As part of its coverage of Hispanic Heritage Month, Tiempo Latino, a Spanish-language weekly newspaper, has published a front-page essay that made me realize how different our current wave of immigration is from past waves. It was written by Milagros Melendez-Vela, a member of the editorial staff at the paper, which is owned by the Washington Post.
The essay appears under the headline "A family voyage to identity".
"Before emigrating from my native Peru to this country, it had never occurred to me to define myself within an ethnic community," Melendez-Vela writes. "I was from Lima, with light complexion, of mestizo race. Period."
She continues: "Here I am Hispanic, one of 53 million who live in this country, one of those who came by airplane with a visa or crossed the border without permission. Those who represent a broad range of cultural roots: white, black, mestizo, Asian, and more."
I found this striking. I had always thought of immigrants coming to the United States and acquiring an American identity. That was the beautiful idea — e pluribus unum — that made our country work. It tied us together as a people and as a nation.
As historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote:
The United States had a brilliant solution for the inherent fragility, the inherent combustibility of a multiethnic society: the creation of a brand-new national identity by individuals who, in forsaking old loyalties and joining to make new lives, melted away ethnic differences.
But here, Melendez-Vela notes, a new identity — Hispanic — has been formed. Rather than melting away, ethnic difference has solidified.
It was encouraging to read this later in her essay: "I am an Hispanic who has put down roots in this country, and though I have not forgotten my native land, I love the United States, its people, traditions, and customs."
That made me think hopefully of the words of Ernesto Galarza, Mexican-immigrant scholar and advocate for immigrant farm workers. They are recounted by immigration historian Lawrence Fuchs in his book The American Kaleidescope, where he wrote of Galarza:
"Inspired by the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, he had worked to end exploitation of agricultural workers. Puzzled when his opponents tried to smear him as un-American, Galarza asked, 'Can't they see? I love this country in a way that people don't if they are born here.'"
Maybe love can conquer all. Maybe love of the idea of America will prevail even over those who might gain politically or financially from the establishment of Hispanic identity at the cost of American identity.
Melendez-Vela writes that she is now a citizen of the United States. And while she wants her children to speak Spanish, she ends up communicating with them in spanglish.
That made me think that becoming American is seldom an uncomplicated process, even for immigrants who embraced President Theodore Roosevelt's prescription of 100-percent Americanism. It certainly wasn't easy for my Italian-immigrant great-grandfather, who encountered discrimination here. But he married my English-immigrant great grandmother, and they had 12 very American children, including my remarkable grandmother Rose.
I finished the essay in Tiempo Latino with a renewed recognition that immigrant integration is a long story that each family writes in its own way. But I also have a new understanding that the emergence of a new Hispanic identity could make the process of Americanization more complicated than it has ever been.