Charita Goshay: Immigrants are the gift that keeps giving
One hundred years ago, an estimated one-in-five Cantonians was an immigrant.
Their footprints are everywhere: There are the Germans, who started the whole thing. The Italians, who cut the stone for President William McKinley's monument.
The Greeks and Syrians and Lebanese, who opened small businesses and operated restaurants and grocery stores; whose children became doctors and lawyers.
Immigrants started farms, newspapers and schools, and brought Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity to Stark County. They built most of the monumental downtown churches, including St. George Antiochian, the Basilica of St. John, St. Peter, Martin Luther Lutheran and First Lutheran.
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Romanians, the Polish and Hungarians made their way into the steel mills and helped build the city's strong middle class in the 1950s, when the city reached its peak of 116,912 residents.
Today we stand at more than 70,000.
St. Anthony's, with its Mediterranean architecture, still stands sentry in southeast Canton as a testament to its Italian parish, which now welcomes Latino families who have brought new life to the parish.
Every now and then, someone dusts off the "invasion" trope, a narrative that goes back to the Book of Exodus. So today there are people who are buying into the ridiculous Great Replacement Theory that white Americans are being "replaced" by immigrants and minorities, when nothing of the sort is even remotely true.
Dog whistling
In fact, some reports are suggesting that the country is 2 million immigrants short, which is one reason why there's a job glut.
On average, the U.S. has accepted 1 million immigrants a year, a figure which saw a steady decline from 2015 to 2020, and made worse by the pandemic. In 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated net immigration into the U.S. at just 247,000 people.
Let's not play footsie. The fear isn't about immigrants. It's about which kind of immigrants.
It's about statistics which show that America is getting more brown by the year.
It's fear of being pushed from the top bunk.
It's driving some people to madness.
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In 2018, former president Donald Trump dog-whistled that the country was accepting too many desperate people from Haiti, El Salvador and other (expletive)-hole places, and asked why we weren't accepting more immigrants from, say, Norway.
Norway is ranked the eighth-happiest country in the world, according to a yearly report published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Why in the world would they leave there to come here?
North Hill
Stephen Miller, Trump's main adviser on the issue, is a grandchild of Jewish refugees. Yet he tried to spin Emma Lazarus' famous poem, arguing that her words "Bring me your tired your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free" were written before the Statue of Liberty was built, so...
They don't count?
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The influx of Italians, Irish and Poles was met with the same hysteria by native-born white Americans who didn't consider them to be white. There were predictions they would "swarm" the country, bringing Catholicism, crime and disease, and render "decent" people unemployed.
The State Department has reversed some of the previous administration's policies, including making allowances for more refugees. Canton could use them. A new report published by Lattice Newswire reveals that:
"Immigrants account for 1.9% of the Canton-Massillon metro area population, compared to 13.5% nationally. Out of all midsize U.S. metros, the Canton-Massillon metro area has the 2nd smallest foreign-born population share."
A new generation of immigrants is revitalizing Akron's North Hill neighborhood which has welcomed immigrants and Black newcomers to the city for more than 100 years.
As is always the case, the latest wave — mostly from Nepal — have brought their culture with them, including new foods, music and art, which only serves to enrich the entire city.
There's always a place in America for new flavors, new sounds, new businesses and new people who are willing to contribute to their adopted home.
Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Charita Goshay: Immigrants don't "replace," they enhance America
