Joanna Taylor [00:00:15] This week we celebrate the history, heritage and perennial influence of immigration in the U.S..
Farah Larrieux [00:00:20] You know the issue about immigration, it’s repetitive. It’s an ongoing issue. But because the roots of migration have not been addressed, and for me it’s important. Every day I wake up and it is part of who I am and what I do and what inspires me every single day and everything that I do.
Joanna Taylor [00:00:42] From the National Immigration Forum, I’m Joanna Taylor, filling in for Ali Noorani this week. And this is Only in America. June is Immigrant Heritage Month, so for the next two weeks, we’ll be looking at not only the American identity, but also specific stories of why the contributions of immigrants, those who came here to work hard, seek opportunities or find protection are so important. We had the chance to partner with fwd.us, as well as Emily Eakins at the Cato Institute for these episodes. Emily and her team just released an in-depth study of over twenty five hundred adults examining why Americans support or oppose a more open immigration system. 53 percent of the Americans they polled agreed that the ability to immigrate is a human right, and 67 percent had a positive view of immigrants overall. But despite this overall positive outlook, anxieties and fears around immigration to the US persist as they have for centuries, for example. 55 percent of respondents worried immigration could lead to less social cohesion and national unity, while 41 percent of white Americans worry immigration will cause them to become a minority in the US.
Emily Ekins [00:02:02] I feel like a lot of the research that has been done on immigration has often tended to ask the same types of questions. And the reason they have is that they focused on the things that people say they’re concerned about. They say, well, for those who are concerned about immigration, the people that want to reduce it or restrict it, you know, they’ll talk about jobs, they’ll talk about wages, they’ll talk about a lot of these economic things, which I think are part of it. But if you don’t if you do a little research in social psychology, you’ll learn pretty quickly that what people say drives them or motivates them isn’t always what actually is motivating them. It’s not that they’re lying or being deceitful. Sometimes we don’t even kind of know what’s all going on, what you know, the why and immigration is just such a emotional issue for many people. And so if you look at the data, support for more immigration has tripled over the past several decades. In the 1990s, it was around like, say, eight percent or so, wanted to increase immigration. Now it’s about a third. So that has gone up a lot. But a third is not a majority. So what’s going on? Why do a majority of people either want to just keep it the way it is or decrease it? And so that was kind of one of the motivations to figure out why don’t people want more? Economists will tell you that there are tremendous benefits to immigration. So the fact that there’s this disconnect between what say economists believe and what a lot of people say in a poll led us to want to figure out what’s going on. Is it really just this economic stuff? And I think we found, you know, sure. Yeah. That plays a role. People are concerned about some of those things, but there’s a whole lot more going on. And that’s what we wanted to investigate.
Joanna Taylor [00:03:52] As we’ll hear later from Emily. What’s clear is that Americans have different definitions themselves of what American culture even is, and consequently they have different opinions about what it means to integrate with or adopt American culture. Today, we’ll dig deeper into the numbers, I promise. But before we do, I think it’s important to remember what these numbers really represent. Well, they’re a critical part of understanding the current immigration landscape and its public perception. Data can often be personalized. Immigrants are more than data points, and their stories should be told in their own words. Edilsa came to the US when she was 13 from Guatemala.
Edilsa Lopez [00:04:28] It was about when I was 13 years old. It was first initially we came with my mom and we were little. We were living in extreme poverty over there in Guatamala, which is one of the major reasons why we left. And we had a very violent father as well, so we were also kind of like running away from him as well. My mom made the decision to bring us to the United States to kind of give us a safer life. And yeah, I mean, we came undocumented, actually. Actually on the way here- it wasn’t a very nice trip. It was really horrible, terrifying situation. It is not easy at all for the kids or anyone to come to the United States. I was kidnaped on my way here, so it was a really terrible situation, but I ended up coming. I’m actually glad that I’m here now and that I have a life and my mom actually has to be hiding out because we couldn’t enroll in school then and didn’t know how to. We had to come here undocumented and didn’t know how to, so we wouldn’t be able to go outside. And we were locked in our apartment. She would not allow us to go at all outside. Also because we were so scared of the police before. We were extremely scared, like traumatized by getting police or immigration come for us. We literally were locked in the first year in the room and that was how our life was before when we had just arrived. And then we ended up enrolling in school. And it was definitely a challenge because we didn’t speak English and I was extremely shy. I came traumatized, so it was getting worse for us having to be in school and not know anything about, you know, the language and things like that or what was going on. We were also very scared just about anything. So, yeah, it definately was a challenge for us from the first years coming to the United States.
Joanna Taylor [00:06:56] Jessica was born in Ecuador and like a Edilsa, came to the US when she was young, just two years old. Like many families, when they first came to America, multiple households shared a small living space, but they were like a family.
Jessica Astudillo [00:07:08] When we first came to America, we were living with two other families in a very, very small apartment. And for me as a child and looking at it now as a pediatrician, I want to build up that resilience in children and start thinking of that as something positive. So, yes, maybe your homes were a little too crowded, but at the same time, that means that hopefully mom has a large social support group that she can draw upon to help her raise her kids. And really, I think that’s what I grew to love about my own community, is that despite everything, we are a very tight knit. We we know how to get around. I remember being told if you go to the bodega, the bodega will know who was living in the neighborhood because they always see them. They always talk to each other. And I think that’s really special.
Joanna Taylor [00:07:53] And as Emily explains, the Cato Institute study shows by first, second and third generations continue to come to the US. The main reason is economic opportunity.
Emily Ekins [00:08:03] And for many, it was for fleeing some sort of persecution, whether it was political, religious, just general violence. So those are the reasons people came and then we were able to ask them about some of the experiences they’ve had here and as well about their attachments to the US. And what really struck me is that if you look at first generation immigrants, these are individuals who are born abroad and so they have attachments to multiple places that’s just totally normal. They’re overwhelmingly patriotic. Seventy four percent or so I mean, this is more than American liberals. So that kind of puts it into context. So a little less than conservatives, but more than liberals. That’s where it kind of in the middle there that are patriotic. But they had a lot more experiences that I would say made them feel like outsiders, way more likely for people to have assumed they weren’t American when they are, to have had people make fun of the food that they ate, little things that just kind of make you feel like you’re on the outside looking in. So to me, that was pretty tremendous that people have really fostered these attachments to the United States despite some of those negative experiences, because I think ultimately those negative experiences are small in comparison to how happy people are to be here.
Farah Larrieux [00:09:24] I feel that Haiti was too small for my dreams. I was tired of the political instability, tired of the poverty. I remember back in 1986, I was seven years old when the we the dictatorship of Duvalier ended. And I remember it was said the sense of freedom, the sense of a new hope, a new beginning for the Haitian nation. And years later, we’re talking about 2000, 2001, being a young adult, I realize that we we have democracy. Yes, indeed. But the country went from bad to worse and unrest. So at some point in my life, I had question, why is Haiti so bad? Why there’s so much poverty, why them so much discrimination and justice? Is it normal? You know, so I had a questions as a young adult, and that’s what at some point I wanted to discover. The world I wanted to understand if everywhere else is the same.
Joanna Taylor [00:10:51] That’s Farrah who lives in Miramar, Florida. She says it’s what she learned in Haiti that helped her thrive professionally and personally in her adopted home.
Farah Larrieux [00:10:59] That come first from Haiti, from the education that I received from Haiti. From my mother, my parents, my family, my my schools, my teachers, which I still admire and I have great, great gratitude to all for. So, yeah, so the foundation was there and when I moved here, I can I like to say that it is when I moved United States that I had learned to love my mother more because I valued education that I received and being alone, even you have a husband, you have the people who will support you in certain way. But if you don’t know how to live with others, if you don’t have certain values, respect for your self, respect for each other, love for others and you know how to behave in society, definitely going to be harder. And I think I can tell you that this foundation that I received from Haiti, this education that I was somebody has tremendously contributed to my success here in the United States. Here I adapted myself. So it’s like, OK, let me learn the best of and United States. OK, let me steel people’s brains. So if you do something a certain way and I see. Oh yeah. That works and that will amplify or improve my skill set, especially because I as an immigrant I have to transition from a French system, which is we have in Haiti, to an English system and how to as a professional also I’m changing career, you know, so all of this things. I learn to adapt myself and again with the goal to succeed.
Joanna Taylor [00:13:06] Speaking about their first experiences in America, Jessica and Farah described their struggles to adapt to a new country.
Jessica Astudillo [00:13:11] Growing up, I was pretty much your typical American kid, minus the fact that my parents were undocumented. And I mean, I remember one thing to me was always first day of school. People ask, was there anyone who was born here or outside of the United States out of pure curiosity? And they’re like, pretend you were always born here. And I never really knew why they wanted me to say that, but it was important that I did what they said. Anyhow, I grew up with tons of cousins. I had a younger brother. I was the oldest of everybody learning how to navigate the education system, everything from going into high school to getting into college when I found out that I was undocumented though that kind of was it was a big moment. My dad was going through a deportation proceeding around the same time, which is why he had to sit with me and my brother down. And he basically spelled out what I knew my entire life unconsciously, but this time made it really real. Looking back at my own experience growing up in this community where, you know, I wasn’t really a citizen, but I was growing up in America and having all these conflicts as a child. So, for example, when I was growing up, I remember I used to have a lot of stomach pains and my mom would always just try to cure them herself with camomile tea. But for somebody who was kind of growing up in the American system, it was hard to understand, well, why can’t we see a doctor, a physician, especially because I got along really well with my own pediatrician.
Farah Larrieux [00:14:55] It was stressful, scary ofd full of incertitude wondering what would be the future, how I’m going to navigate and coming from Haiti where my life, my whole life. And like I say, I have an easy life I could say. But coming here was different. The new system. You have to navigate the system, you have to learn the language and was it was kind of stressful. But because I’m a self motivated person and I came with a goal to understand what make America great and to understand why my country is failing. So I had my little notebook. I take notes, I set my goals and I view my goals and my notes and what to do information. I was also saving information that out there was given to me either a person’s name, organization and information, how the system works, and so I was very, very disciplined in terms of how to continue this journey, you know? And I met wonderful people, I had wonderful people who have supported me, become an extended family to me, I kind of created the support system that I needed that helped me to succeed.
Joanna Taylor [00:16:37] Edilsa also had a unique support system through school, which was jarring, but also expanded her sense of the world.
Edilsa Lopez [00:16:43] It was a major shock in world view because I came from a very small village where we didn’t really have to be there. And it was like a small village within like within a volcano kind of thing, because I actually come from an indigenous roots. So my my background is indigenous. And like everyone there is, I dress in indigenous clothes and we live in a small village. You know, it’s not like a city or anything like that. So when I came to the US and I saw that it was really a big shock for me because it was the first time that I learned about slavery or about like, oh, like there’s other countries and like there’s Bosnia and Russia that had no idea. And most of them had refugee stories. So I heard like back in the time there was like a Bosnia like genocide. I believe it was like during the time and all the kids from there were in the high school and they woule share their stories. And it was just like, wow, you know, we were all the same. So it was the a major world view for me. But at the same time, I think that we were reunited with the same story. So it was kind of like homey for me. Honestly, my high school was the best refuge place for me at the time when I came to the United States, even more than my house. My teachers became like my parents for me. I had a really great teacher that I’m in contact with. But it was definitely shocking for me, like learning other languages, other cultures, and then like meeting all the people that I’ve never known existed or from other countries. So I’m happy that I was placed there, you know,
Joanna Taylor [00:18:36] Even after that, Edilsa says the road to college was just as difficult.
Edilsa Lopez [00:18:39] Because one time I went to one of my teachers and he told me, oh, you know, you can go to college because he thought that I was like pretty smart and everything. I was like college? What is that? He’s like it is like a place that you can just go and learn more and become like a professional or something. I was like, how do I go there and he said, well, you can get a scholarship and what is a scholarship? And so he told me it’s free money. And I was like what? I was like mind blowing. And then ever since then, I mean, I just I feel like my world is like opened up because I have so much love for education and learning, like, I love learning. So when they told me that I could do that and keep learning, I was. And so I from the moment that I heard about college and the one that I heard about college, it was like nonstop for me. Let me find out what this is about. And I remember that I enrolled into a program and then I ended up getting kicked out by the because I found that I wasn’t a citizen. But during the time I was there, they took me to like college tours. And one of the students was going to UT Austin. And I just fell in love with that. With that university, and it was a top university in my city and I said, I want to go to UT. And I remember that I walked to my high school counselor because we had one and I told him, look, I want to go to college. And he said, OK, yeah, let’s make it happen. So he said, where do you want to go? And I said, I actually got this letter, which is an invitation to apply to UT Austin. And then he literally just opened the letter and he looked at me and he kind of like like laughed at me because he’s like he told me, sweetie, I know they have so many dreams and like but you need to realize that this is really hard. So I think let’s look at the other options, like why don’t you think about this? And for me, it was like I got a little bit sad because, you know, I wanted to go there, but he told me I couldn’t go there. So I just, like, grabbed my letter to throw it in the trash. And so I left his classroom. And then literally, I think that the same day I came back and I just picked up my letter and I was like, I’m just going to show him that I’ll go there, you know? And I just did everything that I could on my own. And eventually, I mean. I got accepted, and when he found out that I got accepted he was just mind blown. I was just mind blown, too. It was it was so hard. It was not easy at all. It is hard to get accepted into college because first I had no money at all. And back at that time my mom wasn’t with me anymore. So I was actually- I was actually at the time I didn’t have my parents, my mom with me. I was living in a house with a lady. So it was very challenging to come up with the money and so I applied to as many scholarships as I could, but it was just mind blowing that I got accepted to my dream college. It was just amazing.
Joanna Taylor [00:22:04] Similarly, Jessica says the college process wasn’t easy.
Jessica Astudillo [00:22:08] So my first year of college, I was I remember being told I was like, you could do premed. But at this point, there isn’t a path for you to go to medical school. There’s going to be financial loans that are in the way. I remember even if I wanted to volunteer at a hospital, they asked for a Social Security number and background check. So there were all these obstacles already there set in place freshman year, and this is before the DACA program was introduced. So I remember I started volunteering at an internship called Play Lab, and it was actually really wonderful because that’s what introduced me to pediatrics and child development. So it kind of worked out really well. So, in fact, I was introduced. I remember feeling both very nervous and excited, but also scared. My parents didn’t understand much about the program, but they immediately wanted me to apply. I was a little bit more cautious because I remember thinking that’s a lot of information that they want. And yeah, and I remember being surprised. Well, it’s a great, fantastic opportunity, but it’s also only like a two year thing. So I remember thinking, well, what where does that leave me after two years? But I took advantage of it. I went and I found a nonprofit immigration legal services, and they helped me fill out my paperwork. It was impressive. I remember thinking this is my entire life gathered here, getting medical records, school records, everything month by month to prove that I had been here for such a long time. So when it was approved, I remember like I had tears of joy in my eyes. I was incredibly happy. This meant that I could help support my family. I got my first job, my learner’s permit, even though not immediately my driver’s license. That took some time. But, yeah, this it opened the doors for me to be able to volunteer at the hospital and then eventually work there, apply to medical school, become available for all these types of opportunities that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Emily Ekins [00:24:13] There’s a book that Thomas Sole wrote a while back on migration, and he was talking about the societies that became very closed, got stagnant. They didn’t remain dynamic and competitive. But when you had societies that were more open, where you had people that could enter and trade and immigration, all of those things kind of kept the society on their feet, on their toes. And so to me, one benefit is that kind of bringing the best and the brightest of the world, who are excited to be here, who are choosing to be in the United States. Most people are not choosing where they live right, but the people that immigrate are choosing and how that makes a society better. That is better for America.
Joanna Taylor [00:25:03] But once given these opportunities, each of them made the most of it, something we tend to consider a pretty American outlook.
Jessica Astudillo [00:25:09] Kind of growing up, you become more comfortable in taking on a little bit more more of a leadership role in your family. So that was my situation. When I realized that I was undocumented, like many people, you want to do something and you come to realize that the only power that you have is through your own story and your own voice, because, you know, you only need one person. You only need one person who knows how to do something. And then you can help so many more people by teaching them that skill. And then they go and tell other people how to do this. And that’s kind of how you grow your community and how it becomes rich with all these resources. It’s because you have such a strong social support network. And the Latino perspective is very, very important. It’s very undervalued. I think only as someone who has gone through all these experiences can help others really understand and know where they’re coming from, which is why we need more Latinos and Latinas in the health care profession.
Farah Larrieux [00:26:08] And I think I can tell you that this foundation that I received from Haiti, this education that I recieved from Haiti has tremendously contributed to my success here in the United States. Here I adapted myself, so it’s like, OK, let me learn the best of United States. OK, let me steel people’s brain. So if you do something in some way and I see. Oh, yeah, that works and that will amplify or improve my skill set, especially because I as an immigrant, I have to transition from a French system, which is we have in Haiti to an English system and how to as a professional also I’m changing career, you know, so all of these things add a lot. I learn to adapt myself and again with the goal to succeed.
Joanna Taylor [00:27:08] A goal to succeed or being number one? Let’s go back to Emily Ekins and that study.
Emily Ekins [00:27:12] I don’t think you have to view yourself as a citizen of the world to be pro immigration. I think that one could absolutely have- I mean, because this actually comes down to kind of a more central core conflict between the kind of the political left and right about whose interests should come first? We even asked about this. When making policy, is it more important to put the interests of the United States and its citizens first, or is it more important to do what will benefit the most people regardless of nationality? You know, liberals will say do what’s best for those, regardless of nationality. Republicans say, you know, put America first. Well, I would say I think that you can put America first and also be pro immigration, because if you look at the benefits that immigration brings to the United States, that’s putting America first.
Joanna Taylor [00:28:08] You also don’t have to be Republican or Democrat to value hope for a better future. Farah says that’s an important part of being an immigrant.
Farah Larrieux [00:28:16] I would say for the sense of humanity that Haitians have, we respect others. We care for others. We like to share what we have. We do tend also to trust people. But we we also carry our slavery stigmatism. That’s part of who we are, but we our resilience is very strong. And the moral values of family values are these are values that I still cherish and that still inspire me. You know, the issue about immigration, it’s repetitive. It’s an ongoing issue. But because the roots of migration have not been addressed. And for me is important, every day I wake up and it is part of who I am and what I do and what inspires me every single day and in everything that I do.
Joanna Taylor [00:29:21] Which is also American identity, helping your neighbor, being resilient and championing hope. Our guests today have been Jessica Astudillo, Emily Eakins, Farah Larriexu, and Edilsa Lopez, you can read more about each of this week’s guests on our website: ImmigrationForum.org/podcast. We’ll be back next week to talk more about Immigrant Heritage Month. If you like what you hear, subscribe to Only in America, wherever you’re listening to this episode. Only in America is produced and edited by Katie Lutz, Becka Wall, and me. Our artwork and graphics are designed by Karla Leyja. Ali will be back next week.
Underwriting [00:29:58] Support for the National Immigration Forum comes from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement and strengthening international peace and security and from Humanity United. When humanity is united, we can bring a powerful force for human dignity.