was a time when an eager man or woman needn't speak English or hold an advanced degree to build a future here -- and to contribute to the nation's greatness.

As calls for a merit-based immigration system mount, the notion that similar rules might have barred their ancestors from entering the country has ignited anger among some native-born Americans. They wonder how their families, their own lives and their homeland might have developed differently if their forebears, many of them unskilled and illiterate, had been rejected by America.