Wood Oaks Junior High School social studies teachers wanted to put a human face on immigration, and students learned that it’s rarely easy to come to this country and stay.
“Students are really struggling to understand immigration, especially in the atmosphere of today,” teacher Chris Beck said as one of four groups of about four volunteers, mostly parents, each came to his Northbrook District 27 school to tell something of their coming-over stories.
It was probably new information to many attending what was called an Immigration Summit, as only one in 17 district students is classified as an English language learner, speaking a foreign language at home.
One group of speakers Dec. 8 included no Mexicans of Syrians, the immigrant groups that have been most controversial in the United States. But the ones who came spoke of a shared experience, and students like Blumenthal’s eighth-grade daughter heard that from them.
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“I tell Dani, we’ll just have to get through the next four years somehow,” said Amanda Blumenthal, born in South Africa.
She said she had left a racist country and found a new one “refreshing” with its attitude toward people who were new or different.
“The first thing that surprised me was seeing a black lady driving a car,” she said.
“I’d never seen that,” she said. “There were a lot of things I had to get used to.”
Blumenthal had joined her sister in America 26 years ago, as both had left South Africa ahead of their parents, who felt threatened by the new order in their home country. She’s never been back.
“You’re leaving a home and a job, a car, and a family, to a new country, having nothing,” she said.
“I had a vacation visa that didn’t entitle me to work, but I managed to find a job illegally, and that’s how I made a living for about four years.”
After arriving from Poland, Ann Janiga, now one of the school’s teacher’s aides, was also initially denied a “green card” that would have allowed her to live and work legally on a permanent basis, so she was stuck working off the books as a baby sitter, she said.
Janiga, living on Chicago’s Northwest Side, used to marvel for hours at the items that were available in nearby shops.
“I’d walk around to see everything they had in the stores,” she said. “It was like Disneyland for me.”
She said that it was a far cry from the pre-Solidarity Polish stores she remembered.
“The grocery stores were full of empty shelves, and all you would see is vinegar,” she recalled.
Blumenthal was thrilled at the sight of snow, and Andrea Bozzano, coming over as a teen from Italy, was stunned by the parks he found.
“So much green space — forest preserves everywhere.”
Rachel Peer escaped Iran during the Islamic revolution of the late 1970s, when Jews like her became endangered, she said.
“My father was jailed,” she said. “Eventually, he was let out.”
She left as a teenager, dragging a Persian rug for her dowry, but that was confiscated on her way out as too big. She did, however, have her mother’s jewelry sewn into her winter coat, a responsibility which terrified her as she was making her way through Europe to America.
“People in the U.S. take a lot for granted,” she said. “Everybody has a chance to get education, and if they work hard, they get paid and see the fruit of their labor.”
Twitter @IrvLeavitt
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