The trial by fire experience of immigrants

As a soon to be ten year old transplanted to a cold and alien environment, my life was turned upside down. The year was 1946. The old DC-3 took over twelve hours to reach New York City from my warm island of Puerto Rico. My parents and four brothers arrived with heads full of fantasies until reality trumped visions of streets paved with gold. Soon after, attacks of sorrow, hopelessness and fear descended on us. Self esteem was soon to face its greatest challenge. In that era Latinos on the lower east-side of Manhattan weren’t received with open arms. The rude awakening of life in the United States made me wonder if my parents made a mistake in coming here. We heard of a neighborhood uptown called “El Barrio” where the majority of Latino’s lived and wondered why we didn’t go there. On the street we were spat upon and told to go back to where we came from. I later learned it would’ve been worse if our skin color was darker. Schools offered asylum but only in the classrooms. My brothers and I suffered different forms of humiliation each no better than the next. The lack of fluency in the language served to alienate us even more. It took time to learn to speak correctly. Our parents always taught us to respect others even if they seemed obnoxious. The urge to retaliate was overwhelming. For the longest time our identity was lost between two worlds. After learning what the black population endured, we hoped sooner or later we would be accepted. Four years later we moved across the East River into Brooklyn. The scenery was different but the racist remarks were the same. As we got older we learned to interact with the people that despised us. The experience eventually transformed us. It neutralized the simmering anger and made us the kind of persons our parents wanted us to be. My father was a gentle man and always told us “To get respect you have to earn it and if you don’t respect others you’re doomed to fail.”

I imagine he was right, he was a longshoreman on the mob controlled docks and I never heard him complain. If there was anybody qualified to talk about self identity it was him.

I guess my brothers and I emulated our parents and endured the taunting in order to maintain our identities intact. Acceptance by those we came in contact with served to prove we did the right thing. I imagine millions of immigrants before us faced the same negative response. They too endured and maintained their identity. I believe the components of identity are not easily taken away unless a person allows it. Those that hold firm to their identity can easily transmit to others the facets involved. I consider myself blessed to have been able to entwine my heritage into the American way of life.