Vol. 180: Secrets of immigrants

Where do you fit in this puzzle?

Two Jews are about to be executed by a firing squad.

“Should we ask for blindfolds?” the first Jew wonders.

“Don’t make trouble,” the second Jew cautions.

That old joke about how Jews survived in antisemitic Europe— usually by keeping a low profile— actually applies to any newly arrived immigrant group in any country. Back when America still welcomed immigrants, the late sociologist Nathan Glazer developed this theory about families who settle here:

—In the first generation, all the relatives live in the same city (and sometimes the same building), and they’re all in business together because they can’t trust anyone else.

—The second generation still lives in the same city, but they’re no longer in business together.

—The third generation is scattered across the country.

Glazer didn’t say it, but to me it’s a matter of new arrivals developing the confidence and assertiveness to strike out on their own. Which in many cases takes a few generations.

You may see this phenomenon in your own family. Certainly, I see it in the contrast between my family and my wife’s.

Barbara, as a second-generation native American, grew up with eight first cousins, all of whom lived in Philadelphia. They developed close relationships, which have continued to this day, even as they’ve spread out to places like New Jersey, Washington (D.C.), Florida, North Carolina, Kentucky, and California— locations which, to their parents, seemed almost as remote as Russia or Lithuania.

Someone asked me the other day whether Barbara is an extrovert or an introvert. After some reflection, I replied: “Compared to her parents, she’s an extrovert. Compared to our daughters, she’s an introvert.” That answer, I submit, has nothing to do with Freud and everything to do with how many generations passed since their family got off the boat.

Hire a relative?

I, on the other hand, am a third-generation American. I grew up in New York City, but by the time I was maybe eight years old all my cousins were living elsewhere. My aunts and uncles had the confidence to seize opportunities in places like Chicago, Syracuse, Princeton, and Providence. My brother and I saw them maybe a half-dozen times a year, at most.

At that time, my grandfather Marc (first-generation American) and his son, my father (second-generation), were 50-50 partners in a ladies knitted wear company, with an office in the Garment District and factories in Brooklyn and Valley View, Pennsylvania. In the familiar tradition of first-generation immigrants, they enlisted my maternal grandfather to manage their mill in Valley View, presumably because they knew they could trust him.

From time to time, Grandpa Marc proposed that they hire some other relative who needed a job. My dad invariably declined; the problem with hiring relatives, he said, is you can’t fire them if they don’t work out. To which Grandpa Marc invariably replied, “What’s the point of having a family business if you can’t hire family?” Here were two viewpoints, both valid, reflecting not so much good business practices as the generational longevity of the practitioners.

The exception: Albert Greenfield

Of course there were exceptions to Nathan Glazer’s generational pattern. The Philadelphia tycoon Albert M. Greenfield (subject of my 2013 biography, The Outsider), was born in Russia in 1887 and brought to America in 1896. Unlike anyone else in his family (and possibly the world), he seems to have been endowed with supreme confidence from his earliest childhood years. When Greenfield opened his real estate office in 1905, he was 17 years old and entering into a business to which he brought no experience whatsoever— only his certainty that the future would be different and that he would help to bring it about.

Within a year Greenfield would make twice as much money as his father had ever made or ever would make; within four years he would own, among other things, the house where his parents lived; within seven years he would be earning $60,000 annually (equivalent to more than $1 million today); within 12 years he would be worth about $15 million; and within 25 years his company would be the largest real estate company in the United States.

Conventional wisdom in Greenfield’s day (as well as now) held that immigrants required at least a generation or two to absorb American values. But it was Greenfield’s perverse yet fiercely held belief that immigrants appreciated American values better than the natives and consequently made better citizens.

The Greenfield family’s arrival in America coincided with the Panic of 1893, one of the longest and severest depressions in U.S. history. In the nation’s rural heartland, the newly organized Populist Party professed to see “a nation brought to the verge of moral and political ruin,” which sounds very much like the conventional wisdom you hear today from native Americans. Yet most of the immigrants then arriving by the hundreds of thousands saw only an empowering and energizing land of opportunity.

Fleeing ‘shithole’ countries

Immigrants, whether fleeing from persecution or merely seeking better jobs and homes, tend to be optimists: They believe that moving to a new homeland can improve their lives. Consequently, they become agents of change wherever they settle. By the same token, a nation that welcomes immigrants becomes an incubator for change.

Of course this is no mere theoretical discussion. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can strip “Temporary Protected Status” from hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants— status which has allowed them to remain in the U.S. for years.

Haitian refugees were first granted this status after the 2010 earthquake there that killed about 250,000 people. That status was offered again in 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise left Haiti in chaos and the capital city of Port-au-Prince almost completely controlled by dangerous gangs. The most courageous and determined Haitians got the hell out and headed for America, where they thought their resourcefulness would be welcomed.

These immigrants might, in a generation or two, have made useful contributions to society that we cannot now even conceive. Come to think of it, Haitian TPS holders already contribute nearly $6 billion annually to the U.S. economy and more than $1.5 billion in taxes. But now they must be deported for the crime of seeking refuge here from what President Trump calls a “shithole” country.

Megyn Kelly’s rant

Trump has expressed a preference for immigrants from places like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. But of course, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes are happy where they are (at least partly because they live beyond Trump’s jurisdiction).

Stephen Miller, architect of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies, has argued that immigrants and their children bring generational problems to the U.S. and dilute “true” American values.

The TV commentator Megyn Kelly offered this welcoming message last week to Haitian immigrants: “We know our country is better than yours. That’s because we filled it with our work ethic, culture, and values. You being here only dilutes it for us... Go back to fucking Haiti!”

Amy Wax, the loopy Penn law professor, has suggested that Brahmin women doctors from India feel anger, envy, and shame toward Americans because they realize that their own native country is a “shithole.” She also thinks that immigrants “are too loud” and responsible for an increase in “litter.”

Stephen Miller’s secret

Need I tell you that Stephen Miller’s ancestors spent centuries in another shithole: Tsarist Russia, where the threat of anti-Jewish pogroms and forced conscription into the Tsar’s army caused Miller’s great-grandfather to flee in 1903 and settle in— you’ll never guess— America.

Amy Wax’s parents, similarly, came here from Eastern Europe, a paradise then and now. I can’t imagine why they ever left. Maybe they felt guilty because they were having too much fun?

Megan Kelly’s ancestors emigrated to America from Ireland, Italy, and Germany. Needless to add, the native American WASPs immediately welcomed them with open arms. Not. Actually, the WASPs back then told Megyn Kelly’s ancestors pretty much what Megyn Kelly told the Haitians last week.

And now, the fourth generation

But I digress. Nathan Glazer showed how the third generation of immigrant families in America is usually dispersed across the country. But he never ventured to say what happens to the fourth generation. So let me take a crack at it:

All the members of the fourth generation are reunited on the West Coast, usually in California, but maybe in Seattle, Santa Fe, or Phoenix. Certainly, that’s been the case in my family, where I am the only one of six first cousins still left on the East Coast.

This scenario assumes, of course, that Stephen Miller won’t find some excuse to deport all of us cousins to El Salvador. Mustn’t dilute those true American values, after all. My bags are packed, just in case.

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com