The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Hard-Hittin’ New Britain: Part of what makes America great
About nine months ago, I moved to New Britain. When I mention this to most people, an awkward silence ensues, like I just passed gas and they’re pretending not to notice.
Apparently, there’s something wrong with New Britain, although, if you ask someone born and raised in town, they will set you straight pretty quickly.
If I doubted our decision — and I do, still — one validation came the day after the big blizzard in March. Two kids, neither of them an ounce over 85 pounds, knocked on my door asking if I wanted them to shovel my driveway.
I didn’t have a snow blower yet and my neighbors had been nice enough to help out before, but where else are you going to get two kids showing up to dig you out the morning after a blizzard? They worked their butts off, and I paid them twice their asking, but I was the one ahead.
I think about this when other kids from the far side of Corbin Avenue pass by on their way to the middle school down the block. They are Latino, or African-American, or like so many in my new city, a little of everything.
We could dial the clock back 50 or 100 years, and it would be different kids, with ethnicities from the first wave of immigration to America, but they would still be the straightup, unassuming soul of this country, on their way to something better.
Are the kids in Simsbury or Avon who get a ride to school any less American? No. Are they going to have to work as hard for their place in America? No. Do they carry the blessing of our nation as clearly over their shoulder as these kids from Corbin Avenue? No.
Years from now, when I’m in my bed at the nursing home, these are the people who are going to care for me, whether they are nurses, or administrators, cooks or accountants. A few might even be the lawyer who helps me keep some of my assets.
Privilege has its place — and I came from privilege, of class, and race and gender — but it’s not what makes America great. America is great because of these kids from Corbin Avenue, and all the diversity and aspiration they represent — even if they don’t fully know it.
A lot has been said about immigration and citizenship of late, and education, and about a declining or disappearing middle class. Is there a solution here? Can we find the new American dream, and the center-cut prosperity it represents, in the people who are already here, citizen or noncitizen?
Create a path to citizenship or greater opportunity and tax paying and mortgage taking and GDP building follow. Broaden the face of America to include all skin colors, countries of origin and classes and the spectrum of character and contribution just gets wider and stronger.
And us Anglos? We’re still fully in the mix: maybe we’re the bread in the crazy foot-long super-submarine sandwich that is this country at its best or the turkey in the middle. Either way, we’re there and it’s a pretty full meal.
The Realtor who sold us our house, when asked about New Britain, its challenges and reputation, and her own decision to stay, said: “We decided to be part of the solution, not the problem.” Good advice for a neighbor — or a country.
“A lot has been said about immigration and citizenship of late, and education, and about a declining or disappearing middle class. Is there a solution here?”