A ten-minute drive through Hazleton, Pa., reveals as much about the history of immigration and ethnic diversity, as it does the gastronomical tastes of a changing population, with menus boasting pierogies and pizza alongside eateries dishing up tamales and tostones.
Like polka dots on an all-white background, Hispanic businesses like La Mexican Grocery and Crystal Barbeque compete along the same pockmarked thoroughfares as town staples like Vesuvio Pizzeria and Jimmy’s Quick Lunch, where a dish of kraut and mash sells for $4.60.
“This is the land of opportunity. We all come for the same thing,” says Vesuvio co-owner Sofia Renaud, who immigrated to the former coal town from Italy with her parents 33 years ago. Today, the North Wyoming Street pizzeria sits in a largely Hispanic neighborhood once dominated by Italian, Polish and German-owned businesses.
“My mother used to say, ‘You never forget where you come from, but you have to pick up the traditions and values of your adopted country,’ ” says Renaud.
Built on the backs of eastern Europeans who swarmed to the area starting in the late 1800s, Hazleton was until 2006 largely known as the hometown of “Shane” movie star Jack Palance, son of an immigrant Ukrainian miner. The spotlight switched overnight when Republican Mayor Lou Barletta cracked down on the city’s undocumented residents with legislation soon mimicked across America.
“To illegal immigrants and those who would hire or abet them in any way, I say your time is up,” says Barletta, the grandson son of immigrants, on the Small Town Defenders Web site, which has already raised $500,000. “You are no longer welcome.”
That attitude surprises immigrants like Sarah Barnard, a librarian from Ohio with three grown children who came to the U.S. via Israel in 1974 with her American fiancé. “Unless you’re a Native American, you’re a descendent of immigrants,” says Barnard, who was born in Canada and is just now studying for her citizenship test so she can vote for the next president.
At a time of intense national debate over failed federal reform, immigrants continue to arrive by the millions, attracted for reasons as varied as their nationalities – to pursue a dream, reunite with family, find a better job – or simply to live in a country where dialogue is encouraged and war nonexistent. Like those before them, newcomers are, in turn, lauded for cultural and economic contributions or criticized for taxing social services and taking jobs.
Today’s immigrants come from as close as Mexico and the Dominican Republic and as far-off as Somalia, Russia and China. They live in red states and blue states, bustling cities and farm towns. They are as likely to be the doctor who treats your cancer as the busboy who cleans your dirty dishes; the engineer who designs your bridges as the migrant worker who picks your vegetables.
“We Are a Nation of Immigrants” is the official motto of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which became part of Homeland Security in the wake of 9/11. Today, more than one in 10 U.S. residents are immigrants, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. And while that’s the highest share of the overall American population since the 1930s, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit Public Agenda, it’s still below the high of 15 percent recorded in 1890 and 1910, when millions sailed for America in search of work, freedom from persecution and greater opportunities.
Clarence Lusane, associate professor at American University in Washington, D.C., says today, “Nearly every country is a country of immigrants. It’s a global phenomenon.”
Attitudes toward immigrants shift as often as demographics, and are almost always rooted in economics. “We welcome immigrants when the economy expands and when it reverses we start to see attitudes manifest,” he says
Roughly as many of us believe that newcomers strengthen American society as say they threaten traditional American values, according to a 2006 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Katherine Fennelly, professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, says the one thing everybody agrees on is that “the immigration system is broken. And the immigrants themselves are being scapegoated instead of the broken policies.”
"Defining an immigrant"
The word “immigrant” often conjures up a stereotype of a European in a babushka disembarking from Ellis Island or a Mexican picking California avocados. But “immigrant” also means Vong Kapkeo, a Hmong machinist from Milwaukee, and Viktoria Korkhina, a nurse from Russia, now living in largely Hispanic West New York, N.J.
“In America, I face prejudice, but not because I am Jewish, as I did in Leningrad, but because I am first-generation immigrant with an accent,” says Korkhina.
After nearly 30 years in this country, Kapkeo considers himself “fully Americanized” and completely at home. The son of a Hmong rice farmer who fought alongside U.S. servicemen during a CIA-led war, Kapkeo’s journey to America began in Laos. When he was 4, the family escaped to Thailand, sleeping during the day to travel under cover of night. From a refugee camp, they secured passage to Texas through a church organization. The only keepsakes they brought from home were Buddhist statues.
Kapkeo’s father milked cows, picked crops and assembled diesel motors while his mother worked at a shampoo factory and sorted vegetables in Texas, where Kapkeo was one of only two Laotians in school, and in Wisconsin, where the family eventually moved. Today, Kapkeo is among 20,000 Hmong in the Milwaukee area, says Nengmay S. Vang of the Hmong/American Friendship Association Inc., who says most came here for school or factory jobs.
“After 32 years, “ says Vang, “the new generation seems to be fitting in with the culture, language and tradition.”
“I just work and try to live my life. I go fishing, I get along with all my neighbors,” says Kapkeo, 32, who lives with his girlfriend, a Hmong born in Illinois, and his retired mother. “Our culture is the same here as it would have been in Laos. You have to take care of your family, of your parents.”
“The U.S wouldn’t let us in”
Today, one of the government’s aims is to attract skilled workers while drawing from a more diverse pool. The famous, and those with an advanced degree or at least $500,000 to invest have a better chance of getting in than the average hotel maid – unless that maid has a close U.S. relative or a promised job, which shoots her to the top of the list. Quotas fluctuate depending on political and economic forces like war or the Great Depression.
After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, hundreds of thousands of Jews desperately hoped to escape to America. But the nation upheld severe quotas, denying entry to families like Rose Rosenthal’s. “In those days, in Poland as a Jew, it was doubly difficult,” says Rosenthal, now 84 and living in Boynton Beach, Florida. “But we had no place to go. The U.S. wouldn’t let us in.”
The family ended up in a small Jewish community in Ecuador – “a small dot on a map. What guts my parents had. They had no money and they didn’t speak the language,” says Rosenthal. “But they had no choice. Either go, or get killed by Hitler.”
Rosenthal didn’t reach America until 1953, when a visa applied for in 1939 allowed passage for Rosenthal, her husband and son, John. “We didn’t go to Ellis Island. We went to Miami airport. I went to a pay phone to call my uncle in the Bronx and when I hung up the phone, money came out and I thought ‘This is America.'”
John Rosenthal, now 62, of Lambertville, N.J., became a U.S. citizen in 1960. Before retiring, he served his country for 32 years, in the Air Force, the reserves and the National Guard. “I believe in the credo on the front of the Statue of Liberty: give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”
While he thinks immigrants need to learn English and assimilate as best as they can, Rosenthal admits, “It’s a vicious circle – they isolate themselves out of fear and Americans wonder why they don’t assimilate. How many boat people from Vietnam became productive citizens and even members of Congress? How many doctors and lawyers from other countries come here and have to work menial jobs when we could really use their talents?”
At 35, Jacques Burgering came to the U.S. from Holland for dance and for love. His soon-to-be wife got a Fulbright at American University in D.C., where Burgering obtained a masters degree in dance and dance history.
Visas helped secure jobs in upstate New York and the metro area. “But I was still a foreigner. Going to the bank to try to open an account, I needed this ID, that ID. I couldn’t open anything with my Dutch passport. I had to pay cash to rent an apartment.”
In 2003, Burgering and his wife got their green cards, at an estimated cost of $15,000. “As soon as I got a green card the reception at the border changed entirely. Officials were very friendly and saying ‘Welcome back!’ We didn’t have to worry anymore.”
When he read about Microsoft CEO Bill Gates complaining about not being able to attract enough highly skilled workers to U.S. companies because of restrictions and backlogs, Burgering concluded the U.S. government has tunnel vision. “Well-trained foreign students are going to go back to their own countries to beef up those economies. I work with Serbs, Croats, people from Senegal, Ireland, Brazil, Argentina, China. You look through the cultures and conflicts. It enriches you.”
“It’s like home now”
Jasmina Sinanovic was a teenager planning for college when bombs started dropping on Tuzla, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which exploded in violence between 1992 and 1995, prompting a mass exodus.
With her Muslim father trapped for a time in Germany, Sinanovic was left to bargain with black marketers for food and chop down trees in city parks for fuel. “I was starting to feel like it would never end. I wanted to go to college. I didn’t want to collect firewood forever.”
In 1995, she traded bombs for books, thanks to a scholarship to Central Washington University. “Everything was huge. The trees were huge. The mountains were huge,” she says. “I got a crash course in immersion.”
Now 33, she played the “green-card lottery” each year along with an estimated 13 million others until she won one of 55,000 slots in 2003. As soon as she’s able, Sinanovic will apply for citizenship. “It’s like home now. And I feel that if I live here, I should participate.”
Utterly comfortable in Manhattan, Sinanovic now teaches at Bronx Community College and CUNY. She also co-produces a monthly cabaret show called “HyperGender Burlesque.”
“Even though I came from horrific experience,” she says, “I did come with a certain kind of privilege that a lot of immigrants didn’t have: educated, sophisticated, middle class, could speak the language.”
About 80 percent of all immigrants are allowed into the U.S. to be reunited with family or through employment sponsorship. A much smaller percentage are refugees fleeing war or persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
Ahmet Osman was 19 when he escaped from communist Bulgaria and found asylum in America. “The U.S. was everybody’s dream,” says Osman, now 58 and living in Huntsville, Pennsylvania. “Money flying everywhere. Ha!”
In those days, Osman worked alongside immigrants from Lithuania, Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia. “There was none of today’s bullshit. Everybody admired the people who came out of the Communist countries. There were memories and pride, people saying ‘My grandfather came from here, my grandmother came from there.’ Now, you hear ‘bastard immigrant,’ busting the Mexicans, Pakistanis and Indians.
“They’re hard workers and just want to make a better life for themselves and their family. I can’t understand so much negative attitude but I think it’s only going to get worse as the economy gets worse.”
“Not a great time to be an immigrant”
Dr. Julia Sloan, professor of modern Mexican history at New York’s Cazenovia College, says some concerns are legitimate. “Certainly, in this age of insecurity you have to see who is coming over your borders,” she says, adding that the government sparked negativity by putting immigration under Homeland Security. “Even if is not an overt effort to lump immigrants in with terrorists, you can see why people would get that impression. It’s not a great time to be an immigrant.”
After 1965, the U.S. saw a big surge in Latino immigration, with initial concentrations out West and in cities. Starting in 1990, many began by-passing gateway states like California in lieu of places like Indiana, North Carolina and Georgia. Today, there are about 17.7 million foreign-born Latinos in the U.S., according to the Migration Policy Institute. No matter where they settle, many make positive contributions – and pay taxes, says Sloan.
“Even if they have a false Social Security number, their employer is still taking taxes out, which amounts to millions of dollars annually,” says Sloan. “They are fulfilling a necessary role in the economy even if they are being exploited in the process because they are willing to work for lower wages and for fewer benefits, which also helps keep prices down.”
Large numbers of Caribbean and Dominican immigrants are making a home in upstate, New York, which has also welcomed refugees from former Burma, Bosnia and the Sudan. “It’s a win-win situation,” Sloan says. “Cities like Syracuse welcome these people and give them new opportunities, mainly through private charities. At the same time, they help revitalize the community.”
While an excess of undocumented workers can undermine the legitimacy of the economy, says Jeanne Batalova, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, “We need to harness the benefits of immigration and develop a system that’s adaptable to changes in the economy and society. Almost one quarter of companies are started by at least one immigrant. Such important statistics are often missed in the debate.”
It’s also important, she says, to remember that early Irish and German immigrants were as unwelcome as many of today’s newcomers, who often take the same “3-D” jobs: dirty, difficult and dangerous.
“We empower our people”
Despite the risk of jail or deportation, approximately 12 million people are here illegally. Jose, a 22-year-old Mexican, crossed the Southwest border – where the U.S. is erecting a 700-mile security fence – to earn $500 a week as a Manhattan construction worker.
“It’s the same for everybody. We’re here for the money. I’m not afraid of deportation. I just want justice for people like me.”
Jose recently joined 15 other immigrants sharing sandwiches and fruit juice at a monthly meeting sponsored by the Cabrini Immigrant Services on the city’s Lower East Side, where Jews, Germans, Italians, Poles and Ukrainians have given way to Latinos, Japanese, Bangladeshis and immigrants from Muslim countries.
“Mother Cabrini came to New York City to serve Italian immigrants. She wanted to go to China, but the Pope said there was a greater need on the Lower East Side,” says Cabrini director Sister Pietrina Raccuglia. “We empower our people.”
Calls for help jumped starting in July 2007, when naturalization application fees rose, placing the cost of living and working here legally out of reach for many. According to the USCIS, the agency received nearly 3 million filings during June, July and August 2007 alone, compared to 1.8 million filings during the same period in 2006. Despite an enormous backlog, USCIS hopes to complete more than 1 million naturalization cases during fiscal 2008.
“It’s the most fearful I’ve ever seen it,” says Raccuglia. “If I wasn’t a religious person, I’d be hopeless.”
After reciting a prayer for immigrant justice, which reads in part, “…help us to be generous, just and welcoming…” the meeting opens, with information, experiences and frustrations in abundance. “This country was built on immigrants,” says Christopher Rivera, 16, originally from Puerto Rico. “So why should we stop immigrants from coming now?”
“A society of immigrants”
President John F. Kennedy, the grandson of Irish immigrants, once described the U.S. as “a society of immigrants, each of whom had begun life anew, on an equal footing.”
After throwing out the welcome mat for more than 100 years, the government began imposing immigrant quotas controlling entry of everyone from prostitutes and convicts to contract laborers and political radicals. In 1882, Chinese immigrants were barred outright.
Today, one-quarter of the nation’s foreign-born population is from Asia, according to U.S. Census statistics, and they enjoy one of highest citizenship rates among foreign-born groups, as well as higher average incomes.
“At Stanford University we have so many international graduate students, particularly in engineering, computer science and so forth, who are overwhelmingly from India, Korea and China,” says Stanford University Professor Gordon Chang, author of Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present. Competition remains fierce for the 65,000 three-year visas issued annually to high-skilled workers.
Owing to the dramatic shift in demographics of the foreign-born population, “There is a lot of cultural and even racial animus toward immigrants. People say America is the land of immigrants. That shouldn’t be modified to be the land of immigrants from Europe,” says Chang, a fourth-generation Chinese-American. “Some people do fear the erosion of the Euro-American culture and I actually understand those anxieties but people should still fight those prejudices.”
Attorney Angelo G. Paparelli, president of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, says, “There’s no doubt in my mind immigrants enrich this country. The skills they contribute do far, far more than anything they take away.”
Yet, prejudice persists. “It’s not the America I once knew,” says Paparelli, whose grandmother emigrated from Italy. “When push comes to shove it’s not so much about following the rules, it’s about a distrust of immigrants in general. The federal government has to enact a law that’s responsible and human and involves border protection and removing people with criminal records.”
“Part of the population”
Anna Arias came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic in 1973. In 1987, her mother became the fifth Hispanic to buy a home in Hazleton, Pa. “I like the quietness and the housing prices,” says Arias, 53, a citizen since 1980 and a family enrichment worker at Catholic Social Services. “This is where I make my future, my life.”
Like many, Arias went from being a big fan of Hazleton’s mayor to a vocal opponent. “He gave a license to people to think that if you’re Hispanic, you’re automatically undocumented and that’s totally wrong. All this is going to leave us with is a huge bill, racism and a huge division.”
Graphic designer, radio host and Dominican Robert Arias (no relation to Anna) found in Pennsylvania a better life for his wife and soon-to-be two children. “Here, I’m doing good,” says Arias, who is studying for his citizenship test. “I’m totally against illegals for one simple reason: because they take jobs away from legal immigrants, whether they’re from Latin America, China, Ireland, whatever.”
Illegals account for about 10 percent of the Hispanic population in Hazleton, where the population has increased by about 10,000 since 2000, says three-term Mayor Barletta, now running for U.S. representative. In the last year alone, 26 new Spanish-owned businesses have opened, which he cites as evidence his ordinance is not driving away Hispanics.
“My intent was simply to protect all the people in this community,” says Barletta, who acted in the face of soaring crime and strain on city services. “People move here for the quality of life. That’s what small-town America is all about.” After being declared unconstitutional, Hazleton’s legislation is now on appeal.
Robin Jacobson, assistant professor of political science at Bucknell University, is author of The New Nativism, which questions racism as the motivating factor for political action during debate over California’s Proposition 187 and today’s high-stakes immigration discussions. “Hazleton is interesting because it led to a whole bunch of copycat initiatives – in some communities without a single Latino, simply as a preventative measure,” Jacobson says.
In another sign of the times, Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. generated a lot of ink after ordering three resident aliens paroled on conspiracy robbery charges in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to learn English within a year. “Given the current nativist undercurrent in the Wyoming Valley and much of the United States,” wrote the Times Leader in an editorial, “the judge had no problem preaching his love-it-or-leave-it-style sermon.”
In an online poll, 70 percent of readers said they thought Olszewski was right.
Hazleton eye surgeon Dr. Agapito Lopez predicts it will take three generations for Hispanics to become fully integrated in the community, just as it did for the nation’s first immigrants. Lopez left Puerto Rico in 1991 so his five children could attend college here. As a member of the Hazleton Water Board, he is city government’s only Latino.
"They had the same complaints about eastern Europeans – that they were going to take our jobs, that they are lazy. But soon enough, they became part of the population."
