New Americans Protected by Network

The new U.S. immigrants live in tribes. But they should also open themselves up to other groups. Since 1871 Walt Whitman had foreseen the future of communications between human beings. He described it in his poem “A Passage to India”: “Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first? The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work.” By means of Whitman’s verses, I explain to myself how an immigrant could land without papers, without money or lodging in such expensive metropolises as New York or San Francisco to start a new life. The answer is in connections: in every city each one finds support in their own village or own tribe, whether it be an association of computer engineers, of alumni or of confessional groups. In this way, an immigrant can work and get married, live and die within his or her network

What is the difference between immigrants of the previous century and those of our day? Today, many immigrants are in continuous transit between their place of residence and their land of origin. Every new inhabitant of New York carries with them their style of life and moves between two worlds in a constant coming and going. The notion of “melting pot” is by now obsolete. Today one lands in the United States, individually or in groups, without merging into a melting pot. Each one remains resolutely himself. At the end of the 19th century, the Irish or Italian immigrant who disembarked at Ellis Island dreamed of ‘returning home’ maybe only once before dying; while today thanks to low cost flights, immigrants, at least those who are legal, can return home even a few weeks after their first landing at JFK. What is exile when a round trip flight scarcely costs 500 dollars?

Today immigrants don’t see the necessity of adopting an imaginary and idealized American style of life, they can live in America more or less as they were living before leaving their country. Crossing the Manhattan bridge on a cold January morning one could run into thousands of young Mexicans who run with the portrait of Padre Jesus, the patron saint of the village of Ticuani (Puebla), printed on their tee-shirt. This ritual run, called Antocha, is originally a pilgrimage from Mexico City to Ticuani in honor of the saint; except that these youths run from the center of Manhattan to a church in Brooklyn, where there is a real size reproduction of the saint venerated in their native village.

In New York, a multilingual city, one can find strange intersections of networks, of groups that form a common front against an adversary. I met a young guy from Gujarat in Queens who told me that he was part of a gang in Jackson Heights called Punjabi Boys Network, comprised of boys coming from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh–all countries that, at a given time, were at war with one another. But in Queens this is overridden by what unites these boys; their antagonism towards the high school Latinos and African-Americans. In fact, the formation of networks between the immigrants carries a risk; that of the marginalization of already existing groups such as African-Americans who find themselves having to compete with the new arrivals for jobs. Between 2000 and 2004, the black population of New York City decreased by thirty thousand units. Many blacks born in the United States leave the cities and in their place new immigrations from Africa and from the Caribbean are settling. While the national unemployment rate is at 5.7 percent, in recent years two thirds (if not half) of young black boys with a high school diploma have not found work; and among those who abandoned their studies the rate of unemployment fluctuates between 59 and 72 percent!

When they are able to make progress on the social scale, the networks of immigrants work in favor of their countries of origin. The efforts of Indian engineers to support water projects or introduce modern technology into villages in India have had a determinant importance. But the action of these networks presents a considerable shortcoming: the lack of relationships with other minority groups in the USA. According to an estimate by sociologist Anna Lee Saxenian, in the hi-tech sector the presence of African Americans and Latinos “is around 2 percent.” Immigration provokes resentment among natives who are not able to endure the competition at the level of qualifications and salary; and the animosity increases when the new immigrants seem to reverse and pour out their social commitment and their generosity on their home countries, where they spend the money earned in the United States. It is easy to see unpleasant accusations being formed such as that of “double loyalty.”

In the 1950s and 1960s, Jewish-Americans participated in the struggles for civil rights, building a bridge with the African-American community which has proven to endure, even in times of disagreement among these groups. When they have success, Asians, like Africans and Europeans, should also look around the place in which they live and give help to where the need is greatest. It is necessary that within the networks one arrives at a reciprocal assistance, looking outside one’s own tribe and village. Only in this way are communities and nations formed. Only in this way will their networks really span the Earth.