Review
""There are 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country―they are a part of our daily lives, working hard to improve America. They are not so different from us. We are all immigrants or children of immigrants (if we look back to some point in our family’s past) who are trying to find a place to belong, and we all deserve that chance to belong. In There Goes the Neighborhood, Ali Noorani opens our eyes to this reality and helps us understand that the debate on immigration is not a problem for us to fix but an opportunity for us to seize.” ―José Andrés, chef/owner of Minibar by José Andrés and ThinkFoodGroup “This is an essential book to understand the fear, challenges, and opportunities on both sides of the immigration debate. ‘Elections matter. Culture matters more,’ writes Ali Noorani. He’s right. Nothing will change until ‘white America sees changes to their neighborhoods as a net positive to their lives.’ This book, in many ways, explains why Trump won the election and why an honest debate on immigration is urgent. Your neighborhood depends on it.” ―Jorge Ramos, senior news anchor, Noticiero Univision and America with Jorge Ramos “At a time when the divisions in American life have been hardening, Ali Noorani has produced a powerful portrait of a changing nation by carefully working to understand the perspective not only of those who agree with him but also of those who come to the issues surrounding what he rightly calls ‘America’s identity crisis’ with very different values and perspectives. In this inspired travelogue across some of the most contested ground in national life, Noorani has offered our political leadership a road map for how to shift our dialogue away from what divides us and toward the values all Americans hold in common.” ―Ron Brownstein, senior editor, the Atlantic, and senior political analyst, CNN “Noorani goes beyond the rhetoric to examine all sides of the immigration debate. Now, more than ever, we must harness the resource of immigration to ensure that America continues to be the most innovative and entrepreneurial nation. Noorani shows how we can adapt to changing demographics for the good of the nation, without giving in to fear.” ―Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution, and author of The Third Wave “Ali Noorani has brought unlikely allies together in faith, law enforcement, and business communities to find common ground on the complex issue of immigration, helping neighborhoods adjust to, and even embrace, their changing identities and welcome newcomers eager to contribute to our nation’s economy. This is must-reading for all Americans who want to understand where we go from here, and why we must continue to be a nation of immigrants to make America truly great.” ―Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, US ambassador to the United Nations, and US Secretary of Energy “During this period in which some of the latent, dark elements of our national character are once again coming to light, Ali Noorani’s effort to appeal to our ‘better angels’ in this book is an important step to help engage in a constructive conversation on the issue of immigration.” ―Greg Zoeller, Indiana attorney general, 2009–2017 “Thoughtful, inspiring, and urgent, There Goes the Neighborhood puts a human face on immigration and its challenges while presenting compelling, commonsense solutions. Noorani’s precedent for bringing together business leaders, law enforcement officials, and the faith community serves as a prototype for a breakthrough, where leaders, policymakers, and citizens from across the political spectrum can find common ground toward pathways we know to be right. Our legacy as a nation depends on our collective action. Noorani shows the way.” ―Stephan Bauman, former president and CEO of World Relief and coauthor of Seeking Refuge “Political paralysis has stymied commonsense reforms to our immigration system for more than a decade. Noorani brings to life the perspectives of law-enforcement, business, and faith leaders who view immigrants as vital community members who fuel our economy and enrich our culture. The courage and wisdom demonstrated by these leaders inspires us all.” ―Laurene Powell Jobs, president, Emerson Collective “As America grapples with issues of identity, culture, and belonging, Ali Noorani brings us a book that combines personal experience, data, and current events to tell a story of a country transformed. How we navigate this tumultuous time will be a testament to the deeply held American values of inclusion and integration. On the heels of a national election that brought to the forefront questions of what it means to be American in the twenty-first century, this is a captivating account of the challenges and promising practices across the country that give us hope for the future. This is not a book about immigration. It is a book about a country transformed by technology, globalization, and demographic shifts. This insightful look into how communities across America have responded gives us hope that we can move beyond ideology and divisiveness. There Goes the Neighborhood is a blueprint for moving forward.” ―Monica Lozano, chairman and CEO, ImpreMedia (ret.)
About the Author
Ali Noorani is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, an advocacy organization promoting the value of immigrants and immigration. Prior to joining the Forum, Noorani was Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, and has served in leadership roles within public health and environmental organizations. In 2015, Noorani was named a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Noorani is a sought-after commentator, and has been interviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, the Associated Press, and by several other national, regional, and international media. He is also a frequent guest on a range of television and radio shows, including MSNBC, the Lou Dobbs Show, the Bill O'Reilly Show, the Sean Hannity Show, Washington Journal, PBS Newshour, Fusion, NPR (the Diane Rehm Show, On Point, and Marketplace), and is an op-ed contributor to CNN.com, FoxNewsLatino.com, among others. Noorani is a regular guest on local talk radio shows across the country.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
ELECTIONS MATTER … CULTURE MATTERS MORE
It all began with a Jew, walking to work in the snow on a Saturday.
The US Capitol is a surprisingly long, ornate building littered with lost tourists, scurrying staffers, and entourage-trailing members of Congress. Tourists, representing every walk of life from every corner of the country, lose themselves (and their guides) in the overwhelming mix of past and present.
Look closely at the paintings, the statues, and the history, and you will see that the Capitol is more than a landmark. A building built by slaves and decorated with paintings by naturalized US citizens, it is a living, breathing testament to America’s identity crisis.1 For a few hours on Saturday,
December 18, 2010, that identity crisis was defined by immigrants and immigration.
It was a cold morning, with a dusting of snow on the ground, and Congress was buzzing on a rare Saturday lame-duck session. The Senate was due to take up two high-profile pieces of legislation. One, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, granting legal status to undocumented youth. The other, the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), a law barring gay and lesbian members of the armed services from expressing their sexual orientation.
At around 8:00 a.m., a door to a member’s entrance opened, and a blast of cold air hit our small delegation of advocates waiting for the elevator. In walked Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), shaking the cold off his coat. On any other day, this would not be a big deal. On a Saturday, though, it was a big deal for Lieberman, an observant Jew, to be at the Capitol.
Lieberman straightened up in the warm air and looked at us with a “no need to lobby me, I’m with you” smile we immigration-advocate types rarely receive.
Over the course of his long political career, this was by no means the first time Senator Lieberman had worked on the Sabbath, so I don’t want to overstate his decision. But when he walked through the door that morning, the faith he wore on his sleeve—and what it meant to him—stuck with me.
In that moment, I realized how an individual’s culture could bring him to an unlikely place at an unlikely time. Little did I know that it was going to be that feeling, and everything that created that moment, that would mark a new path for my work. Looking back, I realize Lieberman’s identity as an observant Jew was central to his values. While I have no reason to believe
Lieberman crossed the line separating church and state, his culture and values clearly guided his decision making—a specific cultural perspective that would not have been welcome in the US Capitol not so long ago.
Looking forward, I know that immigration will contribute to an America that continues to change—racially, ethnically, and religiously. Along the way, Americans will continue to change, prompting an important question: As a nation, do we have a common identity or set of values?
Answering this question is a struggle at the national level as much as it is at the neighborhood level. Whatever our perspective may be, our culture, our families, and our work serve as a lens for our experiences, informing our answer to this question. Some of us become more exclusive,
seeking barriers to cultural change and yearning for calmer days. Others become more inclusive, shaping relationships and institutions to welcome new cultures. Some of us toggle between the two. In my thirteen years as an immigration advocate, grappling with this question through a job that has opened up a new world of relationships, I have found that my identity shapes my work, and my work shapes my identity. I too have gone back and forth.
Personally, I would much rather cajole others into telling me their stories than tell my own. In fact, I’d rather do just about anything other than tell my own story. But it turns out that writing a book about our national identity means telling my own story as well.
My parents left Pakistan in 1971 to come to the United States. After I was born in 1973 in Santa Cruz, California, they moved forty miles to the south to Salinas, an agricultural town that was primarily white or Latino. As a child of immigrants growing up in a community with very few South Asian families, I learned the importance of cultural crossover early in life. As I befriended children of farmworkers and children of farm owners, I realized that people of all walks were more similar than they seemed. These formative years taught me to be observant, keep my mouth shut, and always look for common ground. By no means was I perfect in this endeavor.
I left Salinas in 1992 to study economics and social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. After a year of work and travel, I headed east in 1998 to earn a master of public health degree from Boston University. Public health, specifically epidemiology and environmental health, led me to become active in Boston-area community organizations, and eventually I ran public-health programs for two large community health centers in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Working with communities and
colleagues from countries as far flung as Kenya, Vietnam, Haiti, El Salvador, and Ireland, among others, brought to light the struggle and tension between native-born and immigrant communities—foreshadowing what lay ahead. From there, I cut my immigration teeth as executive director of
the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.
Two experiences from these early years of my professional life left deep impressions. The first was while I was in Dorchester. In the 1970s, the exodus of families from Vietnam led to a large community of refugees in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester. I remember vividly an event we organized at the Dorchester House at which Sarah Ignatius, the executive director of the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project, met with Vietnamese youth in the neighborhood. These were good kids. But a few of them had done kid things that had gotten them into trouble with the juvenile justice system. While being processed through that system, their public defenders had recommended they plead guilty
and take probation or community service. In the conversation, I realized that these kids, who had been in America since they were babies, were much more American than Vietnamese. But even though they were in the States legally, their guilty plea was a deportable offense—something many of their defense attorneys did not even realize. For a reason I didn’t fully understand, America was deporting kids who, for all intents and purposes, were American.
The second experience took place in the basement of St. James Church, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 2007, after I had been at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition for a few years, there was a major immigration raid in New Bedford, about sixty miles south of Boston. Over three hundred men and women, sewing backpacks for the military, were put into deportation proceedings. Working with local partners, we established a relief center in the basement of the church. It was an
awful scene that rattled my senses. As I wrote for the Boston Globe:
How can we look into the eyes of a young mother who has fled the repressive
government and economic perils of Guatemala to stitch safety vests
for our troops, and tell her to leave? How can we look into the eyes of a
young father of an eight-month-old baby [who is] dehydrated because his
mother has been detained, and tell him he doesn’t belong here?
If we allow this to continue, we will turn our backs on liberty and the
American dream. Irrational fears will only drive us to the wrong side of
history. Let us live up to the dreams of every immigrant of every generation
that had the courage to come to this country to make a better life for
their families.
In both of these situations, there was a struggle between old and new. In Dorchester, families who had been in Boston for generations chafed at the influx of immigrants and refugees. And during the New Bedford immigration raid, Greater Boston’s talk-radio shows lit up with callers thrilled with the idea of hundreds of immigrants being deported. The lines of the debate simplified to left versus right, communities of color versus white residents. It was hard to see how a consensus could be forged that
pulled the human story of immigration out of the raging political fire.
These experiences, personal and professional, heightened how I felt on that snowy December 2010 morning. I was deeply struck by the poignancy of a Jewish senator walking to work on the Sabbath. Maybe it was the DREAM Act that drew Lieberman to the Senate on that Saturday, maybe it was the repeal of DADT. It was probably both. Either way, the issues at hand were important enough to him, and what he believed, that he was willing to cast his vote on the Sabbath.
Remember, Lieberman was retiring from the Senate at the end of the year. With no reelection to consider, he was truly voting his conscience. The challenge we faced that day was whether or not we had changed
enough hearts and minds so a majority would vote their conscience and support the DREAM Act.
Let’s fast-forward a few hours.
No. Wait. First, let’s go back a couple years. A lot happened in that time that set a new political and cultural stage.
