Immigrant America and Today's Dilemma

Every year my sister and brother and I remember, on September 15th, our grandfather's birthday. ~~~~~ Grandpa died quickly, in an ambulance on his way to hospital at the venerable age of 85 - more or less - because his age was, like that of many early 20th century immigrants to America - vague. He was the child of a family that was a mix of Greek, French and English. He was raised in Athens by parents who taught their children - boys and girls - to value education and culture. He was the coddled youngest son, but was sent to relatives in London so that, barely a teenager, he would be spared Greek conscription prior to World War I. ~~~~~ From London, he followed his two older brothers to New York City. Like them, Grandpa had engineering training and worked in New York as an engineer handling heating systems in a big Manhattan hotel. Then, he answered an ad for engineers to go to a new town in Pennsylvania to help start a steel mill. He was hired and so his path led him from Athens to London to New York City to a small, newly created "steel town" in the developing steel empire of western Pennsylvania. His American dream was becoming reality. It was in the little town expanding along a river not far from Pittsburgh that he met my grandmother. She was the daughter of the manager who supervised Grandpa. He was invited to Sunday lunch and the rest is history. ~~~~~ Grandpa spoke six languages. He loved opera and sang arias like we hum popular songs. He could fix anything. Anything. But, for us, his genius was his command of Greek culture and mythology. He taught us about honor, duty, compassion and love through tales of Olympian gods that we will never forget. He was a Greek Catholic in a town full of Methodists and Presbyterians. My grandmother was a calvinist and Grandpa went to church every Sunday with her and made sure we did, too. Yet, it was on quiet afternoons that he told us stories of monks on Mount Athos and about the sunny, less dark visage of God as Athenians saw Him. Grandpa taught us to enjoy honeydew melons and black olives and olive oil. And, when we were ill, he would arrive with blue cheese, pears and grapes. We can vouch for their therapeutic effect. ~~~~~ But above all, Grandpa taught us tolerance and brotherly love, and the joy of being humans together that led him to give gifts to everyone he knew, all year round. It wasn't charity. It was love. And he often reminded us that the world is a big place with enough joy and beauty and love for everyone. ~~~~~ Why do I tell you about my grandfather? He was a special person that I was blessed to know. But, Grandpa was only one of the new Americans who came to the little town in western Pennsylvania that, thanks to him, became my hometown. It was founded by Anglo-saxon American Protestants - WASPs. But the steel mill attracted Italians, Polish, Lithuanians, Chechoslovaks. During my teen years, we had our first Italian police chief and doctor, our first Polish doctor, our first elected Black high school class officer and first Black football quarterback. We learned to like pasta and polish sausages and eastern European Easter pastries. There were pinch points, to be sure, mostly related to the fact that we were Protestant and the new arrivals were Catholic. But, it didn't take too long for my generation to get past that. ~~~~~ Dear readers, today, Europe is feeling the influx of Middle East Moslem migrants. And, Europe is asking America to accept more of these migrants. America's history -- indeed Europe's history -- should make this a no-brainer. But it isn't. There is a hesitancy, a fear, that Syrian and other Middle East migrants are dangers to our way of life - our culture. Of course, we mean religion -- our Christianity vs their Islam. They live in unwelcoming enclaves, and we wonder if they plot our downfall. It is more than ISIS. It is an historic clash of disparate cultures, politics and religion. I cannot say we will succeed. Much work is needed -- especially an effort of Islam to accept democratic humanist western society.