The 'Sacrifice Generation' Comes To America

GUY RAZ, host:

As Brenda just mentioned, the process of immigrating to America and staying with or without a pre-existing health condition can be tricky.

Pablo Romero was just 13 years old when he crossed the Mexican border into California. He came as a brasero, a migrant worker to pick lettuce in the fields of California's Central Valley. He had little education that ended at age 11. And yet today, Pablo Romero is a medical doctor who went on to send his daughters to some of the finest universities in America.

Romero's story is one of 13 told in a new book on the lives of immigrants in America. It's called "From Every End of This Earth," and it's written by a familiar on public radio, Steve Roberts, who teaches journalism at George Washington University.

Steve, good to have you here.

Professor STEVE ROBERTS (Journalism, The George Washington University): Guy, what a pleasure. Thank you.

RAZ: The story of Pablo Romero is remarkable. Tell us how he made it from working in lettuce fields to running a medical clinic in Salinas.

Prof. ROBERTS: Well, he - as you point out, he dropped out of school at age 11 and to this day has never been to high school. But working in the lettuce fields, he got drafted and he went to Germany and blossomed in the Army. He read every book in the post library, bought an old Opel, drove all over Europe, and got his GED - high school equivalency in the Army.

He got back to California and a very caring person in the unemployment office said, you know what? The local community college, they have a new program for young Chicanos. You might qualify. Go see my friend Martinez. He goes to see Martinez and he gets accepted to the local community college.

He works in the fields all day, goes to college at night, stays �till the library closes. They force him to go home. And as he's finishing junior college, a recruiter from UC Irvine, looking for young Hispanics, offers him a scholarship. And during his last year there, a Latino professor says to him, you know, you should consider medical school.

He decided to go to University of San Francisco. He goes back to Salinas, California where he spent all these years in the lettuce fields. He opened a community medical clinic where 80 percent of his patients are farm workers. And he's now treating the children and grandchildren of the people he worked in the fields with. You just don't get a better American story.

RAZ: Hmm. One of the people you spotlight talks about those who made the journey, who immigrated as the Sacrifice Generation.

Prof. ROBERTS: Exactly.

RAZ: What is that?

Prof. ROBERTS: This family, the husband had been a military officer in the old regime. He knew from the day that Saigon fell to the communists, he had to get out. But it took them six years, most of which they spent in prison - both husband and wife. They kept trying to escape. They kept getting arrested.

Finally, they made it onto a boat that made it out into the open sea. But then the engine quit and they drifted. The mother of this family told me, we were out of water, and my children, - she had two boys, little boys, she was pregnant with a third child during this voyage - and she said, I was ready to slit my wrist and feed my children my blood to keep them alive. This woman said, we're the Sacrifice Generation because we gave up so much.

RAZ: I was struck by the story of Eddy Camaro Stanley(ph) from Sierra Leone. Can you tell us about him?

Prof. ROBERTS: This is a man who grew up so far removed from civil society in the remote bush. Not only had he never read a book until he was 15, he had never seen a book until he was 15. He went to first grade at age 15 because a British surveyor saw something in this young man when he came through his rural area and paid his school fees.

He goes to school, he gets an education but because of the tribal warfare ravaging his country, he escapes and gets to America and gets taken in by a church in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The church took him in, helped him get settled in America, helped him become a political refugee. He had to leave his wife and two children behind in a remote refugee camp on the border of Guinea. He finally found them with the help of this church, got them to America.

And one of the dimensions of that story is how generous-hearted Americans can be toward immigrants. This whole community, this whole church just made it their project to welcome this African and help him go back to college. This man who went to first grade at age 15, today has a graduate degree from Rutgers University.

RAZ: There has always been a steady drumbeat of anti-immigrant sentiment in this country, and you write about it in the epilogue in the book. But there are plenty of people who aren't anti-immigration. They're just opposed to illegal immigration, including some of the people in this book. The argument being that in this tough economic climate, illegal immigrants take jobs. Is there an argument to be made that immigration has gotten out of control in this country?

Prof. ROBERTS: Yes. I think in tough economic times, America has an obligation to control its borders. I don't think there's any question about that. But it's also true that many immigrants do create jobs, they don't take jobs because they tend to be entrepreneurs.

RAZ: You point out, actually, how important those contributions have been to the U.S. economy. For example, immigrants founded something like 25 percent of all high-tech and engineering firms over the past decade.

You profile one man, Munir Kasmiri(ph). He's a physician from Pakistan. He went on to revolutionize the way we get prescription drugs.

Prof. ROBERTS: That's right. He has absolutely a fertile imagination when it came to entrepreneurship. He says, I'm a much better businessman than I am a doctor.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. ROBERTS: But he created a mail order business. He was on a prescription medication, a pain medication, Percocet. He went into a drugstore one day and a clerk calls out, you know, Dr. Kasmiri, your Percocet is ready. He said, this is not right. This is a private matter. And that moment led him to create this very lucrative business. Many of these immigrants create businesses and they do jobs that a lot of Americans don't do.

RAZ: Steve Roberts is the author of the new book, "From Every End of This Earth: 13 Families and the New Lives They Made in America."

Steve, thanks for coming in.

Prof. ROBERTS: Thank you.

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