Immigrant Roots Today

It was a familiar drive. Taking the exit from the freeway, I followed a heavily traveled street along the river for a few miles. I’d frequently pass barges carrying ore or other materials for the mills. I’d cross a small bridge and make a right turn over the rail road tracks. I entered the neighborhood where I lived. It was called “The Bottoms.”

The Bottoms was a blue-collar neighborhood of families whose men worked for generations in steel mills. It was named to distinguish it from the equally blue-collar neighborhood called “The Heights” located on the hillside. The Bottoms, flat land nestled along the river, was a unique enclave. That became apparent while driving down the street to my home. Signs for businesses were generally written in multiple languages: English, of course, but also Russian or Ukrainian using the Cyrillic alphabet, as well as Polish or Slovak. This was a community settled by immigrants who were proud to maintain their Eastern European identities.

These were my people. While I did not grow up in this community, being of Eastern European heritage, I knew their stories and understood their ways. Living there a brief while, from 1980 to 1984, I shared many joys and sorrows. It was there in 1980, at Holy Ghost Byzantine Church, that the ring I still wear as a symbol of monastic vows was blessed on Holy Saturday afternoon. Later that night, with a few hundred people from the parish, I ate and drank and danced to tamburitza music following the Easter Vigil celebration. We would dance till dawn; go home to shower and, with little sleep, return to church for the Easter Sunday morning liturgy. Culture, customs, language, and religion all blended together for us as one. It was no different in the Italian community who lived in The Heights. Or the German community that settled further down the river. We were proud immigrants and their children who maintained connections to our ethnic heritage. We were also proud residents of the United States. It was the labor of our families that had fueled the economic growth of the country in the twentieth century.


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It’s now thirty years since I lived in the Bottoms. Yet, I remain very much aware that all four of my grandparents emigrated from Eastern Europe, coming to the United States with hopes and dreams for a better future. They came in their youth knowing that they would not return to their homeland. The struggles were great, for them and for my parents. My paternal grandfather, for whom I am named, had been trained for office work. A proud man, who loved to wear a suit and white carnation in his lapel, spent his life in the United States laboring under horrible conditions deep within the coal mines of Western Pennsylvania. While I never knew of my paternal grandfather to complain, my maternal grandfather, who also worked in the mines, resented the treatment from an “American” foreman. Both of my parents grew up in a company owned town comprised of immigrants from Eastern Europe. They learned to speak multiple languages as children. Yet, in school, they were harshly disciplined if they spoke anything but English on the school property. While assimilated Americans did not receive them well, still my people maintained pride in their work and in their identity as immigrants. It’s their values and sense of identity that have made me the person I am today.

Aware of my family’s experience as immigrants, I am greatly concerned about the tension in the United States about the role of immigrants. Everyone who knows anything about the United States immigration system openly admits that it’s broken. The requirements for immigration are confusing. Along the way, any staff person can reject an application without needing to provide a reason. The convoluted and capricious system has resulted in thousands of undocumented immigrants working to maintain the backbone of the US economy doing jobs that others will not. Major corporations like Google and Microsoft relocate workers from Asia to Canada because they can not obtain visas for families, but only for the workers employed by the company. Couples like my partner and me who have spent the last year apart because of visa complications. While the system is broken and our elected officials don’t have the political will to fix it, blame for the problem is aimed at the immigrants. While we are a nation of immigrants, to be called an immigrant today is to be called a dirty word.

As I often say, spirituality is about the way we live. Today, as a country, we live with disdain for immigrants. We blame our social and economic problems on them. With the support of the prison industry, we pass laws in state after state that foster unconstitutional treatment of immigrants. In these matters, the spirit that animates us is based in fear, judgment, and hatred.


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In the midst of the growing animosity toward immigrants, I am proud to know of one community that in its own way is not caught in the spirit of judgment but a spirit of grace and acceptance when it comes to the issue of immigrants. That community is the village of Cobden, IL.

When living in St. Louis, MO, I often enjoyed taking day trips to Cobden. It’s not the small country town of woe-be-gone days. Rather, it’s a village of people striving to be their best selves. Over the last fifty years, migrant workers have come to the Cobden area for work in the agriculture industry. Rather than ostracizing them, the village of Cobden actively works toward the integration of migrant community with the larger residential community.

I received the link to this brief documentary of the live of the Mexican people in Cobden from Alan Eddington, member of the Village of Cobden Board of Trustees and treasurer of the Cobden Community and Business Association. The leaders of Cobden are doing what they can to live our values of respect and dignity for others. Theirs’ is a lesson of hope for us all.

I hope that you will take time to view the video. Your comments about the video or this column are welcomed on the blog site. This is indeed an important issue for our era.

Immigration and Integration — A Cultural Celebration in Southern Illinois

Immigration and Integration — A Cultural Celebration in Southern Illinois from Mark Dolan on Vimeo.

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