COMMENTARY: Bienvenidos a America

c. 2008 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ The salsa party was in full swing when I reached the well-worn basement of a Methodist church at 86th Street and West End Avenue. Sixteen students in my wife’s English as a Second Language class had brought foods and dance music from their native Ecuador, Guatemala, El […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ The salsa party was in full swing when I reached the well-worn basement of a Methodist church at 86th Street and West End Avenue.

Sixteen students in my wife’s English as a Second Language class had brought foods and dance music from their native Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Peru, and were practicing their English by asking visitors to dance, making small talk, offering plates of food, and bantering.


A tall woman whose name tag said “Julia” offered her hand, asked about my well-being, told me she came from El Salvador and had been in the United States for three years. She responded to my questions and thanked me for talking with her.

Then she ran to my wife. “Maestra! I did it! I talked with an American in English!”

I’ve seen my wife teach ESL in North Carolina and New York, and I know her classes offer three gifts:

One, of course, is improved fluency in a difficult language and thus the ability to function more effectively outside the large but limited world of non-English-speakers.

A second gift is cross-cultural fellowship in the “melting pot” ideal of America. To Anglos, all Hispanics might look alike (as might all Asians and Africans), but they come from many countries whose nationalistic competition is fervent. Here, without sacrificing pride of origin, they can look beyond the T-shirts and front-yard flags that speak of elsewhere.

A third gift, and the one that seems so necessary in today’s political climate, is that these classes give America a friendly and welcoming face. At a time when politicians scapegoat immigrants and talk about “the real Americans,” when police are raiding meat-packing plants and we hear a nativist backlash reminiscent of the 1920s, these ESL classes incarnate the Statue of Liberty’s radical welcome.

New residents laugh, share stories and marvel at the intricacies of American life. They enjoy each other’s children, meet good-hearted people who aren’t checking their papers, and begin to feel at home. They work on their citizenship exams. They celebrate becoming Americans.


In the long run, efforts like these will make the nation strong. Forget border fences, electronic patrols and posses of armed citizens. A nation grows stronger when people value its ideals, observe its laws and norms, and work in harmony with others.

Yes, political leaders need to address the issue of illegals, but that must be part of a general return to the rule of law, not isolated zeal that says immigrants must obey the laws but defense contractors, pyramid-schemers, government interrogators and snoops, federal bureaucrats and law-evading politicians are somehow exempt from the laws.

We can’t balance our nation’s legal scales by targeting one group just because their dark skins, foreign languages and willingness to work make them an easy target.

I saw in this church basement a glowing testimony to why America can be a great nation: an American whose English ancestors owned the ship on which the Boston Tea Party took place; an American from Africa whose ancestors came here in chains; an American whose Norwegian ancestor arrived with a sea-chest and hope; an American from Ecuador who proudly made name tags for his friends _ Americans from many nations shared the laughter and listening that signal respect.

It is mutual respect, not ethnic cleansing and midnight roundups, that will make us a strong nation.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)


KRE/DB END EHRICH

640 words

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