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SEIFFE:  Where's Rocky?

Friday June 28, 2007

By Ralf Seiffe

A generation ago, I worked in Philadelphia at about the time the “Rocky” movies were popular.  If you saw the original movie, you will remember the market scenes and the hustle on the streets of South Philadelphia that served as the supply system for locals.  Going to Ninth Street was a treat for anyone interested in food, authentic Italian restaurants or simply a glimpse of another culture.  A couple of years ago, I visited the street and found it nearly vacant and in this development, the solution to the immigration question can be found. 

Despite the city making an effort to preserve the old market, it’s pretty clear that the merchants who sold the vegetables, spices and tennis shoes have packed up and moved on.  There are a number of old-time merchants like the DiBruno Brothers cheese shop and Fante’s kitchen supplies, but the vitality of twenty years ago is gone and even these stalwarts have branch stores and big Internet sites. 

I asked an older vegetable seller what had happened to the fish mongers and the butchers that used to display their wares in ice-filled carts, right on the street.  The answer was that the merchants who had once made the Ninth Street Market such an interesting place were “getting up in years and had retired.”  He added that their sons and daughters were not taking over the businesses.  Instead, they were going to Princeton or Penn, taking up professions and moving out.  The old man said it was hard to keep the kids in the business when that meant standing outside in the cold or heat ten or twelve hours per day. 

I am certain that another reason is that the ladies who used to shop in the market, buying the raw materials for the family dinner are just as taken by the convenience of packaged foods as their suburban sisters.  Two income families are not likely to have the time to stroll down the narrow street market finding the best price on fresh tomatoes and running them through a food mill to hand-make sauces. 

The message is that the Italians, who made the market so much fun for someone with a real appetite, have been acculturated by the rest of America.  They have moved beyond their concentrated South Philadelphia neighborhoods into Bucks County, the Main Line or New Jersey.  And, once diffused, they, like every other ethnic group before them, have faded into Americans. 

Imagine, however, if there was a steady supply of new immigrants filling the neighborhoods, new folks who still valued the aroma of olives packed in waist-high barrels and not yet ready to make the transition to the sterility of Lean Cuisine.  Were that the case, then the old pushcarts would still be operating as they had for 100 years. 

Instead, the children of those old market makers are doctors, lawyers, engineers and even politicians.  They have moved on to higher value trades and professions, achieving the American Dream. The great migration of the last century ended 80 years, or four generations ago.  We closed our borders then and took a break so that the great waves of southern Europeans would be able to realize their American dream. 

We should do the same thing now.  Now that the Immigration Amnesty Bill has failed, the simple solution is to default to last year’s fence law and close the borders.  Let those who are here illegally simply melt into America.  By closing the borders, we will attenuate the downward pressure unrestricted immigration places on the wages of recent immigrants.  That, in combination with removing the threat of deportation (except for ruthless expulsion of criminals and terrorists) will invite the “shadow” Eastern Europeans, the Latin Americans and Asians to invest in their new life and to cut ties with their “old countries.” 

This time, the acculturation process won’t take so long.  The media will make it happen faster and hopefully we will not have another Great Depression followed immediately by a world war to interrupt the process. 

From a political point of view, this is a solution that’s more practical than trying to deport 12-20 million illegals.  Certainly there are questions of eventual citizenship but why not welcome those who want to become Americans with no other allegiances?  And, with a huge incentive to make a new and better life, human nature will soon propel these folks out of their ghettos and into the American mainstream. 

© 2007 Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.

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