Posted: Monday, 07 July 2008 9:00AM
Born In The U.S.A.
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, July 07, 2008
Aging Uncle Sam can grow older and retire knowing that he has many young relatives who were born in the U.S.A., children who will carry on the legacy of our nation.
When one such child looked me in the eye on Sunday, I knew that we were going to be in good hands.
My Fourth of July weekend was complete.
Tiny and loaded with life, she first spotted me as I lounged on the grass at the South Side Complex. My partner Stephanie and I had stopped by to watch the weekly soccer games that draw crowds of Latinos, who on Sunday seemed to be mostly Mexican.
Amid the laughter of children and the smells of grilling meats and tortillas, the child looked to be about three. In a pink sun dress and with her shining black hair pulled over her shoulders, she seemed wary of the two white strangers who suddenly showed up in her world.
I have been hearing about the South Side Complex on Sundays.
It’s a place where many new arrivals to Scranton come to feel at home in a place that often is not as welcoming as it should be. It’s a place where their language doesn’t raise eyebrows and nurture resentment based on ignorance.
Watching the men, women and children gathering among their own, I had to think back to the Scranton my grandfather saw when he traveled here 100 years ago to seek the American Dream.
Today, as I watched families sharing syrupy-colored cones cut from a block of freshly shaved ice, I had to think back to the Scranton that my family encountered so many years before.
On Sunday, Mexican ranchero music played from a small speaker beneath one of the tents raised for the day.
Yesterday a century ago, maybe a new arrival – the Irish called them greenhorns – shaved ice for the children. Maybe a fiddler played a jig. Of course, the immigrants back then also enjoyed the company of people like themselves in a strange new land that tried to rebuff their dreams.
I smiled at the child as she slowly walked past me, never taking her big dark eyes from my own. She held my gaze until she reached her mother, who smiled shyly in response. I raised a hand and slowly wiggled my fingers in greeting.
The child’s little mind was working overtime as she tried to figure out what to make of the big, bearded man who had already captured her attention whether he wanted to or not.
“Hola,” I said. “Cómo esta?”
She quickly started to answer and then caught herself, turning and giggling as she ran away. Then she reached the top of the grassy hill, turned and stared once again.
On the field the men played soccer in dust clouds, sweating in the afternoon sun that, hot as it was, probably didn’t come close to summer in Mexico.
I had earlier walked the row of tents where people sat eating tacos, fresh ears of corn and other simple delicacies from south of the border. And when I approached a young man standing behind a counter, I immediately apologized for my bad Spanish.
A number of voices quickly came to my aid, telling me that my attempt to talk was OK.
I held my own in faltering Spanish, trying to make a connection with people who now share my city, new neighbors and workers who will raise their families the same way my immigrant grandfather raised his.
I explained that my home was in Scranton but that I once lived in Santa Maria, California, where Mexican farmworkers work the fields of strawberries, broccoli and other vegetables.
The young man seemed familiar with my old hometown. Tens of thousands of Mexicans live there and have relatives working low-wage jobs across the United States. Now we in Scranton are part of that migration that brings new voices to our lives.
Others in the tent listened attentively to our conversation. They seemed interested in what drove me to open a dialogue. I simply wanted to be a good neighbor and maybe one day a new friend.
When I left I shook hands with the young man.
He called me “amigo.”
And when it was time to go, Stephanie and I said goodbye to the little girl, who is no doubt a brand new American citizen who was born in the U.S.A., as she stood watching us leave.
As we walked away, she followed.
“Look,” I said. “She’s coming with us.”
When she stopped at the curb, under the watchful eyes of her family and friends, she stood and stared.
Raising my hand, I waved.
Smiling, she waved in return.
“We’re there a half hour and we already made a new friend,” Stephanie said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “We did, didn’t we?”
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Corbett
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