|
Fulbright
Scholars Discuss Immigration
by
Jacob M. Appel
The
four young scholars lounging in the lobby of the Hotel Roosevelt
were a diverse set, even by New York City standards. Austrian,
Gabrielle Tischler, teaches German at historically black Dillard
University in New Orleans; Japan’s Mikiko Tachi is a doctoral
candidate in American Civilization at Brown University; Francisco
Perez Ferreira of Panama has nearly completed his studies in financial
services law at IIT-Chicago Kent College of Law; and Sujintana
Hemtasilpa, a Thai public administrator, has procured a year’s
leave to pursue a masters degree at Syracuse.
The four of them—and 123 other Fulbright Scholars from 64 different
countries—had come to New York to learn about and celebrate those
who do not return during a weekend devoted to the immigrants of
Gotham.
Sponsored by the Department of State and administered by the Institute
of International Education, “The Immigrant Experience in New York:
Integration into U.S. Society” featured a series of lectures,
panel discussions and neighborhood visits aimed at showing the
complexity of the social issues surrounding immigration, revealing
how the city’s newest inhabitants have shaped and reshaped urban
life. Guest speakers included City Councilwoman Una Clark of Brooklyn,
the only Caribbean-born woman on the city legislature, and former
City Councilman Guillermo Linares, the first Dominican-American
to be elected to public office in the United States. Panel discussions
focussed on nation immigration policy and the 2000 Census. The
weekend-long series of seminars also included an excursion to
the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Dr. Joseph Salvo, the keynote speaker, is the Chief of the Population
Division of the Department of City Planning. He spoke about “The
Demographics of Recent Immigration to New York City.” Salvo explained
that not only is the city becoming increasingly black and Hispanic,
the diversity within those communities is rapidly expanding. “Twenty
years ago,” he explained, “‘Black’ meant ‘African-American’ and
‘Hispanic’ meant ‘Puerto Rican.’ Now one third of the city’s black
population comes from the Caribbean or West Africa. We have nine
hundred thousand Puerto-Ricans but also more than seven hundred
thousand Dominicans and immigrants from all over the Caribbean
and Latin America.”
Among the other trends he noted were the return of many African-Americans
to the southern states from which their parents and grandparents
migrated north during the Great Migration of the mid-20th
century, and the revitalization of old suburban cities (including
Yonkers, Poughkeepsie and Portchester) by Latino immigrants. According
to Salvo, a non-political sociologist and demographer whose expertise
is tapped by both pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant partisans,
immigrants take the place of the one and a half million native
New Yorkers who leave the city each year. “If not for foreign-born
immigrants,” he noted, “we’d lose population. We’d look like Detroit
or Baltimore or Buffalo. Back in the 1950s Buffalo was a major
city. But unlike New York, they didn’t have a ready supply of
immigrants to replace departing natives.”
Both Salvo’s address and the Fulbright program drew praise from
the visiting scholars. “The program is a passport to the world,”
explained Mikiko Tachi. “It’s a wonderful way to meet Americans,
a way to instantly assure them that I’m a safe person worth speaking
to.”
“I’ve
found the people I’ve met here to be very professional,” echoed
Sujintana Hemtasilpa. “Their awareness of social issues and policies
is very impressive.”
The Fulbright program, currently operating in one hundred forty
countries worldwide, dates from 1946 and has boasted 234,000 participants—88,000
Americans who have studied overseas and 146,000 foreigners who
have studied in the United States. The program’s mission is to
“increase mutual understanding between the people of the United
States and the people of other countries.” It is part of the mottled
legacy of the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, who
often justified his defense of segregation as a means to win reelection
so that he could pursue progressive policies on behalf of all.
Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001. Tel:
(212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of
the publisher. © 2001.
|
