Immigration hits home in Lynn - Blacks voice fear of a loss of jobs

Boston Globe ^ | April 16, 2006 | Yvonne Abraham

[Cincinatus' Wife]

LYNN -- James Banks thinks he knows how the controversy over immigration in this country is going to end: ......

''The whole United States is going to change," the African-American store manager said as he got his hair cut at a Union Street barbershop on a recent morning. ''They'll let you go, and get one of these happy immigrants in your spot. They won't be late, they won't get sick, and they won't complain. They will work every unhappy American citizen out of their grass-cutting, trash-hauling, floor-sweeping jobs."

But he doesn't blame the immigrants: They're just feeding their families. Banks, 36, says the fault lies with a generation of young African-American men who would rather ''walk their sneakers up and down the street" than step up on a stage to collect high school diplomas.

''Immigration is going to set the black community back 25 years," he said. ''Because they'll let it."

.....''As a community we are beginning to grapple with the plight of the African-American male, which is in a crisis state," said the Rev. Hurmon Hamilton, senior pastor at Roxbury Presbyterian Church. ...

......Virginia Barton, a black activist and community historian who has lived in Lynn for all of her 77 years, said African-Americans once found plenty of work in the city: When she was growing up, they worked as maids, cleaners, and in the shoe factories for which the city was famous.

European immigrants worked beside them in lower-level jobs for a time, mostly sweeping the factory floors. Then the immigrants moved into more skilled jobs, Barton said.

''Things got better for them and stayed the same for the Afro-Americans," Barton said. ''It was racism, simple as that. The immigrants that came had a language problem, but they could work around that. The Afro-Americans had a color problem."

[rock58seg]

So? They are finally starting to catch on? It's about d@mn time.

[rabidralph]

It's amazing that the vietnamese and other asians that came here 30 years ago, without language skills or money, have surpassed blacks in education and work productivity. You're right--it's not color--it's work ethic.

[sgtbono2002]

When you are taught from birth that you have been cheated out of your heritage by Whitey and that Whitey owes you a living, you go into life believeing things are owed to you and you shouldnt have to work.

If anything blacks have a head start in this country with Affirmative action, but fact is without education at least a decent high school education you arent going anywhere,.
Black parents have to stop teaching hatred and the Jiminy Cricket syndrome and instill in their childen the fact that they have to go to school, learn , and earn their way. When that happens black children will catch up plenty fast.

[twippo]

Immigration itself is a self-selecting process. It takes tremendous wherewithal to pack up your possessions and family, learn another language, and settle in with people totally different from you. I've heard many comments about how well Indians do in this country, yet India itself has so many problems. I wonder if Indian-descent Caribbeans (descendants of imported laborers, as opposed to immigrants) have the same economic status in their countries compared to those in the U.S.