May/June 2004 Issue

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n: o i t a r g i m m i e r o m i t l Ba ty i c a f o g n i the remak : s e h c r u h c e r o m i t l a B d l o e d i s n i y r o t s t n a r g i m m i h c a ri

fiction: How Leini La n

ded in Amer

ica MAY/JUNE 2004

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Today, the good life is about savoring. The restaurants and shops at Harbor East offer the very best options to please every palate. From gourmet entrees fusing the finest, freshest ingredients to shops and services that satisfy the most discriminating shopper, the place to be in Baltimore has turned in a whole new direction…East.

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LOCATED WHERE PRESIDENT STREET MEETS ALICEANNA STREET ON BALTIMORE'S WATERFRONT

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Immigration, our nation’s most intimate continuing tie to the world …

– historian Daniel J. Boorstin

M

y opening message was ready to go to press, when a chance encounter with a Spanish-speaking woman taught me a lesson. I was walking my overenthusiastic mutt, Thelma, when she attracted the attention of a toddler out with her mother and baby brother. The worst thing that Thelma does is give too many kisses to the object of her affection, but not everyone is comfortable with dogs— especially introducing their small children to dogs. So, it was only natural that we struck up a conversation. Recent arrivals from El Salvador, the woman and her daughter had strong accents and were struggling with English. Undeterred, I asked the little girl her name and she stated it clearly. I repeated it and told her that it was a beautiful name.

I was not prepared for her mother’s look of surprise as her eyes filled with tears. “You are the first person that we have met who has pronounced her name correctly!” she exclaimed. Admittedly, it is a small gesture at best: taking a moment to pronounce an unfamiliar name correctly. But, for the woman, my act of respect was enough.

As Baltimore looks to its future, our leadership is promoting immigration as a strategy to reverse population decline and reclaim neighborhoods. Evidence shows that cities that attract significant immigrant populations are growing and prospering. Other cities, like Baltimore, that missed the recent wave of immigration, continue to lose population.

I wish it were as simple as “deciding” to invite newcomers to Baltimore. But, immigrants follow the same patterns of behavior that natives follow. If they feel welcome and comfortable, they will come and encourage their friends and family to follow. If not, they will locate elsewhere. As residents, we have a choice: we can encourage newcomers, we can oppose them, or we can simply tolerate them.

For those fearful of immigration, competition for jobs or scarce public funds for schools or health care are issues. For those eager to help, our story about St. Matthews shows a way.

What’s at stake is far more than rebuilding the city’s population. America is a nation of immigrants—so many of us came as fugitives from somewhere. The richness and texture of peoples bringing so many different perspectives, talents, cultures, music, foods and styles are the essence of American urban life. And Baltimore, a city rich in ethnic traditions, is well poised to draw upon her past to create a welcoming atmosphere.

Undoubtedly, it will be difficult to navigate the complexities of assimilating newcomers into Baltimore. Speaking as someone who takes great joy from being exposed to new experiences, I also believe that there will be far greater rewards. One thing is certain: we begin with one small gesture of respect at a time.

DPB-2004-0148 Urbanite GaragBnr

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Publisher and Editor Tracy Ward Durkin Co-Editors Joan Jacobson Melody Simmons Copy Editor Ann Sagi Ward Art Direction Castro/Arts LLC Art Manager Ann Wiker Circulation Manager Billy Tom Hogg Administrative Assistant Bellee Gossett Interns Robin Lyon Lisa Weir Founder Laurel Harris Durenberger

Urbanite Issue 3, May/June 2004 Contact Information: P.O. Box 50158, Baltimore, MD 21211

410-243-2050 www.urbanitebaltimore.com advertising@urbanitebaltimore.com tracy@urbanitebaltimore.com

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Copyright © 2004, by Urbanite LLC. All rights reserved.

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CONTRIBUTORS

CONTENTS publisher’s note about our contributors

Rafael Alvarez Born and raised in Baltimore, where all his stories are set, Rafael Alvarez is the son of a Spanish-Italian tugboat engineer from Highlandtown and a Polish-American homemaker who grew up in old Canton.

Rafael went to sea as a teen-ager and again a quarter-century later after quitting his job as a city desk reporter for The Sun. He writes for the HBO drama The Wire and has published two works of fiction, The Fountain of Highlandtown, and an anthology of Orlo and Leini stories. His fiction was honored this year with the largest grant awarded by the Maryland State Arts Council. “How Leini Landed in America” is part of an unpublished novella: Fourteen Holy Martyrs.

Anne Haddad

During her 10 years as a reporter at The Sun, and before that at daily newspapers in Massachusetts and Indiana, Anne took readers into classrooms, operating rooms and the cabs of John Deere combines. She now writes primarily about medicine, and edits a physician-education monthly on pain research. Immigration is part of her recent past: Anne is one generation off the boat. Her mother was born in Lebanon, and her father’s immigrant parents in 1917 helped start a Roman Catholic church in Michigan City, Ind., much like the subjects in her article in this issue.

Dean Krimmel Dean Krimmel’s fascination with Baltimore began the minute he stepped off the plane from Michigan, six weeks shy of his fifth birthday. At the Baltimore City Life Museums, Dean organized exhibitions and programs on local history, including immigration. He now is project coordinator for the Babe Ruth Museum’s Camden Station project and a consultant to the Baltimore Immigration Project.

Charles Camp

photo: Roland I. Freeman

Charles Camp is a folklorist with a special interest in the history of food. He has a doctorate in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. He curated Key Ingredients, the Smithsonian Institution’s touring exhibition on the role of food in U.S. culture. He teaches in the graduate public heritage program at Pennsylvania State University’s Capital Campus, and has taught courses in art history and folklore at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1998. He is author of the forthcoming The Study of American Foodways, and has published widely in the fields of folk life, oral history, baseball and popular culture.

He lives in Catonsville.

editor’s note: miracle grow

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mondo balto: alien nation?

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a bird will soar

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in a city of second chances

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neighborhoods: putting down roots

in Patterson Park

Melody Simmons

Tom Chalkley

Kelly Parisi

Joan Jacobson

David Kanthor

10-12

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lukewarm welcome Molly Rath

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a nifty business for third generation

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going on the offensive

is considered offensive

Anne Haddad

Gary Gately

Jefferson Steele Jefferson Steele was born in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia, and moved to Baltimore to study at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in the late 1980s. His work has been featured in City Paper in Baltimore and Washington, Baltimore magazine, Style, Maxim, Details, GQ Italy, Complex, Esquire, and has won local and national awards. Jefferson’s subjects range from rock concerts to motorcycle gangs to portraits.

He often uses “experimental” techniques and equipment. Portfolios of his work are online at www.jeffersonsteele.com.

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20-21

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a timeline of Baltimore immigration

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gateway to Baltimore’s past

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encounter: Rina Steinhauer

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poetry: blue sky morning

Dean Krimmel

staff writers

Anne Haddad

Liz Moser

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fiction: How Leini Landed in America

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authentic experience: adding flavor to the melting pot

Rafael Alvarez

Charles Camp

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about identity:

youth media advocacy coalition

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urbanite café

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urbanotes

Melody Simmons

Cover: photo by Felix Andreasik, age 13

Community: Hampden

School: Robert Poole Middle School in Hampden During the Youthlight photography class, students discussed portraits and how artists depict their subjects or themselves. The students then took studio self-portraits with a 4-by-5-view camera. After the film was developed, the students wrote or drew on the negative of their self-portraits with a black marker. The marks turned white when they printed the negative onto photographic paper.

Editor’s note: Miracle Grow

He was just 15 when he set out for America, a frightened soul from a small village in Romania, a boy alone with a secret in his suitcase. He knew one thing as he settled into steerage on the freighter Paris for that journey in 1912: There was a better life over here. Arriving at Ellis Island nearly two weeks later, my grandfather was interviewed and placed on another boat.

His destination: Baltimore. Here, he would undergo formal processing and then get tagged – with a name and destination badge like a kid on a field trip – for his final stop, Fort Wayne, Ind. There, an elder brother and a Romanian couple would pick him up at the train station to lend food, shelter and, eventually, employment in the steel mills of Gary.

And he set down roots in East Chicago, bought a house and finally opened his suitcase. It was, after all, filled with something heavier – and longer lasting – than the clothes he pretended to carry on the Paris. As he unlatched it, Romanian soil tumbled out into his new American garden. It was his way of carrying a piece of the old country into his new homeland.

He tilled it into the earth of his back yard and for years lovingly cultivated the two soils, growing tomatoes, dill weed, garlic and cucumbers, all the makings of his specialty, homemade pickles. He worked that patch until he died in 1985 at age 88.

His story amazes me. I often think of the courage it took him to leave Romania as a teen-ager with little else than the shirt on his back and dreams of a better life. Besides being a strong man, he had few or no job skills.

He couldn’t read or speak English. And he had less than $20 in his pocket when he stepped onto the docks at Locust Point. Yet he set out to build a life defined by hard work. That, and a lot of determination, helped him make it.

Not 100 years later, the ensuing generations of our family live comfortably.

It’s testament to his amazing spirit and grit. My mother calls it our miracle.

But this saga is, of course, not limited to us. As anyone with roots in another country will tell you, their ancestors took similar risks to migrate to a country where freedom and opportunity abound. It still happens today.

My grandparents, Maria and Moses Lup, on their wedding day in 1917

In this issue of Urbanite, you’ll read stories and perspectives on the immigration front in Baltimore today. It’s an issue that is percolating from City Hall to the State House – and it continues to draw criticism, praise and activism from all sides. In a Q&A, a diverse group of immigrants discusses struggles trying to establish roots in Baltimore today. The fight for fair wages by one Mexican immigrant is outlined in another story. You’ll read why two state delegates launched a bid in the General Assembly to curb immigrants’ rights. And what would an issue about immigration be without the lowdown on where to find authentic ethnic food? Folklorist Charles Camp profiles unique eateries.

— Melody Simmons, co-editor

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Go

A Bird Will Soar … where there is no path and leave a trail.

You whoever you are!

All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia,

indifferent of place!

All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes

of the sea!

And you of centuries hence when you listen to me!

And you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but

include just the same!

Health to you! good will to you all, from me and

America sent!

Each of us inevitable, Each of us limitless — each of us with his or her right upon

the earth, Each of us allow’d the eternal purports of the earth, Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

– Walt Whitman

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

– American poet Emma Lazarus

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic.

Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

– former President Jimmy Carter

Borders won’t work. Human beings are natural forces of the Earth, just as rivers and winds are natural forces.

– writer Leslie Marmon Silko

Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American.

– writer Toni Morrison

They knew that one word, Chicago and that was all they needed to know, at least, until they reached the city. …

To the strangers it seemed like a wilderness, a very jungle – a jungle of houses. It was a jungle, too, ruled by strange powers, about which they did not understand, full of creatures which preyed upon each other – that were hunting you without rest, tracking you in the daytime and watching in your path by night.

– writer Upton Sinclair

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome through a participation of all our rights and privileges.

– George Washington

… One of the core American experiences … officially becoming someone else: becoming American, starting over, leaving behind what you once were. Nearly everyone in America bears the mark of this in his or her conscious life, and carries traces of it deep in ancestral lore and recollection.

by Kelly Parisi

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

– writer Robert Hughes

Three waist-high brick walls enclose our small urban yard. The fourth wall, the back of the house, is a set of sliding-glass doors, giant windows really, and on the inside is my office.

Lately, I’ve had to remind myself of what an office is used for. It is a room where one goes to work, I tell myself, it is not a post for observing the mating behavior of a pair of purple pigeons.

Yet that is precisely what I have been doing since this amorous couple—Virgil & Bea, I call them—took up residence in a cubbyhole above our garden closet.

The view is fairly distracting, as you might expect.

I don’t know what you think pigeons do all day, and if you are a gainfully employed contributing member of society, the thought has probably not occurred to you. But, if you are interested in the fruits of my painstaking research, read on.

Pigeons prefer a scheduled day. Beginning at daybreak and ending at noon, flying in and out numerous times, the birds care for their cubbyhole. Afternoons are spent socializing, and teasing the dog. From 4:00 to 5:00, side by side, they sit on a rock overlooking the garden and do nothing at all. By sundown, they’re ready to hit the roost. An average day in the life of Virgil & Bea is uniform and predictable, though not without drama.

Take last Tuesday at noon: Virgil was perched on the porch light (providing him with a panoramic view of the yard), Bea was taking her exercise along the south wall (being vain about her figure), when out of the north sky an iridescent, purpleblack pigeon with fire in his eyes, alighted on the wall next to Bea. Flustered, her little head bobbing comically, she scurried to the end of the wall. Virgil dropped off the porch lamp and landed between Bea and the intruder. He puffed his chest and stared down the challenger—who held his position. Turning on his dusty red feet, Virgil huffed to the end of the wall, and took his place next to Bea. After a moment of tender reassurance, he nudged her, and she flew five flaps from the wall up to their cubbyhole. Virgil followed. For three long minutes, the Rival remained, during which time his eyes turned cold and mean. Twice since then I have spied him.

I don’t know the Rival’s story, though I suspect that it’s unsavory. I will, however, tell you something about his, Virgil’s and Bea’s ancestors.

All common city pigeons are descendants of wild rock doves from the cliffs and craggy ledges of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Bred for their homing instincts and racing abilities, and kept as pets, they first traveled to the United States in cages. But no matter how gilded the cage, a bird must soar. On one significant day, at least two of my subjects’ forebears flew the coop.

The feral pigeon, as it came to be called, found a home in the cliffs and craggy ledges of North American skyscrapers. Other than a few falcons, and kids with BB guns, the city had few predators, and food was good and plenty.

In their native lands, all rock doves were iridescent blue-black and gray. One obvious result of the intermingling of millions of foreign-born rock doves over several prosperous generations in America is that they now come in a variety of colors. Besides the traditional blue-black and gray, they are chestnut and ecru, brick and brindle, silver, sable, flax, pearl and oyster white. The richness of variety.

Two hundred or so years later, the birds, now solid American citizens, were called upon to defend their adopted country. The Army Signal Corps used carrier pigeons during both world wars to exchange information. Low-tech, yet deadly effective.

In this current time of war and unrest, of villains and heroes, it is fitting to remember Cher Ami, a real pigeon’s pigeon. Cher served in the Signal Corps in France during World War I, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for saving 194 soldiers who had been lost from their battalion. The message attached to his leg said: “We are along the road parallel to 276.4.

Our own artillery is dropping a barrage on us.

For heaven’s sake, stop it.”

The brave bird reached base and saved the battalion, even though half his breast and one of his legs had been shot off (luckily not the leg carrying the message). Cher Ami, stuffed and standing proudly on his lonely limb, is on display in the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

t I have my own pigeon story. One summer night two years ago, my beau and I were sitting on his fourth-floor balcony sipping wine and watching sailboats glide in to (continued on page 19)

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By Joan Jacobson translation by Leslie Lobos photograph: Jefferson Jackson Steele

In a City of Second Chances

Serafin’s Baltimore is a city of second chances. A chance for an education and health care for his children, an affordable room where his family can sleep. A boss who won’t cheat him. Money to send home to Mexico. Even a chance to win his first American lawsuit.

By the time he arrived, he was a seasoned risk-taker willing to travel 2,000 miles across a continent for a life of second chances.

Untangling his immigration story is like plotting a war veteran’s battle history: He stoically left his family behind, braving a nine-hour trek through the desert with a platoon of other desperate Latinos buoying his spirits.

This Mexican immigrant’s account of hardship and sacrifice is extraordinarily ordinary, an experience repeated by thousands of new Baltimore residents arriving in the past decade to a careworn city others have abandoned.

Serafin (who declined to give his last name for this article) arrived here, willing to cram into a forsaken rowhouse and take a job no American wanted: working the night shift, 14 hours a night, seven days a week, taking out trash and polishing floors in suburban stores, stocked with merchandise he cannot afford.

Now, he’s part of a common American experience: He’s a plaintiff in a lawsuit.

His is a life of juxtapositions: As a man who came here illegally, he may have legal standing to win back pay and damages.

“State and federal courts around the country, and the Department of Labor, have consistently applied wage-and hour-laws to all workers, whether or not they have immigration documents,” says Serafin’s lawyer, Jill Wrigley, the Baltimore Workers Rights Center coordinator for CASA of Maryland, an immigrant aid and advocacy group.

Serafin acknowledges crossing the border illegally. In fact, he’s done it three times. But he declined to discuss his legal status for this article. His two youngest children, however, were born here and are U.S. citizens.

Serafin is part of a growing Mexican immigrant community that makes up 1 percent of Baltimore’s population. By the thousands, his comrades are packing into the old rowhouses of East Baltimore – from Fells Point to Patterson Park.

Their destination seems natural. Whether or not they know it, they are following in a million footsteps. More than a century ago, these neighborhoods held the same anticipation and trepidation for new Baltimoreans from Italy, Greece, Germany, Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia – many of them fresh off boats at Locust Point Today, Serafin has the same needs and desires that his immigrant ancestors had before him: Food. Shelter. Education. Work. Respect.

At 38, he appears to be a modest, practical man. He is short with dark, thick hair and a slight mustache. Despite his relative youth, Serafin holds a dignified respect among other Mexicans who call him “Don,” a title usually reserved for elders.

He tells his reasons for traveling here simply: “A lot of people leave their countries to seek a better life. I am one of those people,” he says.

“I like it here and I like any place in the United States because I’m earning dollars,” says Serafin. “Whether it’s Washington, New York, I can work for dollars.

“I like Baltimore. There are a lot of pretty things, nice things about Baltimore. There are a lot of different people, different colors. There’s black and white.

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“I like the housing. It’s not that expensive. I can get a room for $300 a month. Comparing that with New York, the rent is really high there. I love to go to stores, not exactly to buy, but to look around – K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target, or the mall.”

He tells his hard-luck story in an unemotional, matter-of-fact way, playing affectionately with the shiny black pigtails of his 3-year-old daughter, a tiny girl with radiant brown eyes.

In his home of Atlixco, Mexico, he says, he worked the fields, planting corn, beans, cilantro, radishes and pumpkins, earning $35 to $40 a week.

He doesn’t dwell on his burden of poverty or the painful fact that he and his wife have left their two eldest children behind with relatives in Mexico. He has been willing to clean floors at 3 a.m., to unload trucks, to sort dirty clothes in a laundry.

But he also believes he deserves better.

In Mexico, he says, “I could sustain myself and my family, but it was only enough to survive and I wanted to improve my life so that’s why I came here.

But as it is now, it seems like we’re just surviving.”

He arrived in Baltimore four years ago with three nephews, leaving his wife behind. Like thousands before him, he was spirited over the Mexican border by a gouging human smuggler, known as a “Coyote.”

He did not choose Baltimore. His brother was already here. The brother paid the Coyote $1,600 to get Serafin across the border to Los Angeles, then flown to Baltimore, where he had a room waiting for him in East Baltimore to share with three nephews.

His wife, Laura, joined him after she realized it was impossible to support their family in Mexico as a hotel chambermaid, earning $17 a week for seven days of work. Their two eldest children, now 11 and 12, remain in Mexico.

After a series of low-wage jobs, Serafin started working in April 2002 for Power Cleaning Solutions Inc., a Baltimore County company that contracted with big-box stores such as K-Mart, Giant Food, Staples, Metro Food and Michaels crafts stores.

That, he says, is when the trouble began.

Serafin drove other Latino workers from K-Mart to Giant to Staples to Michaels. He helped them work, then drove them to other stores to clean. He worked 11 to 14 hours a night. He worked for 234 days – nearly every day for eight months. Power Cleaning paid him $55 to $60 a night. And, of course, he received no overtime pay.

Finally, he quit.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, so I told them I was leaving. They didn’t pay me the last two weeks.”

Six months later, CASA of Maryland filed a lawsuit on behalf of Serafin and eight other Latino immigrants. The suit claims they were cheated out of their paychecks and seeks $23,890.53 in back wages, overtime pay and damages for Serafin.

Power Cleaning has denied the charges in a Baltimore County Circuit Court document. The company’s lawyer, Michael Hamburg, declined to comment.

While Serafin is quickly learning the U.S. legal system, he also is learning the right to organize and protest. Last year, with the help of CASA of Maryland, he mobilized fellow workers, educating them about the Power Cleaning lawsuit and organized a protest – with picket signs – outside the home of the owner of Power Cleaning Solution.

He knows winning his back wages could mean survival for his family – here and in Mexico – for a long time. In Mexico, he says, $100 U.S. dollars can support four families for a month.

His experience has left no bitterness. In his city of second chances, Serafin is philosophical: “There are bad people and good people everywhere, not just in Baltimore.”

NEIGHBORHO­ODS P u t t i n g d o w n r o o t s i n p A TT E R S ON P A R K

By

DAV I D

Every day I step out of my house and walk the five blocks to my office at East Baltimore Street and Linwood Avenue. In the heart of Southeast Baltimore, I see the new faces and hear the new sounds of immigration. In this area, neighbors hold on to traditions and customs through clothing, music, and language. Some days I see my neighbor from the Democratic Republic of Congo wearing his colorful traditional African garb. As I wait for the bus on Baltimore Street, I occasionally hear the distinct sounds of ranchero music from passing cars. The Dominican carryout around the corner is always lively, with patrons involved in animated conversations in Spanish.

Twenty-one months ago, I blindly moved to Patterson Park from upstate New York. I received the Peaceworker scholarship from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which allows me to study for my master’s degree in urban planning and work for Patterson Park Community Development Corp. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras and, before I moved here, I knew nothing about Baltimore, much less my new neighborhood.

Since my first few days, I’ve known that I belong to this neighborhood. With so many people from foreign nations speaking different languages, I figured that I, too, could fit in. Because I speak Spanish and a bit of Swahili, this neighborhood provides opportunities to meet newcomers who bring a strong work ethic to the American dream. I see a community consisting of many smaller communities, and a coexistence that promotes the community development corporation’s goal of developing a diverse and stable neighborhood.

My new neighbors are from all over: Mexico and Central America, East and West Africa and the former Yugoslavia. Almost all of the scores of immigrants I’ve talked to have struggled to incorporate themselves into the Baltimore lifestyle. Most did not envision a future crammed into a Baltimore rowhouse.

But like immigrants in the past, they’ve adapted to this distinct house type. The daily struggle becomes routine. Eventually, most immigrants connect to others with similar experiences and they support each other through friendship and camaraderie.

From all that I have seen and heard, the assimilation struggle in Southeast Baltimore is bearable as long as it is a shared experience and not a lonely adventure. Families with little social capital or companionship have left the neighborhood because they did not like the environment. The Kenyan family that had problems with neighbors left. The Bosnian family that moved to St. Louis wanted to be among a larger Bosnian community. Those who remain in Patterson Park have created connections and have established a community.

So as the immigrants’ struggle is undeniable (it has always been difficult to adapt to the United States from abroad), the vitality of the American dream

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K A N T H O R is realized in the newly formed communities around Patterson Park. After one or two years, the struggle becomes a rite of passage that turns into normalcy.

The Americanization of the immigrant also is a time-honored reality. The exception to this reality is that some immigrants, especially Latinos, contribute to American society without the hope of becoming U.S. citizens. Because of current immigration policy, they often arrive without documentation, and those who do gain legal status are given temporary visas with virtually no possibility for permanent residency.

A striking example of this exception is my friend Juan, a diligent and inspired young man. He came to the United States two years ago with dreams of economic prosperity. He left his wife, two young children and the rest of his family in Honduras so that he could earn $10 an hour as a construction worker. We met while he was working on the house next to where my friend lives. During the snowstorm of 2003, I was helping push a van that was stuck. I yelled to him in Spanish to help. From then on, Juan and I watched Honduras national soccer team games and met to talk about news from Honduras.

Juan’s No. 1 priority was his job. His work involved remodeling the interiors of about 100 rowhouses throughout Southeast Baltimore. He arrived with limited construction skills, but learned flooring, framing and how to install fixtures. In two years he worked for one employer, a man who showed him around the city and took care of him during his only emergency.

As a nondocumented immigrant, Juan cannot apply for a driver’s license.

Occasionally he borrowed his friend’s old truck to transport construction materials or to see more of Baltimore. A few times Juan drove me home because he worried about my safety late at night. But one evening, he was pulled over by police for not wearing his seat belt. When he could not present a license, he was jailed for 13 hours. His employer posted bail. Juan quickly paid the fine for not wearing his seat belt to avoid further trouble. This event was Juan’s moment of greatest fear. But, all in all, he lived peacefully and quietly while trying to save enough money to make his time here worthwhile.

I was a bit shocked when he told me recently that he had earned enough money and decided to return to Honduras. He plans to build a house and buy a car for his family. His family and love for his country are more important than the opportunity to earn more money here. Because of his temporary status, Juan can never be a citizen of the United States. Instead, he will return and re-establish his lifestyle in rural Central America. He invited me to visit the next time I am in Honduras. Before he left, I told him that his hard work helped revitalize my neighborhood. We’ll miss his contribution and look forward to welcoming the next immigrant who’ll arrive—shortly, no doubt.

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Lukewarm Welcome B y M olly R ath

During the 1800s, Baltimore witnessed a huge and steady influx of immigrants—mostly Western, then Eastern Europeans—making it one of the nation’s premiere gateway cities. Today, the local immigration picture is dramatically different. Immigrants currently account for 5.5% of Baltimore residents, roughly half the national average, with Asians comprising the largest proportion, and Mexicans the fastest-growing.

African communities are on the rise, particularly among Nigerians; and West Indians, from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, are arriving in growing numbers.

But as Baltimore wrestles with chronic population loss overall, a question moving forward is whether these new arrivals can help make Ours Truly the preeminent harbor for foreigners it once was. The data and trends of the last decade suggest that Baltimore indeed can be an immigrant city; according to a December 2002 report on the local immigration scene commissioned by the Abell Foundation, more than 60% of immigrant residents have arrived in just the last 10 years. All the city needs to do, report author Bruce Morrison asserts, is get deliberate about recruiting foreigners. Currently reality, meanwhile, points to such immigration prospects being clouded by larger, more pressing socioeconomic priorities—a near bankrupt public school system, for starters— and an ingrained parochialism when it comes to embracing outsiders.

What is clear from a little probing of the local immigrant scene is that, unlike widely held stereotypes would have us believe, Baltimore’s immigrant community comprises much more than low-paid construction workers and scientists at Hopkins. What is also clear is that Baltimore has been slow to harness the cultural wealth and potential of its immigrants, and slower yet to extend to them the hospitality for which this city of Hons is so well known. In the absence of such acceptance, meanwhile, Baltimore’s immigrants have formed their own communities, with places of worship often at their cores.

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While the Rev. Joe Muth, pastor at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church in Northeast Baltimore, was born and raised here, his parish is anything but homegrown. St. Matthew’s today counts 756 member families, one-third of which hail from about 40 countries.

Father Muth says that the church’s Immigration Outreach Services Center makes it the only parish in the city—and the country—to extend comprehensive support to those who are foreign-born. The center serves immigrants, refugees and those seeking asylum through legal, health and education services, and organizes other religious and community-based institutions.

Jean-Marie Holloway, founding executive director of St. Matthew’s Immigration Outreach Services Center, arrived in Baltimore from Kingston, Jamaica, in 1989 by way of New York. She lives in Northwood with her husband and daughter, age 17.

Pravin Moktan left Katmandu, Nepal, to seek political asylum in Baltimore in August 2002. He lives in Northwood, is an outreach worker with People Encouraging People’s mobile treatment unit, and hopes his wife and two children, ages 19 and 20, will join him here next year.

Natalie Piraino is a native of Nyamata, Rwanda, who moved to Baltimore more than 12 years ago. She lives in White Marsh with her husband and two grown children and studies public health at Towson University. Most of her family was killed in the civil war between Rwanda’s Hutus and Tutsis in 1994.

Flor Giusti arrived in Baltimore from Callao, Peru, in 1991.

She lives in Mount Washington with her husband and two teen-age children. She is a social worker at House of Ruth, where she counsels Hispanic women who are victims of domestic violence.

Rocio Ramirez is from Guerrero, Mexico, and settled in Baltimore by way of Los Angeles in 2000. She lives in East Baltimore with her husband and two small sons.

Blanca Picazo left Madrid, Spain, in 1989 and lives in Baltimore, where she works as a domestic violence victims’ advocate at St. Michael Outreach Center. She lives in Baltimore County with her husband and daughter, age 24.

Nick Njao left Nairobi, Kenya, for Baltimore, where he operates a small transportation business. He lives in Northwood and hopes to bring his 5-year-old daughter and her mother from Kenya soon.

photography: J. M. Giordano

Bocce tournaments and onion-top church domes; the growing cluster of sushi and kimchi purveyors along Maryland Avenue; the smell of papusas pouring forth from groceries along Broadway and spilling into Fells Point. All of these converge to create the modernday notion that Baltimore is an immigrant city, the melting pot of the Mid-Atlantic—a notion reinforced by a century-long stream of newcomer arrivals, ethnic festivals galore come summer and fall, and more than a couple Barry Levinson films.

I had to flee— just to save myself, my life.

I’m putting myself back together.gether.

we were coming for only one year, maybe two. And I had my practice and my job there, I was a psychologist there. So I closed my ... office, and I came for a year, maybe two. And that was 13 years ago. At that time, it was 1990, and for years we had been therapists in Peru. And the situation was terrible, we had a terrible economic crisis, and with the terrorism it made it really difficult to live our daily lives there.

Jean-Marie: I came to the Untied States to visit and to seek medical attention for something that was not offered in my country. And my sisters and brothers who were living here encouraged me to stay.

Urbanite: Is Baltimore a place that welcomes immigrants?

Nathalie: My vision of America ... [was] a place where you

Urbanite: Why did you come to Baltimore?

Nick: I was lucky enough to be granted a U.S. green card, a residence card. And my two brothers—and a sister—happened to live in Baltimore.

I came to the United States because there is a diversity lottery. It is offered to peoples of different countries, and I happened to win it. It’s a lottery that’s all over the world, mostly Third World countries, and I’m free to live and work here for as long as I wish. Or until I die—whichever comes first.

Pravin: I came to Baltimore because when I was working back in Nepal, I had some expatriate American friends that I worked with on USAID-funded projects, and I read a lot about Baltimore, about its history and culture and being near the sea, the Chesapeake Bay. So ... I decided Baltimore would be my best place to come.

I had to flee [Nepal] because the country was under attack and people there were massacred and there was a lot of torture.

I had to flee—just to save myself, my life. I’m putting myself back together.

can find ... everything. And everything, especially for people coming from Third World countries, is acceptance, social life, being part of the community. Coming from where I come from in Rwanda and growing up around ethnic issues and problems, it’s heaven.

The experience I found in Baltimore ... is you do feel like a foreigner. You try so hard, so hard. ... People here, they have their own nest. They are kind, but it stops there ... it’s really awkward here, especially for those of us who cannot go back home. But I feel damn lonely because I don’t know how to deal with the mentality here—I don’t blame [people here] ... they never lost their home, they never lost their roots. I wish we had more centers that have immigration services. I wish we had parishes that are thirsty to mix in someone from Peru with someone from Africa or Asia. Because you live in a troubled part of the world and then you get to so-called America, the land of opportunity. You live a week here and you get up in the morning and you sit by your bed and say, “I’m so lonely today.”

You cannot even pick up the phone and call your neighbor. If you run into your neighbor and say good morning—“Hi honey, but I’ve got to go.”

Nathalie: I followed my husband. My husband works for Catholic Relief Services and their headquarters is here.

Urbanite: You said you can’t deal with the mentality here. Can you

Rocio: I arrived here to the United States like I think we all did,

Nathalie: I find Americans very good people, very kind, but they are not deep. They are superficial. It’s like, immigrants come here and they are searching for their community, but for Americans here, it’s rush, rush, rush, When I first got to Baltimore, we were staying downtown. And there were a lot of African-Americans. I said, “Oh great, this is like Africa.” Even among African-Americans I have a hard time making friends. Honestly, I feel the way immigrants are viewed is, we are coming to occupy somebody’s job. The minute they hear your accent their focus changes.

out of necessity. My father had prostate cancer surgery and to pay for that I came here to the United States to work. I met my

husband here, in Los Angeles, and we arrived here in Baltimore through a friend. When we got here we realized there were more opportunities in construction. In Los Angeles, there was very little. My husband hardly worked.

Blanca: I’m here because of my husband. He got hired to work

here at Coppin State College, then two years later he went to Morgan and is chair of the Foreign Language Department. It was 15 years ago. He just sent in the application for the fun of doing it and then they really wanted him. And … three weeks later, we were in Baltimore. And I was like, Where is Baltimore? Show me on the map. It was like a shock, really, because ... he didn’t even know what kind of city it was.

Flor: I came with my husband. He was going to do a master’s of

public health at Hopkins. And I always say that I was told that

speak to that mentality?

I find Americans very good people, very kind, but they are not deep.

They are superficial.

Jean-Marie: I spoke English all my life. The dialect in Jamaica is Patois, and I speak English first. Even with that, because I spoke differently ... I was treated a little bit differently. I was never embraced ... especially by the African-American culture. ...

I’ve heard it and I’ve seen it. They treat immigrants differently because they feel the immigrants are coming here to take over the jobs. And the jobs that the immigrants take here are the jobs that nobody else wants.

When I moved here from New York … my next-door neighbor did greet me. But when my daughter and her daughter, who was a bit older, tried to get engaged as children, her mother said, “No, no, no, you have to get to know them first.” My daughter [was] 2 years and 9 months, what harm could she do?

But gradually they would call her to come and play with them … and I recall my daughter coming home to me and saying …

“Mommy, I don’t think white people really like black people.”

I was taken aback.

Nick: Yes, it has to do with our work ethic, how we’re brought up

in some African countries and in the Asian countries, especially the ones that were under British rule. We are very thorough. We work hard. Because of the circumstances we come out of, we never forget. ... If you don’t work in Africa, you don’t eat.

Pravin: When I first came ... I ended up working in a restaurant.

I was paid very little. And I was working 14 to 16 hours a day. I was doing cleaning, I was doing dish washing, I was serving, I was cooking. When I came across Mulberry Street, I went to the Catholic center and they handed me over a flier saying immigration outreach center at St. Matthew’s church.

I walked from downtown all the way up here [to Loch Raven and Woodbourne]. It was rainy [and] windy. I just knocked at the door and that’s how I met Father Joe. I was completely wet and I was so welcomed—he gave me a towel, tea. ... That was the time I really felt like crying. That’s how I told all my story and, from then on, I started building my own path. It was a great turning point for me to come here.

Rocio: The first thing people ask you is, “Where are you from?

Why did you come here?” Then on hearing the tone of your voice they try to identify you. With us Mexicans, it’s like Americans feel we’ve come to take something that is theirs.

I can’t understand why they treat Mexicans differently. When it comes to getting our papers, the first thing they say is, “For Mexicans there are no opportunities.” In our case, I’ve contacted many lawyers, and they ask ‘Where are you from?’ I answer, “From Mexico.” Then they say, “OK, for Mexicans there are no opportunities right now.” With that they hang up, just like that.

Urbanite: It sounds like most of you have had an institution or community that has helped you settle into Baltimore. Could you talk a little bit about that? Do you feel that that’s necessary to settling into Baltimore?

Nick: I have been Catholic all my life, and I enjoy the services.

In Africa, our services are very lively ... there’s even a bit of dancing ... to make the service interesting. Now of all the church services I’ve been to throughout the parishes in Baltimore you could fall asleep and snore. But finally I settled here [St. Matthew’s], that’s how I came to be part of this parish. And the message here is clear: We have a community. And I’m part of this community. But that’s how I found my anchor.

Also, we’re working ... with the immigration outreach center because my family’s still back home because of ... immigration [complications]. The law is a monster against people. [The center] it gives you ... what’s the word, solace. Some piece of heart—and hope. ... Just knowing that I can come here and talk freely and tell my story and ... people listen.

Jean-Marie: … We have had an annual institute for immigrants.

The institute started to provide resources—like education, health care and financial information. But what it also did was bring immigrants together who are from different countries and cultures, and never knew each other before and never knew how to get around. And so we have become like family.

Nathalie: Another thing I would like to add—the workshop last October for survivors of torture and trauma. That service was such a welcoming event. And it really was not just church-based, but the kind of discussion where those of us who were in the audience would say something, and it was like, “Oh, they want to listen to my horror?” “Oh good.” I remember getting up, I don’t recall exactly what I said, but whatever I said was coming

11

Urbanite: Talk about why Baltimore should open its arms to immigrants.

Blanca: I really don’t think (Baltimore is) welcoming to

immigrants. When I came here I was really surprised seeing all the kind of different, like, ghettos—you know, AfricanAmericans, whites, Asians. So everybody lives in their own communities, and I was just surprised because I didn’t expect that. I thought that it was going to be like, everyone lives together. And, if this kind of segregation exists among so-called Americans, what can we expect of people coming from other countries? Because minorities—ethnic minorities or people of color—are in the margins of this society, regardless of whether they are citizens or not. It’s just a fact that we don’t fit the parameters of what has been described as being American, and if you don’t fit that parameter you are like the outsider and you will never be accepted.

Baltimore should embrace its immigrants for many reasons.

But how to do it when it is not embracing people from other groups, people that have been born in Baltimore?

Nathalie: ... I think if new immigrants come, we all bring ... education, culture ... those are good things that the city should use. When I see immigrants come and work, work, work in construction, cleaning, restaurants, God knows what—and make ends meet and their kids go to school. I think that’s an awesome example for those born and raised here, whose children don’t even know how to read. And they have free books at libraries.

Flor: I think that especially this country, which is a country of

out and I felt like these guys are allowing me to pour my heart out, my fear. ... I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this parish.

Because it’s not just that you come to church to listen to Gospel of Luke. But when I’m down, and there are many weekends I’m down, I tell myself, I better go and Father’s going to wake me up.

[For] those of us who come from torture and trauma ... there are opportunities here. There is education, if you work damn hard—excuse my language. Those jobs we were talking about—you can get two jobs that Americans born and raised here don’t want—you can clean windows, go to McDonald’s, sleep two or three hours, but maybe three years down the road you can get a higher job. So those of us who come with a goal—like [Rocio] said, you came because daddy was sick, and so on—you don’t pick and choose. That’s what I think will make me feel happy because at least I can work hard and get an education. And the reason I’m saying this is my dad, he wanted an education. So that’s why at my age I’m still pushing because I need to honor my dad. ... And also to be an example to our immigrant children. They shouldn’t come here to watch television because that’s not why your parents struggle through ... God knows what—night classes, crying, being embarrassed.

Urbanite: What has been your best experience since you’ve been in Baltimore?

Flor: You got a chicken in the store and it’s bad, and they say,

OK, you can return it. And you go and return it and it works.

Those kinds of things that work. The street lights that work. In Peru, you never know what’s gonna work. ... You follow the directions and it might work, it might not.

I used to say—that what has kept me here in Baltimore is that I could always know what to expect tomorrow because today is like yesterday, tomorrow is going to be like today—no big surprises.

Pravin: When you leave home, your home country you are already battered, so when you come here you are still battered, you are just like a football. But when you come to a center like this where you are welcome, it’s like home coming back, and you come to a community where all the people have gone through the same process that I have gone through. That was the best moment of my time, when I came here, when I met people in the parish—there are people from more than 40 different countries out here, and they have gone through the same type of trouble that I am going through. And you feel some sort of healing process.

Nathalie: One of my best experiences in Baltimore, because I’ve been wishing to get a higher education, I love school. Just because this is the place I was able be accepted into a college.

When I was growing up the Tutsi people were not allowed to go to school, only one-tenth of the population, and once I finished high school [it was like] I had my Ph.D.

12

immigrants—it’s been built by the energy and the effort of people coming from abroad and making it here—and I think that’s what new immigrants, we all are doing. And I think when people say, “No, no, no, they are taking our jobs,” they are just talking from their own fears. There is room for everybody here.

Nick: ... Baltimore is becoming a city of immigrants because

everybody is fleeing Baltimore. I think we immigrants, we have a lot of opportunity here. We need to build communities. I know communities that are doing pretty good, just because of being together. For example, the Indians from India, they have very good businesses going ... like the gas stations, ... they are doing well because they are together.

Jean-Marie: I think Baltimore should open its arms to embrace immigrants because it’s an opportunity for the city to grow.

Immigrants come here with a wealth of culture and a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and they’re also willing to work really hard and to take 10 steps backward from where they are coming and start at the bottom and go and get ... themselves educated to build the economy up. And I think Baltimore needs to open its doors—very wide. And if you take

Baltimore should open its arms to embrace immigrants.ng Baltimore

a look at the cities that have shown a lot of growth, it’s because they have opened their doors and allowed immigrants to work and to live and to feel wanted.

Urbanite: Do you plan to stay in Baltimore long-term?

Nick: I am going to stay here. ... I hope to bring my daughter here, and the mother as well.

Jean-Marie: It is not my wish to stay here. I’ve been here about 18 years and I’m looking forward to going back home, one day soon. I hope to retire at home—while I still have my senses, I’m still sane.

Pravin: I think I’ll definitely stay here, unless the government sends me back to my country.

I cannot live without a sense of belonging.

Nathalie: I have to stay here. I have no home to go back to. Besides, my kids are happy here and my husband is from here.

So I’m trying to have some roots here. ... Were it not for St. Matthew’s, I think I would be like a nomadic person. I cannot live without a sense of belonging.

Flor: I don’t have immediate plans to leave. But I don’t think I’m

gonna die here. I want to go back. I don’t want to grow old here.

Blanca: I don’t think I would like to be a senior citizen ... in

Baltimore ... not just in Baltimore, but in America. ... That may be a stereotype, but when I see old people, like all lumped together in a building ... and they take them to do the grocery shopping and take them back, and they live by themselves, no young people around them, no family, nothing. ... I think it is so sad. So I would rather go back to Spain, where there is still all the family. All the generations get together and you live through the eyes of your grandkids, your children. I don’t know what life will bring me. I may die in Baltimore at 80 in one of these apartment buildings ... but if I can help it ...

Rocio: There are times when, yes, I want to return to Mexico.

Those times when you feel stepped on, I would like to disappear and fly away to be with our people, in our country. But I have two children and I can’t be moving from one place to another anymore. ... Also, if it’s hard for me to become accustomed to a new place, I feel it would be traumatic for my children. So given all of that, yes, I think I will stay a good long time here in Baltimore.

There is room for everybody here.

A Nifty Business for Third Generation

By Anne Haddad

When Gary Chin Wah was a child, he saw an old newspaper clipping about his Aunt

Chinese hand laundries did not, Gary Wah says. Dry cleaners were more likely to be

Pearl among the family photos and artifacts. She was the first Asian-American hired

dominated by tailors from Italy, Greece and other European countries.

by the District of Columbia government, for a clerical job in the police department

business, but Gary earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the

about it.

University of Maryland. He worked for a time for the federal Defense Investigative

That was an indication of how difficult it was for Asians to get hired when they immigrated in the late 1800s and early 1900s—even those who were born here, such as Pearl Wah.

Service, a personnel-related office in the Department of Defense.

When he was 26, Gary Wah bought Mr. Nifty Cleaners, started by George Bluso in 1959. His father, Austin Wah, retired from his business in 1981 but goes to

“It wasn’t until the 1950s that an Asian could get employment in something that wasn’t a railroad, restaurant or laundry,” says Gary Wah, 46, who owns Mr.

photograph: Jefferson Jackson Steele

Gary’s father and uncle followed in their father’s footsteps and expanded that

in the 1950s. Hiring Asians was so unusual that the Washington Post ran a story

work every day for his son.

It’s a thriving business in a busy, eclectic neighborhood. The neighborhood is

Nifty Cleaners at 3223 Greenmount Ave. in Waverly. “They had to find some way

predominantly African-American, as is Wah’s staff. Wah notes the Italian immigrants

to make a living, so they opened up laundry services because they could do it

who own the restaurant across the street, the Korean immigrants who have the

cheaply.”

carryout business next door.

Typically, the whole family would work in the business, much like the multiple-

About 20 years ago, many Korean immigrants began operating dry cleaners,

earner approach that immigrant families from many countries use to get ahead

Wah says, possibly because few other Americans wanted to do it. But dry-cleaning

quickly.

businesses aren’t a growth industry anymore. In this age of casual dress at work,

“My grandfather had a hand laundry on North Avenue,” says Wah, who bought his business from an Italian-American in 1983 and employs 21 people

and working from home, fewer suits are walking in.

“Dry-cleaning volume has dropped,” Wah says. You wouldn’t know it from a

who move never-ending, automated loops of suits, choir robes, uniforms and

visit to what many people simply call “Nifty Cleaners.” When Wah renovated the

gowns.

exterior recently, he put up retro pop-art that evokes the advertising of that era

Chin Foy Wah emigrated in the early 1900s from Canton, China. He started with a hand laundry and made the transition to dry cleaning, although a lot of

YOUR

when his business started—a blond, coifed June Cleaver type extolling the merits of Mr. Nifty. Very nifty, indeed.

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BEGINS

HERE. 13

Going on the offensive is considered offensive By

G ary

G ately

State Dels. Patrick L. McDonough (left) and Richard K. Impallaria (right) stirred it up in Annapolis this year.

They say they are fed up with the number of illegal immigrants who are charged with felonies. They say they have great concerns about waves of illegal immigration in the post-Sept. 11 era.

And they wanted to do something about it close to home.

Two Maryland legislators, Dels. Patrick L. McDonough and Richard K. Impallaria, both Baltimore County Republicans, took their crusade to crack down on illegal immigration to the state legislature this year. What followed were legislative fireworks extraordinaire and a public airing of an issue that has already been dealt with in neighboring states.

The two lawmakers introduced a flock of bills that would have created a task force to study the financial impact of illegal immigrants on Maryland's job market; required law-enforcement officers to detain and turn over to federal authorities anyone they determined to be an illegal immigrant; penalized people who knowingly lend their cars to illegal immigrants; and still another that would have prevented illegal immigrants from getting a Maryland driver's license in the first place.

Impallaria explains that concerns about illegal immigration were heightened by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the role of Lee Boyd Malvo, a teen-ager who was in the country illegally at the time he participated in the Washington-area sniper attacks. Those are examples, McDonough says, that are backed up by federal statistics that show some 400,000 illegal immigrants have been charged with felonies in the United States, including 66 accused of murder.

Their charges have resonated here: A Baltimore County police officer was killed in 2001 when his car collided with a vehicle driven by a drunken driver who was in the country illegally.

The proposed legislation, though, was met with opposition. In March, a shouting match and scuffle between the two delegates and advocates for immigrants' rights erupted outside a House of Delegates hearing room in Annapolis. The incident occurred in a hallway, and McDonough said he had raised his right arm to block a labor union director who had run toward him.

“I thought he would knock me over or something," McDonough said. “I really just wanted to stop him. To protect myself.”

Urbanite asked Impallaria and McDonough to talk about the bills – eventually killed in committee – and the reasoning behind their crusade.

Impallaria: “This is a new, burgeoning issue in the state of Maryland. We decided we really need to go on the offensive on this instead of just the defensive, to give law enforcement more power. All of this legislation that we put forward has nothing to do with legal immigration. We are 100 percent in

14

support of legal immigration. And we believe that the country was founded on the melting-pot belief that people from all different nations should come in. If you allow one group to come in illegally, you're taking away opportunities for people from other countries. It's just not fair to the rest of the world who are waiting in line. Most groups that support immigration do not support illegal immigration because they're waiting in line and waiting their turn to get here.

“If we're going to get serious about homeland security, then we need our law enforcement to be trained to look out for people who are here illegally. If you don't get a crackdown on illegal immigration coming into the country, you're not going to be able to get a control on the criminal element that's coming in with them, and you're not going to be able to get a control on the terrorists coming in with them. Thirty-three states this year passed legislation to crack down on illegal immigration – Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware are three of them. Now what Maryland is doing, Maryland is sending a message of laying out the welcome mat for illegals, saying we will reward you with instate tuition and a driver's license.

If you're in a bordering state cracking down on this, where are you going to go?

What we're saying is, this is sending a dangerous message because it's attracting even more people to the state of Maryland who are coming illegally. Illegals get workers’ compensation if neither they nor their employers paid a dime in.”

McDonough: “In 1990, there were 900,000 illegal immigrants in the United States, mostly on the West Coast and in border states like Arizona. Today, there are 10 [million] to 14 million, and that's clearly a revolutionary change. And they're in every state in the country, so that's something that people must understand. We're not dealing with this issue because there's been a slight change. There's been a revolutionary change, and it has a revolutionary impact on our country, on our system, health care, education, crime, job competition.

“We decided that we had a serious problem that we had to address. This year, we went on the offensive, and we created quite a stir, and it was the first inning of a nine-inning ball game. Almost every poll taken in America indicates that the people are on our side overwhelmingly. I think people are seriously concerned there are so many illegal immigrants in the country that they're becoming very visible. They're starting to have an impact on our lives. [Illegal immigration] is a violation of federal law, and it is a felony. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are a nation of legal immigrants. I view [a crackdown on illegal immigration] with a sense of absolute necessity. We are living in one of those defining moments in American history. Political leaders are ignoring the problem or playing politics and pandering to certain ethnic groups, and most Americans know this, and they're angry and they want action.”

We don’t just ask questions.

We explore the answers.

At NPR® News, coverage is as complete as you are curious. Go beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting you can rely on, so you know why things happen, not just that they happened. Tune to 88.1 every day to hear the latest from WYPR and NPR News.

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B e , n s e n h a t Germ int. ailroad mostly t Locust Po , Ohio R s t n a r a n immig ians, arrive ore tha 1,739 v m 4 a p d in r u d o e n Sca A rec ts mak e in six ns and migran 34,439. On ion, im 1882 n Austria n of 4 rst generat neratio nd-ge ’s populatio o c ng fi e s e or . Amo . and n im a lt ic a r B Firste y f an-Am the wa cent o 1890 40 per eans is Afric ssians lead oint or Ru cust P o L t Baltim s, Irish and a n pier n igratio amships.

Germa m im n a . ste ern builds yd Co d lo a L o r South il n a a d R n m r a O e B& hG astern e Nort arily E im r 1904 p to serv , s igrant t.

10 imm Locust Poin 9 , mass 6 6 d t r a o era of c e iv ’s r Re e r r a o , eans Baltim 1907 Europ e ends p o r u e ar in E r of th ak of w e r b t quarte u a O n . a n h ratio more t d-generation 1914 immig ans – e r on o im nd sec Balt a 0 t 0 s 0 r , fi re 200 About pulation – a ore o 0 Baltim p 2 in e 19 iv city’s ny arr rants.

Germa i immig z a N g s fleein 3,000. efugee ey number r h is Native e city’s Jew end th ck and swelling th ’s s r la a 0 b , w 3 e , 19 – by 0 whit e jobs 250,00 h of wartim . s t c a r c 5 sear y ore att in 194 a stud Baltim n migrants in n 1 million ing to s a d a h 0 r t ic o 4 . r e c s e r 9 c 1 mo Am passe ore, a tion to Baltim Act of 1965 in e popula v li ion ration alities migrat nation ederal Immig im e f e r o h e t f v f a wa .

Ninety ed after the ning o oreans here t 5 c in u 6 g d e 9 n b 1 t K co a h t d ore’s of Sou founde iety is f thousands e Baltim y c v r o e S s n ded to Korea bring tens o ,000 b is foun rs about 20 l il h w c t a a e 1971 r e t th b ino Ou h num ed Lat lation, whic s a B pu tion Educa Hispanic po nly 3 g prise o ltimore 0 in 8 m o c 19 ) grow rs 3,467 10 Ba ents (2 ,014. Six of or newcome id 2000. s e r f n 6 r ina, ources n of 73 ign-bo ’s fore ’s populatio American. S , Mexico, Ch e r o im Balt orea e city re Africant of th aica, K s. a 1990 percen s (435,768) obago, Jam d Philippine t T n n a d e n e into a in resid ooding rinidad , India, Ukra fl T e in d g e b any inclu 970s, , Germ e the 1 viet Union. c Nigeria in s ase ling in of So n incre s, trick he collapse a w , e 0 J 0 n t ,0 ind Russia e area after arly 30 gs far beh e n is r la n o 1991 Baltim pulatio . But the city nt of the orn po b erce 990 n ig an 5 p ince 1 fore s h t ’s t e n s r s e o c Baltim than 25 per number is le e 0 r he 0 o (T 0 m . f e 2 o l rat a n io t t of e. the na 51,154.) percen past decad t 0 6 6 t f a e h es total o ports t arrived in th o, Korea, W e r y d u s city’s Mexic tion st sident ounda ign-born re people from .

F ll e b e A ria g or ore’s f wth is amon ion and Nige im lt a 2002 B n ro apid g oviet U Most r he former S ,t Indies

16

the first great era of mass migration (1820-1920) saw an explosion of printed material from advertisements to handsome decorated wallets to carry immigration papers.

ARRIVAL PIER

Photo co urtesy o f Marylan d depar no tment, E ch Pratt rary Free Lib

MARkING A MILESTONE IN THE HISTORY Of IMMIGRATION,

PAVILION LIBERTY GARDEN

Locust Point, home of Fort McHenry, will soon become the site of a major monument.

H U LL S T R EET

the project is called immigration Heritage gateway Park. when the complex is completed, the south Baltimore neighborhood—once the port of entry for as many as 2 million immigrants—will have gained a significant new attraction for national and international tourists. in a city whose descendants hail from Africa, Asia, France, England, germany, ireland, Poland, italy, russia and greece, among others, a project to honor the courage and memory of those whose first steps in the united States were on a Locust Point dock is lofty, ambitious and long-overdue. For several years during the “great wave” of immigration, the piers at Locust Point were the country’s second-ranking port for immigrants, after new York City. But for the European migrants arriving here, it was Fort McHenry, rather than the Statue of Liberty, that welcomed them to their new home. the visionary behind the idea—more than a decade in the making—is local businessman ron Zimmerman. He created the Baltimore immigration Project, a nonprofit group that joins architects, historians, businesspeople and historic and heritage tourism groups.

GATEWAY TO BALTIMORE’S PAST

with a mix of minds such as these, ideas quickly turn to action. the group is raising funds to match a $300,000 challenge grant made by Struever Bros.

Eccles & rouse inc. to jump-start the project. Bill Struever, chief executive officer, can trace his family’s Baltimore beginnings to Broadway Pier in Fells Point, an earlier immigration port, during the Haitian slave revolt in 1790.

Project officials hope to install a gateway and garden at recreation Pier to tell Fells Point’s story as an immigration depot during the schooner era.

A newly created Dreamland, the historic ferry that transported immigrants between Locust Point and Fells Point, will allow tourists to re-create the experience of their forefathers.

Construction of the initial phase is under way in Locust Point. Liberty garden, a landscaped sculpture plaza, will pay homage to the myriad aspirations of millions of adventurous newcomers. twenty-one concentric concrete discs will direct the eye to a conical light positioned where

Study model of pavilion and Liberty Garden

thousands of immigrants took their first ferry to Broadway Pier in Fells Point.

Set to open formally next year, Liberty garden will include a reflecting pool and a memorial wall inscribed with immigrants’ names. As with Ellis island, it is expected that many Americans will make a pilgrimage to the spot where their descendants first reached u.S. soil. on a site overlooking Liberty garden and the waterfront promenade at tide Point, a contemporary glass pavilion likely will be their first stop. Judging from the plans, it’s bound to be a compelling one. in the pavilion, an orientation exhibition documenting the history of immigration in the city will feature an online database listing Baltimore immigrants and information about their lives. the great waves of immigration through Locust Point, beginning in 1868 and ending with the outbreak of world war i in 1914, are being commemorated in an interactive digital display that will show an electronic re-creation of Locust Point’s original immigration station—produced by the university of Maryland, Baltimore County’s imaging research center.

Existing Tide Point site

Besides extensive exhibits, the pavilion will be used by u.S. Citizenship and immigration Services to swear in new citizens. the project is in the works for the next two years. while it is being built, visitors to Locust Point’s north shore can try to spy the remnants of several 1904 immigration piers. the wood pilings are still visible.

donations can be made to the Baltimore immigration Project, 812 S. Ann St., Baltimore, 21231. the project is looking for people who arrived in Baltimore to tell their oral histories. Contact Melanie Shell-weiss at 410-516-7552 or shellweiss@jhu.edu.

17 19

these churches, formed by the oppression in their past, and with the hope that these institutions would propel them forward.

“It just so happened that many of [these incredible stories] are in the black community,” Steinhauer says. “Maybe because they’re mostly untold stories. This was an immigrant group that came here not because it was a land of opportunity, but because they were in chains.”

The houses of worship, she says, come to life for her. As she researches the histories, movies start playing in her head.

By Anne Haddad

photography: Helen Sampson

At first, it was the architecture that beckoned Rina Steinhauer to what she calls a treasure chest of 19th-century houses of worship in Baltimore.

But she really got hooked by the stirring human dramas that she divined while reading between the lines of the archives and historical narratives. Every building had a story to tell her.

Steinhauer moved to the city in 1980 from New York as an art-history major at Goucher College. Naturally, she was drawn to the neoclassic and Greek revival, and even “quirky Victorian” churches and synagogues. In all the neighborhoods where she lived, it seemed a walk in any direction led to at least one.

Some of the churches left their doors unlocked, and she took these opportunities to go inside. Once, she found an open door and stumbled upon what could only have been the ropes for the church bells. So she rang them.

“It was irresistible,” she says.

Doors opened in more churches and temples, and congregations gave her access to their archives and stories about immigrants whose sweat and passion raised these buildings – sometimes just years after arriving from Lithuania, Russia, Germany and other lands, even from bondage in this country, in the case of freed African-American slaves.

Whatever their challenges, they built a place to pray.

“Often, they didn’t have a pot to piss in, but within a couple of years of getting here, they would lay down a cornerstone somewhere and build a church or a synagogue – even if it meant using ballast bricks from ships in the harbor or chipping off the mortar and scrubbing bricks from demolished buildings,” says Steinhauer, a Bolton Hill resident.

She decided someone needed to catalog this. She made time between jobs in medical publishing, free-lancing, owning city properties and helping her husband with his technology business. She researched further, reading slave narratives archived on the University of North Carolina Web site.

So far, she has cataloged more than 170 historic Baltimore houses of worship.

18

French C onnection One of her earliest discoveries was St. Mary’s Seminary Chapel (1808) – still standing at 600 N. Paca St., built by refugee French priests from the order of St. Sulpice. They eagerly accepted an invitation from Bishop John Carroll in Maryland to start the first Roman Catholic seminary in the United States. Leaving 1790s France was a no-brainer; some of their brothers were being marched up to the guillotine, Steinhauer notes.

Their ministry included Baltimore’s upper-class, French-speaking Haitians, who fled upheaval in their country and found themselves an underclass in Baltimore because of their dark skin. Ironically, they had owned slaves in Haiti and brought them along.

I mmigrants – Voluntary an d I n v oluntary Use “immigrant” and “church” in the same sentence, and many people will think of Europeans. But African slaves and their descendants started churches with the same brand of spiritual motivation as the Irish, German and Jewish immigrants who arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries. They created their communities around

P aying C ash f or a Di v ine R ight The incentive that fuels Steinhauer to catalog these stories starts flowing when she uncovers little-known heroes such as Noah Davis. This freed slave from Virginia published his autobiography in Baltimore and started the Saratoga Street African Baptist Church, which once occupied the corner at Calvert.

His dual calling took him from city to city to preach the gospel and raise the thousands of dollars he needed to purchase freedom for himself, his wife and seven of his nine children, one by one. It took him more than 12 years.

Davis believed any human had a divine right to freedom, but faced the reality that he had to raise cash to purchase it. His memoir is written as an appeal to donors.

Such narratives to raise emancipation funds were not uncommon. Steinhauer reasons from reading them that most of the freed slaves tried to strike a balance between their right to freedom and not appearing to be too complaining, so as not to alienate potential white patrons.

(To read Noah Davis’s autobiography and other narratives of slaves and free African-Americans, visit the University of North Carolina Web site Documenting the American South: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/neh.html.)

S un d ay in the P ar k with Know - N othings Blacks were not the only ones who faced discrimination. The German members of Zion Lutheran Church, built in 1807 near City Hall, faced the hostile antiimmigration group called the Know-Nothing Party.

“In order to provoke an encounter with these xenophobic groups, the congregation, led by their activist minister, went out with picnic baskets on a Sunday [to a park]. They went there knowing that they might provoke these groups.

And, of course, they got their asses kicked,” Steinhauer says.

It was not written that way in the church history, she concedes. It was more like “men were bloodied.”

Foretelling C i v il Disobe d ience Steinhauer admits she freely interprets these archives, but that’s because they come alive for her. She reads into these obscure revolts a foretelling of the acts of civil disobedience in the 20th century. She connects the dots to the current state of affairs in a city where poverty and social inequity are no less a concern than to the immigrants and freed slaves of the 1800s.

“These were the seeds of the civil rights movement,” Steinhauer says. “It’s not like the movement sprang out of nowhere. These people had been at this for 200 years. It was a tradition of activism in these African-American communities to raise funds for emancipation … and educate their own.”

ENCOUNTER:

R I N A S T E I N H A U E R

(continued from page 7)

dock when a small sable-and-cream pigeon landed on the deck railing. This was not unusual as birds frequently landed on the railing, took a quick look around, and flew off. But this one didn’t scoot. Instead, it edged closer until it was perched directly opposite my knees.

And then it did the unimaginable: It jumped onto my knee and wobbled into my lap. For the next few hours, I held it against my chest, stroking its head while it dozed. When I went inside, it threw itself against the screen door until I returned. Back on the deck, I scooped it up and played with it like a kitten.

At midnight, we bid the bird goodnight. For hours, he paced the deck and pecked at the door. In the morning, Primo, as I called him, was gone.

t

E V E R Y M A N

T H E A T R E Box Office: 410-752-2208 1727 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Tickets available online at www.everymantheatre.org

Based on Jacques Brel’s Lyrics and Commentary Music by Jacques Brel

May 21–June 20, 2004 Sneak Previews May 19 & 20 Tuesdays through Sundays Ticket Prices: $15–$30 Production Conception, English Lyrics and Additional Material by Eric Blau and Mort Shuman

Directed by Donald Hicken Musical Direction by James R. Fitzpatrick Sponsored by: Clockwise from top: Sally Martin, Dan Manning, Amanda Johnson and Christopher Bloch. Photo by Stan Barouh

Today, an iridescent white egg has appeared next to the pansy pot in my back yard. It’s about the size of a quail egg, maybe a bit larger, so I think it’s safe to assume that Bea laid it. Why it is on the brick patio and not up in their cubbyhole I cannot say (could the Rival have evil dealings here?). But certainly, given a few more days of solicitous observation, I hope to figure it out.

ttt

BLUE SKY MORNING

On a blue sky morning a young cop pedals by on his racing bike (look ma no hands), executes a wheelie as he circles Camden Yards, swoops up Sharp Street balancing his breakfast on the shining handlebars, gun in holster, planted in his narrow seat he pedals by the sleeping men stretched heavy on the pavement, their placards are their pillows.

Lying curbside, they are the flowers in our urban landscape.

— Liz Moser

©2004

BALTIMORE BELIEVE

19

How Leini Landed in America F iction by

T

R afael

To kick off Urbanite Issue # 3, Author Rafael Alvarez will read “How Leini Landed in America” at Minas Gallery, 815 W. 36th St. in Hampden at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 23.

Afterward, Alvarez will sign copies of his fiction anthology, Orlo and Leini.

wo ships passing.

And a heart able to love only after it has broken.

Two times seven times seventy from the time Leini put two and two together above the diner where she lived at the end of Clinton Street.

From that moment, through the rest of her long and troubled life.

❆

Leini’s father was a seaman. Both of her grandfathers were seamen.

And she also left Greece for the sea, trundling up the gangway of a bucket bound for America with a promise at her back: “Before you know it, we will be there with you . . .”

A child of 9 entrusted to a mate on a freighter, a man from her family’s village who had promised to look after the girl until she was claimed on the other side of the world.

Her mother told her how lucky she was and her father told her she didn’t know how lucky she was and her younger brothers and sisters bawled like babies as the smartest girl ever born on the island of Samos was shipped to America like fresh linen tied with a string.

“Before you know it,” Mama shouted from the edge of the pier.

Her Papa waved: “Grigora!”

And they meant it.

Somewhere in the North Atlantic about a week later, Leini was reading a book in her bunk as a ship from Pratt Street in Baltimore crossed the freighter’s bow.

In the hold of the ship bound for Greece, entombed in wooden packing crates stuffed with old newspapers and hay, lay the fee paid to deliver the girl to a barren couple who ran a working man’s lunchroom where Clinton Street met the Baltimore harbor.

Four years would pass before Leini discovered just how lucky she was.

❆

20

A lvare z

Leini took the back stairs from the second floor where she lived with Mr. and Mrs. Ralph, rushing down to the diner as though falling out of a tree, alive with a serrated knowledge that would take a slice out of everything she did for as long as she lived.

She tumbled at the bottom of the steps, jumped up and lurched into the diner at closing time on a Friday afternoon in late March of 1922, a slip of pink paper in her trembling hand.

Mrs. Ralph looked up from counting receipts at the counter.

“What?”

The 13-year-old smashed a sugar bowl on the floor and Mrs. Ralph jumped.

“You got me cheap!” Leini screamed, holding up the paper.

Mrs. Ralph squinted at the thin sheaf as Leini let go of it,

watched it waft like a dying kite from the girl’s hand to the pile of sugar and shards on the hard tiles at her feet.

It was an invoice and Leini had found it in a tin of loose buttons, spools and bobbins, mixed in with purchase orders and yellowed proof of common business.

Mrs. Ralph walked toward her: “What?”

Leini spat on the floor and shrieked.

“ONLY 14?”

Mrs. Ralph cried out for her husband but he was out back at the butchering stump and could not hear her.

Leini stood over the spilled sugar in her school skirt and urinated through her underpants. She peed and then she bled, but she did not cry.

“They didn’t make you throw in a couple of radios?”

“Eleini,” said Mrs. Ralph, taking a step forward and two back when she saw the blood. “Thisavros … honey pie.”

Leini wiped herself with a rag from the table next to her but the flow was strong. She stepped out of her panties as the receipt disintegrated in a puddle of sugar and urine and blood from the first period of a girl who’d just found out she’d been bartered for 14 sewing machines.

“Fourteen what?” asked Mrs. Ralph, forgetting and Leini reared to nail her with the filthy rag, stopping short and throwing it instead at a cheap watercolor of a Greek fishing village on the wall. Then she ran upstairs, leaving Mrs. Ralph bewildered until she remembered.

Lugging a bucket from behind the counter, she dragged it to the spot where Leini had stood, dropped to her swollen knees and began to scrub, her tears dissolving the last fibers of the pink invoice that Leini’s piss and blood had not.

❆

Leini was 9 when she landed in Baltimore. Four years older when she found the receipt in the button tin. Another four passed before she got to know the young and handsome junkman who would help stitch her heart back together, learned who he was beyond the bowl of stew and glass of beer he ordered at the end of the workday.

He told her to mend her heart with the buttons from the tin.

And then stood with her as it broke into smaller and smaller pieces with each passing year.

The week after they found each other, Orlo sat across from Leini at his kitchen table in the Salvage House, not a quarter-mile from the diner, on the other side of the street where they used to build wooden ships.

To get there, she’d told the first of many lies.

He watched as this kid who’d learned all of her tricks from books took a pair of pinking shears from Mrs. Ralph’s button tin and cut a curl of his thick blond hair.

Orlo was 29 years old, an orphan himself and a veteran of the

Great War, a likable man who’d shared a trench in France with Abe Sherman, and he felt a little silly when Leini passed him the scissors to cut a lock of her hair.

But he did not feel silly at all as the sharp edges came together to cut a soft and heavy shock of it, as black as an olive.

Mixing the fibers in a small clay dish, the kind the Spaniards at Garayoa’s Café Espanol used to serve tapas, Leini set a match to the hair, holding a hand to her lips – “Goodness!” – as the flames leapt up, died and left a powder of ash.

At the sink, Leini used her thumbs to rub the ash into pigs feet marinating in a shallow pan filled with vinegar and peppercorns and thick slices of carrot, the natural gelatin around the knuckles greasing the pan when she slipped it in the oven.

It was the first cooking she’d done for anyone except the people who came into the diner to pay for the privilege.

“When they’re done,” she laughed, every bit of 17, “we’ll eat them and it will make us married.”

Orlo and Leini would never be married, but every time it was her turn to prepare their sacrament – good in soups, better in stews, smoked and pickled and a sweetener for tomato sauce – her lover would marvel and ask where she’d learned the latest trick.

“We will be married,” he said, drawing her near. “When I roast a lamb in the back yard the way your people do and we sprinkle powdered sugar over the heart and eat it in front of everyone we know.”

to the yard. “Soak in a hot tub and later on we’ll eat and listen to the radio.”

[Of course it wasn’t the right time to slaughter a pig. That was autumn work, when the leaves changed and the Italians made wine in their basements. But a farmer Mr. Ralph knew out the road wanted to unload a hog cheap and there were a few nickels to be made. The pig might not have been fat enough, but the air was still cool enough, not yet spring.]

Upstairs, Leini lay on her bed, trying to conjure her mother’s face but seeing only pieces of people she thought she knew. A breeze blew the curtains and carried the voice of Leini’s best friend into the room.

Francesca was talking to Mr. Ralph in the back yard as the colored man who worked for the Greek ladled boiling water over the pig’s hide to loosen the bristles, scraping them away with a razor.

Willie Jones had taught Mr. Ralph a hundred and one goodeatin’ tricks with parts of the pig that the average American tossed; taught him how to make trotters the way his grandmother cooked them out in Turners Station and Mr. Ralph duplicated the delicacy so beautifully that he had black folks coming to his back door from all over East Baltimore.

“There’s a carnival tonight,” said Francesca.

“Is there?” said Mr. Ralph, straining as he and Willie hoisted the carcass over a thick limb of the chestnut tree that shaded the stump and a concrete tub with a hose in it.

“Yes,” said Francesca. “At the Polish church.”

“St. Casimir?” asked Mr. Ralph and in his voice Leini heard something different.

It was crass, but not as vulgar as the math would suggest: one “St. Stan’s.” bright, happy girl in exchange for 14 American sewing machines.

He knows, thought Leini, getting up to look out the window, Leini’s parents were going to join her, believed they would make a wondering what Mrs. Ralph had told him. He knows that I know new life for the family in Baltimore with Leini as the beacon before and he seems OK about it. them.

Kneeling at the sill, she saw Francesca holding her ridiculous Mr. and Mrs. Ralph were not chosen carelessly. They were to duck, the one that ate linguini out of a bowl and helped the poorbe Leini’s grandparents in the New World, quite different from sighted girl cross the street. She listened for the usual banter becoming parents by default as between her friend and Mr. the months passed with no word Ralph: how one day he was from Greece, their strictures at going to grab that duck and odds with a betrayed kid’s desire roast it like the Chinese for freedom. people do.

The deal had been designed But Mr. Ralph wasn’t to benefit everyone. making jokes. He just sounded “Only 14?” happy, working hard and “You don’t know,” wept Mrs. chatting with Francesca. And he Ralph, bending down with a rag. wasn’t saying no.

“You just don’t know.”

Since Leini had left Greece, You get hung up here for a the only places she was allowed moment, over there for a decade; to go alone were church and a pebble in your shoe one day and school and sometimes the earthquakes across the sea the library, the Greeks in America next. strict beyond measure to prove Mr. Ralph came in from themselves as Greek as the butchering a pig in the back yard. people they had left behind.

Leini Leftafkis behind Ralph’s Lunch Room at the foot of Clinton Street, March 1922.

He’d just taken out the liver and “Sure, Frannie,” said Mr. (art by Michelle Waters) carried it in a bucket. Sticking Ralph, taking off his apron. his head into the dining room, he “You see if she wants to go.” found his wife crying into a puddle of slop.

Leini jumped up from the sill. She was going to ride the rides.

“What?” he asked.

She needed to clean herself.

“She knows,” said Mrs. Ralph, groaning as she stood, aches Some 500 years before the coming of the Christ, the Greeks throbbing in her knees. layered lint around small pieces of wood to make the first tampon.

“Good,” said Mr. Ralph, walking toward her. “She ought to Others were made from wool, paper, husks from cobs of corn. Sea know.” sponge, parchment and cotton.

Mr. Ralph took the bucket and rag from his wife and told her Leini wondered what her neighbors back home were making on he was going to make liver and onions tonight – make it the way she those sewing machines. liked it still warm from the hog, with plenty of onions – and that she Pillows stuffed with feathers? should take it easy.

Baby clothes?

“It’s the wrong time of year to be cutting up a pig,” she said, Sandbags for the army? leaning against the counter.

She left her room to ask Mrs. Ralph to help her get ready to go Take a bath, he told her, touching her shoulder on his way back out and have some fun.

❆

21

By Charles Camp

Adding Flavors to the Melting Pot It always comes down to food.

displays security-camera views, the grill cook is front and center in a narrow, diner-shaped room, and more fun to watch as well.

Restaurants hold a special place for recent immigrants and

the communities they are building in Baltimore, providing comfort for the bodies and salve for the souls of those living in a place markedly unfamiliar. Like the Irish, Italians, Chinese and Greeks before them, the newly arrived Dominican, Korean, Mexican, Nigerian and Vietnamese immigrants gather in local eateries from Broadway to Greenmount Avenue that, for many, are their version of home cooking.

A look inside many storefront restaurants shows a glimpse of faraway cultures: To Fola Olumide, a local Nigerian-American entrepreneur and community leader, Olangela’s on Greenmount Avenue sells the real deal of her culture’s flavors. Flor Guisti, a social worker in Baltimore’s Hispanic communities, enjoys Los Mariachis, a Mexican eatery on Eastern Avenue.

With signs the colors of national flags, names that evoke exotic places and food intended to connect cultures, restaurants are vivid announcements. More than a halfcentury ago, a hundred feet of storefront on Park Avenue downtown became Baltimore’s Chinatown. Still today, most Baltimoreans might know roughly where to find Greektown, but the blue-and-white facade of Ikaros Restaurant – like the visibly arresting bow of a large ship – makes it easy to spot.

Is Ikaros, or Olangela’s, or Saigon Remembered, the (relatively) new Vietnamese restaurant on York Road, “authentic”? If food is the only thing that matters, perhaps it’s better to argue relative merits and campaign for personal favorites. But food is never the only criterion. Like good food, real hospitality cannot be faked. When immigrant communities use food to announce their presence and put out a welcome mat, something truly genuine and authentically American occurs.

The span of Broadway from Lombard Street to the Broadway Market is a good example, providing increasingly visible evidence of Baltimore’s growing Hispanic communities – the plural required to accommodate the Dominican, Ecuadorian, Mexican and Guatemalan businesses that have sprung up in the past 10 years and jostle for position on the east side of the street.

Handbills pasted on streetlight posts are written in Spanish; Latin music spills onto the sidewalk from narrow shops that advertise, among a multitude of products and services, the means to send wages earned in Baltimore to families in Mexico and points south.

The many bars, restaurants, music shops and botanicas offer points of entry for Baltimoreans interested in exploring the tastes and sounds of these cultures, but some of the city’s most interesting Hispanic food might be served farther east, at the far edge of Highlandtown.

photography: Marshall Clarke

22

La Serenita ii cook José torretera

La Sirenita II and Los Mariachis are little more than a mile apart, but the food they serve is far removed from the Tex-Mex and central Mexican offerings at the more than 75 Baltimore-area establishments that refer to themselves as Mexican restaurants. La Sirenita, which means “the mermaid,” made its debut in Hyattsville before opening branches on Crain Highway in Glen Burnie and on Baltimore’s Eastern Avenue. The food Javier and Eloisa Guzman serve derives from Puebla – a town in southeastern Mexico roughly equidistant from Mexico City and Veracruz.

So close to the Gulf of Mexico, fish and shrimp are featured at La Sirenita, but goat, beef tongue and sausage also are represented in a broad menu of soups, chilaqiles and huaraches – chewy shoe-shaped flour tortillas piled with meat, queso blanca (white cheese) and lettuce.

Los Primos

Los Primos, on the west side of Fells Point’s Hispanic “strip,” will not be mistaken for a Mexican restaurant. Cindy Fickes’s recommendation is a good one: beer by the bottle and a steam table with six varieties of stewed chicken, pork and beef – a fast-food/soul-food eatery frequented by Dominicans, whose community in Baltimore is one of the fastest-growing. The home favorite is oroz con guandollas – a full-flavored rice with beans, celery, lentils and small green peas (guandollas). Pollo guisado, stewed chicken with beans and rice, is hearty no-frills food that represents home cooking to local Dominicans. Los Primos’ location and food make it a Fells Point crossroads and conversation hub.

Los Mariachis

The huaraches are bigger at Los Mariachis and the chilaquiles – shredded corn tortillas drenched with salsa verde (green) or rojo (red) – are a little spicier, though neither Pueblan restaurant serves food with the prominent chile spice mixture most Americans associate with Mexican food. Social worker Guisti’s recommendation is an interesting choice because it identifies an often-misunderstood subcategory of ethnic restaurants. Los Mariachis is spare and sparsely furnished – a site for fast eating (as opposed to fast food) where one is more likely to see individuals or couples at the small tables rather than families and large groups, such as Mexican workers and neighborhood residents eating the very good but unadorned food quickly between jobs and other commitments.

While it may not be a place where one is likely to spend the evening, it does have better television programming: better Mexican soap operas than those that run on cable favorite UniVision. At La Sirenita, where the television

La Cazuela

La Cazuela, just around the corner on Eastern Avenue, is an Ecuadorian eatery that is more restaurant than pitstop or hangout. Hominy, a staple food in home Ecuadorian cooking, is in evidence, as is an abundance of fish and shrimp dishes. But the weekends-only caldo de bagre (catfish soup) is the truest taste of home – stew-like, spicy and warming.

Like La Cazuela’s insistence on calling its food Ecuatorian, the dining room is distinctively appointed. The restaurant makes an effort to find common ground between Ecuadorian and American tastes. But, as Jose Ruiz from the Mayor’s Office suggests, it is where Ecuadorian families in Baltimore go to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and a good – if upscale – place to experience Ecuadorian cooking.

nam Kang

Korean restaurants commonly provide an unadvertised service to the large numbers of Korean businessmen and other short-term visitors to Baltimore: a free ride. At Nam Kang, calling ahead can secure transportation from a downtown hotel and authentic Korean food far from the beautiful river for which the restaurant is named. The menu for the midtown restaurant is pan-Asian, but proprietor and cook Sang Sun Lee sees Nam Kang as a refuge for homesick Koreans and Korean-Americans. These customers favor two of the menu’s 14 “hot pots”: kim chi jigue (pork stew with tofu and vegetables) and soon doo boo jigae, which combines squid, shrimp, clams and soft tofu with vegetables in a spicy stew. Kimchi, a distinctive vegetable dish with a fermented cabbage base, is Korea’s national food. With other favorites, it is well-represented here, with a twist.

When waitresses take orders for Korean food to the kitchen, Mr. Lee solicits a customer profile, easing off the pepper for American eaters, putting pedal to the metal for Korean diners.

olangelas owner Bessey ikem

Olangelas is a composite of proprietor Bessey Ikem’s daughters’ names – a symbol of the homey qualities in Baltimore’s newest Nigerian restaurant. Though more

Nigerian immigrants have settled in the Randallstown area, Olangelas is a frequent stop along Greenmount Avenue for cabdrivers and workers who seek to broaden the community’s presence in the local economy. A community center, Olangelas is large enough to accommodate dances and wedding receptions. Pounded yam – a symbol of unity between Nigeria’s Yoruba and Ebo peoples – is essential here: smooth and soft, it takes on the flavors of soups and stews when dipped, and provides a pusher for rice and meat.

Goat is a prime ingredient for stew and for pepper soup, whose spiciness has the medicinal benefi t of clearing sinuses.

Saigon remembered owner/chef trang thi thu nguyen

Trang Thi Thu Nguyen, owner and chef of Saigon Remembered, is clearly in the community identity business.

The restaurant, across the street from the Senator Theatre, owes its success perhaps more to moviegoers than an immigrant community, but it does not venture far from Vietnamese home cooking. For Nguyen, the traditions Saigon Remembered extends are as much in the way food is served as in the lemon grass, dry cucumber and other distinctive food from which it’s made. Her Vietnamese customers favor crispy fried flounder, shrimp-filled crepes and especially Chef’s Rolls, important enough for a separate menu. For these, ingredients vary from vegetables and tofu to meat and cilantro, with homemade peanut sauce and nuoc mam, a spicy fish sauce.

Olangelas and Saigon Remembered are at either end of a Greenmount/York Road corridor that offers Asian venues among a great number of African/African-American/ Caribbean/Southern/New York restaurants. Distinctive food traditions as widespread and well-rooted as these do not

lose their character when combined with or placed alongside another. More than 30 eateries on this road sell chicken wings. No two are alike, and they are not “trending” toward a multiethnic compromise. The competition is commercial, but it is just as clearly cultural.

For these and other restaurants that represent and serve Baltimore’s recent immigrant communities, the pull toward modifying food to American tastes is strong and palpable. Many “American” eaters outside these communities pin the notion of authenticity to an opposing impulse, valuing places where accommodation is less visible or absent altogether. But restaurants are neither embassies nor outposts. Like Mr. Lee’s Korean spice calculations, the eateries that survive and succeed are those that can shift from immigrant gathering spot to ethnic restaurant, native language to English, in a moment. The value we place on the food introduced by immigrants into the American marketplace is calculated in dollars that help newcomers gain an economic and social footing, but also in the vague but important calculus that derives welcoming from curiosity, respect from close encounter.

La Cazuela: 1718 Eastern Ave. Los Mariachis: 2227 Eastern Ave. Nam Kang: 2126 Maryland Ave. Olangelas: 2637 greenmount Ave. Los Primos: 232 S. Broadway Saigon Remembered: 5857 York road La Sirenita: 3928 Eastern Ave.

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22 24

A BALTIMORE TREASURE IS REBORN Authentic European-style market, one-of-a-kind shops, unique restaurants and cafes... adjacent to the historic Senator Theatre NOW OPEN CERIELLO FINE FOODS Italian specialty shop

BONBON'S ICE CREAM Featuring local favorite, Moxley’s ice cream

GRAND CRU Wine shop and tasting bar

Ryan's Daughter Irish pub and restaurant Located at the intersection of York Road and Belvedere Avenue, just steps away from the Historic Senator Theatre For more information call 443-573-4000 www.belvederesquare.com

DEVELOPED BY:

Simply Noted • Taste (coming soon) • Techlab Photo Imaging • Tuesday Morning • United Optical • Atwater’s

Egyptian Pizza • Grand Cru • Greg’s Bagels • Lynne Brick’s Women’s Health and Fitness Club • Matava Too • The Medicine Shoppe • Raw Sugar • Ryan’s Daughter •

• Bonbon’s Ice Cream • The Dutch Connection • Ikan Seafood • Louise's Bakery • Neopol Savory Smokery • The Peanut Shoppe • Planet Produce

• Belvedere Cleaners • Bratt Decor • Ceriello Fine Foods • Cloud 9 Clothing (coming soon) • Earth’s Essence •

cartoon by Hiroyuki Arai, age 19

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25 23

Suddenly, everything’s in walking distance.

Purchase a $3.50 Day Pass good for Local Buses, Light Rail & Metro Subway and make sightseeing in Baltimore even easier. And don’t forget a weekday trip to Washington, D.C. on MARC Train. For more information, pick up an MTA Visitors Ride Guide at your hotel, call 1-866-RIDE-MTA or visit www.mtamaryland.com for current schedules and fares.

Guías de información en español disponibles. Llame por su copia.

For more information, call 1-866-RIDE-MTA, 410-539-5000 or visit www.mtamaryland.com.

Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., Governor • Robert L. Flanagan, Secretary of Transportation • Robert L. Smith, MTA Administrator

26

Urbanite Café, which you enter through our website

http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com is a gathering place to take a fresh look at the urban experience with constructive conversation and creative thinking. We ask questions and invite your answers, hoping to generate new ideas to solve our collective problems.

Here are a few of our favorite responses from last month’s question:

Tell us your immigration story.

Teen’s Harrowing Journey “I am from El Salvador and I left my home when I was 15. I wanted a better education and my father, who was a retired mail carrier, wouldn’t pay for me to continue going to school. I had four brothers and sisters.

“My sister had already come to Baltimore and she told me to come. She wanted to have someone here from the family. She paid the money for me to leave and come here. I thought I’d be able to help my mother and my family by coming over here and getting a better education. I wanted to be an accountant. Or a lawyer. I wanted to get out of poverty.

“I remember leaving home. I thought I was coming for two years, so I was strong when I left. I was positive. We drove in cars and in buses to the border with Mexico, and then it got hard when I got to Mexico.

“It was when I started to feel what it was going to be like.

That happened late one night, when we hadn’t eaten at all. A truck with food was coming, but it hadn’t gotten there yet. We were in a group of 106 when we came from El Salvador. There were about 30 women and the rest were men. The men were staying outside and we were in a room of an abandoned house where there were a total of about 400 people there.

“The people in charge had contact with the authorities, so they were checking on when would be the right time to leave and pass over the border. That’s the most thing they care about ... if the right person is not at the border, then you will get sent back and they (the coyotes) will have to spend more money in getting you here.

“We got to a place and we stayed there for two days and we could see the border of Mexico and Guatemala. We got walking and went to a place in the country and there was a big truck, a fuel truck ... and we were told to go underneath where there was a hole and you entered up into the truck and there were seats inside.

“That’s how we crossed the border into Mexico. We rode for 24 hours in that truck. A lot of the girls got ... stomach problems, but I didn’t. I was kind of breathing slowly so you didn’t use too much air. Inside the truck it was kind of closed. It was hot.

“There was a compartment in the roof to open and there was air, but when we crossed the checkpoints, they had to close the air vent. We were told to be quiet. We breathed very quietly.

“I remember there was a man who came from the back of the truck and he was from Guatemala. He came and sat with me. I said, ‘Senor ...’ and he was so pale. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t stand it.’ He didn’t have much air in the back. He said if he didn’t get through this time, he wouldn’t come again.

“Then we got to a big house. There were 400 people there.

We stayed there for 14 days. Sometimes if an airplane or helicopter came over, we had to hide.

“After 14 days there, we were put in buses and taught the national anthem of Mexico. So if we were caught, we could tell them we were from Mexico. I still remember those words and that song.

“From there, we went for maybe one day in the bus and one night, we were asked to cross some woods. We had to go walking and there is no trail, you have to make it through the woods.

After that, we got into a car and were taken to a street and then we were told, ‘Get out of the car!’ We had to jump the fence. I did that. We got in a pickup and he drove us maybe two blocks.

And then after two blocks, he said, ‘Get out!’ We got out and I couldn’t jump the fence. I saw a truck coming, and I hid in the grass and then I jumped the fence.

“We went into another woods. There, we met a man, he was dressed all in white. And he had long gray hair. They told us, ‘You are going to follow that man.’ So we did. There were 50 of us. We made a line and started to follow that man. And we were joking, saying, ‘We may be following the devil here.’ We were laughing, but we were nervous. We followed him into the woods. I was very tense. Others slept, but I couldn’t, it was too high-energy and so much happening.

“We got into cars again and were taken to another place.

We got out of there around 6 p.m. and we were taken again to

another woods. We started walking and walked for six hours.

I didn’t even realize I was walking toward the U.S. border. We then got into vans and were driven a short distance and let out near a street.

“They said, ‘(We’re) going to let you know when you can run and when you get to the other side of the street, keep running.’

Suddenly, he said, ‘RUN!’ and we started to run like crazy.

When we crossed over to the other side of the street, the man said, ‘Start looking for the dollars. You’re in the U.S.’”

— Candelaria Cedillos, 25, Baltimore

Stories of Success “An Ohio native, I have discovered much to be proud of about Baltimore since moving to my adopted city five years ago. The non-native, English-language learners I taught for four of those years in the city school system top my list of Baltimore success stories.

“I recall Aisha and Tayyba, Pakistani sisters who overcame monumental cultural shyness to lead their classes in every subject. Or Isa, whose stories of Kyrgyzstan put a child’s hopeful face on my mysterious, Central Asian map. And Vanessa: all Colombian smile and energy, lighting up her teachers’ days while struggling for her English to catch up to her Spanish.

“When our mayor and his band sing of ‘The Streets of Baltimore,’ I envision us all working to welcome the flags of the world to those streets. We will all boast of a richer city if we do so, for it is the immigrants who effect the most meaningful sense of change in America today.”

— Brian Dulay, Canton

Urbanite’s July/August issue will be devoted to “Greening Baltimore”.

Is a “green” vision emerging for Baltimore?

What ideas do you have to “green” Baltimore?

Visit Urbanite Cafe to join the discussion on our Web site at www.urbanitebaltimore.com

My Bousha “My cousin told this to me. She heard it from her sister, who heard it from my grandmother, Bousha, short for Baboushka.

“Bousha was the daughter of farmers, landowners, outside the city of Minsk. She fell in love with a Prussian. Her parents disapproved because he was not of pure Russian blood. Bousha married him anyway, and he went to America to find a job. He would then send for her and their baby. Bousha didn’t hear from him.

“She did not know what to do—stay in Russia and raise her daughter without a father, or go to America and try to find her husband.

“In those days, Gypsies would travel from place to place and, in exchange for being allowed to stay on someone's land, they would tell the family’s fortune.

“Bousha went to the Gypsies, told them her dilemma and asked what she should do. The Gypsies told her that if she stayed in Russia, life would be good for her, hard on her children and harder still on her children's children. If she went to America, life would be hard for her, better for her children and even better for her children's children.

“She would know that this fortune was true if the wind blew straw through her window. That night, it did. Soon she packed and took her 4-year-old daughter and crossed the lines during World War I and boarded a ship to America. From records, we believe she took the last ... voyage of the Lusitania (before it was torpedoed).

“She went through Ellis Island, where immigration officials changed her Russian name to something manageable—Green.

She traveled to Baltimore, where she found her husband. They had seven more children, one of whom was my mother.”

— Penny Troutner

27 25

Celebrate the First Friday of the month with free live music outdoors from 6-9pm and special merchant promotions and events.

Friday, July 2 Mambo Combo, Baltimore’s favorite bring their soca and samba sounds to The Can. Friday, Aug. 6 The Kelly Bell Band offers a touch of the blues, rock and funk.

Friday, Sept. 3 Sons of Pirates, Jimmy Buffet fans don’t want to miss this one.

In addition, the Chesapeake Pub Crawl live each First Friday at Chesapeake Wine Company.

The Can Company and Senator Theatre present

“Action” at The Can - Preakness Style

Saturday, May 15, 8:30p.m. Grab your lawn chair or blanket and head over to the The Can Company for a FREE screening of the hit movie Seabiscuit.

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2400 Boston Street • Baltimore In the Heart of Canton 410-558-0525 www.thecancompany.com FREE PARKING Developed and Managed by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, Inc.

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Hanging on a Whim Unique gift shop filled with handpainted furniture, paintings, jewelry, ceramics, handmade cards, stained glass, lamps, custom murals, art classes, and much more.

Store Hours: Wednesday & Thursday 11:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Friday 11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Sunday 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

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MARQUEE BALL presented to Joyce Scott

by Leslie King Hammond Caligula’s Cabaret w/ Kay Lawal Muhammed, Lorraine Whittlesey, The Resolution Jazz Trio & More!

Louis & Harbor Enterprise Barbara Denrich Centeraka"The Old Broom Factory" Gould Property Management

MARQUEE BALL

Creative Alliance at The Patterson presents

BEN-HUR

& ROMAN FEAST Saturday June 5 at The Patterson 3134 Eastern Ave. B’more.

Info: 410-276-1651

Dance!

Chariot Race Reenactment

& Other Hi-Jinks Agora Silent Auction: Art Decadent Delights

&

Feast 6pm $150 Includes cocktails, seated dinner & Marquee Ball Ball 8:30pm $80, $65 CA mbrs.

Includes hors d’ouevres, beer & wine, Silent Auction. Cash bar for liqour adv tixs: www.missiontix.com Most of tix is tax deductible Free parking provided at Linwood & Eastern Aves. Shuttle to The Patterson

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Urbanotes The second annual Tour du Parks will be held Father’s Day, June 20. Bicyclists can choose a 32-mile ride through 10 of Baltimore’s major parks or a 15-mile loop along the Gwynns Falls Trail. Both rides begin and end in Carroll Park, and will be followed by a celebration with refreshments and music.

Information: www.tourduparks.org A new Baltimore business, Illume Communications, has launched a Web site devoted to the celebration of diversity. To commemorate its new Web site, the company is sponsoring an essay contest: “What does polyethnic mean to you?” The top three entrants will win $1,500. The deadline for essays is July 4.

Information: www.polyethnic.com

Celebrate!!!

Baltimore’s rich history of immigration is evident in the city’s well-known ethnic festivals. Here is a list of festivals this year: Polish Festival, June 4–6 in Patterson Park Greek Festival, June 1–13 at St. Nicholas Church, 520 S. Ponca St. African-American Heritage Festival, June 18–20 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards Latino Festival, June 26–27 in Patterson Park Caribbean Festival, July 23–25 in Druid Hill Park

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International Festival, at City Hall and War Memorial Plaza (Information: Baltimore Office of Promotion, 410-752-8632) German Festival, Aug. 20–22 in Carroll Park Ukrainian Festival, in Patterson Park (Information: Baltimore Office of Promotion, 410-752-8632) Irish Festival, at 5th Regiment Armory (Information: Baltimore Office of Promotion, 410-752-8632) Korean Festival, Sept. 25, at City Hall and War Memorial Plaza Russian Festival, at Holy Trinity Russian Church, 1723 E. Fairmount Ave. (Information: Baltimore Office of Promotion, 410-752-8632)

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DS R N RIE HOU t F s R Y OU APP h Auguine) Y H oug r sh ING EEK thr rain o R B DW w o .( n MI y Wed 0 p.m r :0 Eve 0 - 7 5:0

Tastebuds Rejoice!

Delicious things are in store at the heart of Baltimore’s Central Business District.

At the newly-renovated Munsey Building, three gourmet retailers are now open to satisfy your every craving.

Start your day right with a gourmet coffee drink and fresh-baked pastry at Coffee Coffee.

Return for lunch and savor Roly Poly’s menu of healthy tortilla wraps. And, for a unique Asian-fusion experience, try Suzie’s Soba’s tasty noodle-inspired dishes.

With so many delicious options at the corner of Calvert and Fayette, downtown dining has never been so fun and easy.

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M-F 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Saturday 10:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., closed Sunday 410.685.7659 www.rolypolyusa.com

M-F 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Dinner by reservation only 410.528.8883

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Saturday, June 5 & Sunday, June 6, 2004 @ Wyman Park Dell (corner 29th and North Charles Streets) NEW! Block Party – Friday, June 4 6:30pm – 9:00pm @ 3100 Block of St. Paul Street

Prsrt Std US Postage PAID Baltimore, MD Permit 3361

Charles Village Festival Weekend Parade - Music – Kids Games – Climbing Wall – Food Vendors – Crafts – Beer

www.charlesvillage.net

p. o. b ox 5 0 1 5 8 b a l t i m o re , m d 2 1 2 1 1

25th Anniversary - Garden Walk (Sunday only)