MY TAKE From the Editor and Publisher
Coming to America, or Why I Am Strongly Pro-Immigrant This Independence Summer #246, I am reminded of my own immigrant heritage, though I actually embrace two cultures—my mother, Queenie, from rural Virginia, is descended from enslaved Africans. In 1915, my grandmother Lillian Odessa Birkett (who coincidentally had the same last name), a 21-year-old seamstress and the daughter of a white missionary from the UK and his Bajan wife, arrived at Ellis Island in New York Harbor after making the long boat trip from St. George’s parish, Barbados, in the British West Indies. The following year, her future husband, Alexander Prince Birkett, a 33-year-old carpenter also from Barbados who did construction jobs all over the world (including on the Panama Canal), arrived, same place. They would meet, wed and raise 12 children, the third of whom was my father, Earl. My grandfather earned a living as a landlord in Harlem and a missionary travelling the world for a Christian church called the Brethren. He was a great benefactor in Harlem in his time, and my grandmother was known for her gentleness and generosity. (Her godson is Charles Rangel, the longtime former New York congressman from Harlem.) When my father needed capital to start his
manufacturing company, it was my grandfather who provided the funding. Out of all the countries in the world that they both could have chosen to emigrate to, England would have been the logical choice (I’d sound funny with a British accent though), but they chose America. In my mind, what is the best part about the United States of America? It is not the multitude of ways to make obscene wealth or establish a position of comfort and respect, the outrageous bling, the seemingly endless varieties of physical land, its gargantuan military, or its enduring though very shaky democracy. The main reason I chose Jersey City, N.J., as my home is because I love to be around the most diverse coupling of peoples in the entire country, perhaps the world. No offense to my native Long Island, but here I am good friends with individuals from every race, religion, background and most nationalities. My own personal care assistant, Khai (I am disabled, but more on that another time), is a Vietnamese immigrant who treats me like family. I am proud that, a short distance from my house, there is a Statue of Liberty with its inscription, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” That’s how I like to view America. So it pains me when I hear people—including, of all people, blacks—complain about immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants from South of the Border, as if they were freeloaders soaking up precious jobs and resources. I won’t dwell on the fact that Jesus was an illegal immigrant, or that we are all squatting on land previously occupied by indigenous peoples who arrived many millennia before us, I will just say that my favorite restaurant is Italian, my doctor is Pakistani, and my neighborhood looks like the U.N. I like it like that.
At my father’s factory in TriBeCa, maybe Easter 1963: Earl, grandfather Alexander, brother William, grandmother Lillian, sister Erlanda
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BAVUAL:
The African Heritage Magazine
| Summer 2022
