Immigrants still give us their best

Jun 13, 2007 3:00 AM
by Michael Olesker, The Examiner
 
The first time Sen. Barbara Mikulski ran for political office, she
marched through the Broadway Market shaking everybody's hands. In those
days, you still heard six different languages hollered across the
aisles. It made Mikulski, the granddaughter of Polish immigrants, feel
right at home.

She was running for Baltimore City Council. One of the people at the
market that day was John Prevas, who was just out of law school. He was
helping out at his family's luncheonette. The next time he saw her, at
Miss Irene's Pub around the corner, Mikulski was shooting pool.

"Let's talk," Prevas said. Later, a third party got involved in the
campaign, a friend of Mikulski's named Toni Keane. So now you had the
Greek Prevas, the Polish Mikulski, added to Keane, a mix of German and
Czech backgrounds.

This is the American mix at its most beautiful. It came to mind the
other day when visitors showed up at Mikulski's office. It's on Thames
Street in Fells Point, a short walk from the Broadway Market and, not to
be overlooked, the joint where Mikulski shot pool.

The visitors wanted to talk about America's ongoing angst over
immigration. First they went to Mikulski's office, and then they walked
a mile to Sen. Ben Cardin's office while handing out cards supporting
immigration reform.

Cardin's another one who needs no lessons about the American mix. In
fact, we all know the conflict. We revel in the notion of America as the
great melting pot, until it gets down to particulars. We treasure the
Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island (and Locust Point), where many of
our forebears arrived, but the distance of so many years gives us room
to feel safe.

When we talk about immigration in the present tense, everybody gets very
nervous. We want to know how all these new people got here. If they can
get in, how tough would it be for a terrorist to get in? If they can get
in, how many jobs are they taking away from American citizens? If they
can get in, will it ultimately change the American culture?

Let's put that one to rest right away. It will. The infusion of so many
Hispanics now coming across the border will change the culture for the
better - the way every other immigrant group has brought the best of its
culture and taken the best of all other groups' cultures, which is what
has always given America its great vitality.

"Both sides of this agree, the immigration system is broken," Kim
Propeack said about her group's visit to Maryland's two senators the
other day. Propeack is the advocacy director for CASA of Maryland, the
community organization set up in 1985 to help Central Americans who were
then fleeing wars and civil strife and poverty and trying to settle
here.

"The public is frustrated because the legal framework has broken down,"
Propeack said. "We like to think we live in a country with systems in
place. We also want to believe we live in a country that allows people
to be united with their families. And so, caught between the two, we're
dealing with the kind of issues involving race and ethnicity that we
dealt with at the turn of the last century."

Every country has a right to establish laws determining who gets to come
in, and how many get to come in, and under what conditions. But this is
a country that has always called itself special. We open our arms wider
than other nations. We are the great beacon of hope.

In the long term, we all understand this. In the short term, we get
ticked off. We don't like people arriving here who keep speaking their
native language. We ask: Why can't they talk English? As though this is
as quick as turning on a light.

This is why it's nice to think of Mikulski, who grew up hearing her
family speak Polish. She became a U.S.
senator. As did Cardin, who heard Yiddish. And Toni Keane, who heard a
mix of languages, grew up to become a sociology professor at Loyola
College. And Prevas, whose relatives spoke Greek, is now chief judge of
Baltimore Circuit Court.

They brought the best of their families, and the best of those cultures,
and they absorbed the best offered by America. As will the new
immigrants. They arrive today seeking the same comforts as yesteryear's
arrivals. And, given the chance, and given a sane immigration policy,
they will adapt as well.

Please send news tips to Michael Olesker at
olesker@baltimoreexaminer.com