My Immigrant Village
By Diana Gordon.
When the Long Island Rail Road arrived in Greenport, Long Island, in August 1844, immigrants followed.
Completion of the first line shortened the trip from New York to Boston (rail-ferry-rail through Connecticut) to a mere eleven hours. Train maintenance provided jobs, and farm produce and oysters could now get to market in the city in only half a day. An economic boom resulted. It brought Irish, German, and Polish workers to the farms and boatyards; a few Portuguese arrived by ship. Fifty years later, Italians—some recruited at Ellis Island right off the boat—turned the fine local clay into bricks.
Immigration to the countryside was rare in those days. The great wave that provided Europeans to till the fields, run the looms, and pave the roads—in effect, constructing the American century—deposited them primarily in the big cities. Their descendants eventually populated suburban areas like most of Long Island, but it was only in the final decade of the twentieth century that significant numbers of today’s immigrants settled in rural communities.
Once again Greenport has become an immigrant destination. It has joined a trend for Latinos and others—in this case, largely undocumented workers from Latin America—to populate and revive small towns in decline. Its development is a harbinger of the majority-minority country we are becoming.
Auri making tortillas
At first, the settlement of Greenport immigrants occurred under the radar. Only a decade ago the Mayor was startled to find that the Spanish mass on Christmas Eve at the local Catholic church was standing-room-only. It couldn’t be attributed to single male migrant laborers from the farms and vineyards (although about half of American crop workers are now unauthorized immigrants); families with children in the local schools packed the pews and left the service to return home to rental housing in the village.
By 2010 Greenport’s new demography was evident to all. This community of 2200 residents, a knuckle on the finger of the North Fork, now boasted elegant restaurants and cozy cafes, a grassy park framing a profitable marina, and a carousel to delight local children and visitors from “up-island.” School enrollments were on the rise. That year the federal census recorded the population as 34 percent Hispanic; most adults were foreign-born—from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, with a smattering of Colombians and Hondurans. Immigrant labor had played a big part in rescuing the village from previous decades of decline.
It would be disingenuous to deny that some of the descendants of the earlier arrivals have greeted the newcomers with ambivalence. Greenporters occasionally grumble about immigrants committing crimes (usually the misdemeanors of unlicensed driving and DWI) and neighbors complain about overcrowded houses, sometimes with a racist subtext. Local political leaders often simply ignore the interests of the immigrant community.
But for daily interactions, Latino residents are well served. Immigrant parents can be assured that the schools will provide their children with ample protection and stimulation. The hospital, the community health center, local medical specialists, and two midwives constitute a cobbled-together health care system that meets most needs for a population that, except for children, usually lacks health insurance. Local judges often go easy on drivers who they know are prohibited by New York State law from getting licenses.
The benefits of small-town living can also include a kind of caring that transcends institutional requirements. When her disabled child died, Rigoberta (not her real name) could pay her debts because the Greenport school turned its talent show into a benefit for her. When Edgar smashed his wrist cutting paving tile on his job, the cost of getting him treated at the Surgery Center of Southampton Hospital was shared by his sister, an older worker who knew his family, and the owner of the home where he was working when the accident happened. No wonder that the nation’s oldest refugee organization, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, says: “Some of the most welcoming and best-suited places in the United States for the refugees and immigrants who settle here are the smaller cities and towns… Smaller communities can offer services and opportunities not available or affordable in big cities.”
Although immigration has dropped in the last decade, it may rise again as refugees from Syria and elsewhere arrive and if the federal government succeeds in reducing the immigrant visa backlog. Currently, the most common rural destinations are in the South and Midwest, but the trend of small-town settlement is spreading nationally. Perhaps other villages and hamlets on Long Island will benefit as Greenport has.