The origins of immigrants

Peter Guiliano had a great post the other day on PF.net called "A Cup Without Immigrants". His observations about immigrants in the coffee world got me thinking about all of the various components that must come together for us in the coffee industry to do what we do. Coffee is truly an international substance. From growing to milling to shipping to roasting to brewing, the wealth of knowledge that has been built-up over the years has resulted in an alchemy of wisdom and experience that could not exist if it wern't for the bits and pieces of input from disparate sources.
Obviously the coffee plant itself is an immigrant. Slowly spreading from a small patch of land in the most geneticlly diverse part of the world to take root (literaly)across the globe. And places where the coffee plant cannot grow, it has rooted itself firmly in the stomachs and synapses. The coffee plant has embedded itself so deeply in our psyche that it's hard to imagine life on this planet without it. Recognizing that this one thing with one origin has become enmeshed in our lives (and the lives of most people on Earth), its easy to see how just because a thing (or person) has it's origin in a place far away, it in no way means that it doesn't belong here with us now.