By Brian Wright O’Connor
The rocky road to prosperity is a pathway followed by generations of American immigrants who sometimes find themselves stranded along the way in pursuit of a better life.
But the many challenges of cultural, social and economic integration — ranging from language barriers, lack of skills and education and deep-seated bias – have been tempered by an embrace of their new homeland in spite of all the sorrows and setbacks.
Whether from Latin America, Africa, Europe or Asia, the new arrivals eventually come to see the places left behind as distant and foreign and America as their new identity whether or not the American dream is their ultimate destination.
Ray Suarez, the distinguished PBS and NPR broadcast journalist and author, puts it simply in the title of his latest book about becoming American in the 21st century: “We Are Home.”
“It is love tempered by experience,” said Suarez during a discussion at GBH last week moderated by former WCVB-TV reporter Jorge Quiroga and hosted by several partners including: GBH WORLD, Latino Equity Fund at The Boston Foundation, Conexión, Barr Foundation, and GBH Forum Network.
“They are people who are grateful to the United States and in some cases marvel at what they have been able to accomplish.”
Quiroga questioned the onetime host of National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” along with a panel of expert guests about the Latino experience as immigrants in the first decades of this century.
“The Latino Factor: Road to Prosperity” aimed to uncover the emotions around immigration as well as the obstacles to immigrant success, including housing, jobs, education and political advancement.
The event was a collaborative effort by several partners including: GBH WORLD, Latino Equity Fund at The Boston Foundation, Conexión, Barr Foundation, and GBH Forum Network. The 90-minute discussion featured comments from former Massachusetts Labor Secretary Rosalin Acosta, Somerville Community Corporation CEO Gonzalo Puigbó, University of Massachusetts Boston Gaston Institute Director Lorna Rivera and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Vice President Evelyn Barahona.
Quiroga opened the wide-ranging conversation by addressing the elephant in the room – the widening support among Latinos for Republican nominee Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election.
“Can you explain why so many Latinos are supporting a candidate that insults, denigrates and spreads likes about us?” asked Quiroga.
Suarez’s layered response noted that unlike other immigrant groups, whose arrival came in waves with definite spikes, Latino migration has been steady for well over a century while many Americans of Latin origin found themselves suddenly American in the land-grabs of the 19th century.
You cannot expect Latinos whose families have been here for 500 years to mimic the political choices of those who have been here for less than five, said Suarez.
“Finding a fellow feeling between somebody in East Los Angeles whose family has been here 120 years and someone who just got here the day before yesterday may feel to a lot of people in the audience like it’s natural or expected,” but it’s not, said Suarez, a New Yorker whose family came from Puerto Rico.
“There are lines of language and class and education level and level of acculturation. Americans of long presence in the country don’t feel like they have anything in common with newer arrivals. And when somebody impresses them as strong and macho and tough and willing to stand up to other leaders and so on and so on and so on impresses them with those things, they’re not thinking about the insults to immigrants.”
“To that point,” responded Quiroga, “I read an interview where a fellow was asked the Latino question” about Trump’s insults “and he said, ‘You know what? He’s not really talking about us. He’s talking about those people.”
For recent arrivals, Suarez said obstacles to admission are much higher than in previous generations, when the expanding frontier and demand for factory labor meant that short of carrying disease, being mentally ill or burdened with a criminal record, an immigrant was “pretty much waived in.”
“You got hazed at the front door and once you got through that, they pretty much left you alone and started to haze the new guys at the front door. That part has never changed.”
What has changed in this politically charged moment of mass migration through the nation’s southern borders is the soaring cost of owning or renting a piece of the block and the difficulties of achieving a middle-class lifestyle without the benefits of higher education or specialized training, said the panelists
The loss of high-paying, blue-collar manufacturing jobs – like those in the steel mills of South Chicago and Gary, Indiana, filled by Mexican immigrants – has left low-skilled immigrants struggling in the service economy.
In spite of Latinos in the U.S. accounting for $3.6 trillion in GDP, disparities in educational achievement, wealth creation and income separate Latinos from other groups, according to Barahona from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Those disparities are unlikely to disappear soon, said Lorna Rivera from the Gaston Institute. Massachusetts, she noted, “has a large number of Central Americans that have come here as refugees or having faced displacement in their home countries.”
And even those who have been in the Bay State much longer have struggles. “Dominicans and Puerto Ricans that have been here for generations have very high poverty rates. The housing costs here in Massachusetts are extraordinarily high. The average one-bedroom rent in Boston is $2,300 for one bedroom,” said Rivera.
The Somerville Community Corporation has tried to address the affordability crisis for decades. Gonzalo Puigbó, a Venezuelan immigrant who started his career in banking, served on the SCC board before taking over the organization when it was essentially bankrupt. He turned around its finances but concedes the overheated marked is making it increasingly more difficult to build affordable housing.
“I need to support this housing system that has 340 affordable units and more than 50% of Latinos. I said, there’s no way I’m gonna let any of them go on the street like I did,” said Puigbó.
Public resources to address the housing crisis and other challenges figured prominently in the discussion. New support for public higher education is a hopeful sign, said Rivera.
“Having made community college free is going to be transformative for many in our community,” she said. “For us at UMass Boston, we’ve been working very closely with Bunker Hill Community College” and Roxbury Community College to ease pathways to a four-year degree.
Another important step would be offering in-state tuition to immigrants, said Rivera. “I know that many of my students at UMass Boston, mainly Dominican students, are paying out-of-state tuition having grown up here in Lawrence and other communities like Jamaica Plain. So this affordability issue will create a more level playing field.”
For Latinos with higher educational levels, the path to top managerial positions has not been smooth, according to Acosta, the state’s former labor secretary who now serves as labor and workforce director for Ernst & Young.
“That has been a challenge for Latinos for a long, long time,” she said. The solution, she added, is multi-pronged. “It’s public policy but it’s also employer-driven as well.”
“If an employer’s policy isn’t geared to training their people, especially those like me that for many times was the only one in the room,” then advancement is difficult, she said. “You need a little more intentionality. You need more purposeful career pathways.”
The hard job of boosting support for educational opportunities, housing development, job creation and diverse hiring requires changing attitudes towards immigrants, said Suarez, noting earlier comments about the enormous contributions of migrants to the U.S. economy and culture.
Immigrants, he said, are a positive force, bringing energy and vitality to the nation. Those opposed to immigration out of fear forget how their own ancestors were abused and attacked as threats before their assimilation into patriots and pillars, he said.
“Native-born people who are angry, who are full of anxiety, who are not sure they want a single other immigrant in the country, worry about the power of immigrants to change the United States,” he said.
“But they give almost no credit to the power of the United States to change the people who come here. So they’re missing fully half the story. Yes, immigrants change America. But America changes them.”
