It is not strange that in most American communities there is no habit
of community hospitality. Communities are in themselves transitory
and fluid. Many of the native born have as yet become only partially
adjusted to their physical and social environment. At least the
childhood of most of our older generation was spent under the
influence of those who had either migrated or immigrated. "_Nous
marchons tous._" We are all "pilgrims and strangers." Some have come
sooner, and some have come later, and except for the colored people
and those in territory acquired in 1848 and in 1898, all have a common
memory of having come deliberately either _from_ something worse or
_to_ something better. All have come from where they were into what
was a far country.
While the earlier arrivals are making their own adjustments, there are
knocking at their gates strangers from a more distant country speaking
a foreign tongue, accustomed to totally different ways of living and
working. Their reception, however, need not be an impossible task. On
their arrival they are formally admitted, and information as to their
origin and destination must be supplied. Methods could be devised for
receiving them in such a way as to make them feel at ease, and for
interpreting to them the changed surroundings in which they must find
a home and a job in the shortest possible time.
If discomfort and confusion were the only distress into which the
strange group fell, the situation might be only humiliating to our
generous and hospitable spirit and could be easily remedied. But the
consequences of failure to exercise hospitality at the beginning
endure in lack of understanding on the part of both groups. The
immigrant fails to find natural and normal ways of sharing in the life
of the community, and becomes skeptical as to the sincerity of
perfectly well-meaning, but uninformed, professions on the part of the
older residents. Spiritual barriers as definite, if not as easily
perceived, as the geographical boundaries of the "colonies" formed in
the different sections of our cities, develop.
This is often true in connection with the foreign-born men and
tragically more true of the women. One Italian woman in Herrin,
Illinois, for example, who had lived nineteen years in this country,
told an investigator for this study that she had never received an
American into her home as a guest, because no American had ever come
in that spirit. A Russian woman had lived in Chicago for nine years
and had, so far as she knew, not become acquainted with any Americans.
Several instances were found in which efforts have been put forward to
secure the united effort of the whole community, and yet large groups
of immigrants have remained substantially unaware of these efforts and
were entirely untouched by them.
There are several other attitudes, too, that have perhaps blinded some
to the need of provision for community hospitality. One attitude might
be characterized as that of the "self-made man." Hardship may have
either of two different effects. In one person it will develop
sympathy, compassion, and a desire to safeguard others from similar
suffering. In others it may lead to a certain callous disregard of
other people--a belief that if one has been able to surmount the
difficulties others should likewise be able. If not, so much the
worse. This kind of harshness characterizes the attitude of some of
those immigrants who have come at earlier dates toward those who have
come later.
[Illustration: A RAILROAD CAMP FOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN A PROSPEROUS
SUBURBAN COMMUNITY, 1920]
[Illustration: AN IMMIGRANT RAILWAY WORKER LIVES IN THIS CAR WITH HIS
WIFE, SIX CHILDREN, AND THREE DOGS]
It is like the occasional successful woman who is indifferent to the
general disadvantages of her sex, and to the negro who makes for
himself a brilliant place and argues that color is no handicap. In
talking to women about bringing up their children, it was a
significant fact that some of the women who had had no trouble with
their own children said that where there is trouble it is the fault of
the parents. The following comment, for example, was on the schedule
of Mrs. D., a Polish woman who has been in this country since 1894,
and has three children, aged twenty-five, twelve, and six. "If a child
is not good, Mrs. D. blames his mother, who does not know how to
take care of children. She thinks they are too ignorant."
There is also the sense of racial, national, or class superiorities.
The virtue of the Anglo-Saxon civilization is assumed; the old, as
against the new immigration, is valued. There are many who crave the
satisfaction of "looking down" on some one, and it makes life simpler
if whole groups--"Dagoes," "Hunkies," "Polacks," what you will--can be
regarded as of a different race or group, so that neither one's
heartstrings nor one's conscience need be affected by their needs. The
difficulty is increased by a similar tendency of immigrants to assume
the superiority of their people and culture and so hold aloof from the
new life. This assumption of superiority on both sides tends to hinder
rather than to further mutual understanding.
Clearly, if we are to build up a united and wholesome national life,
such attitudes of aloofness as have persisted will have to be
abandoned. If that life is to be enriched and varied--not monotonous
and mechanical--the lowly and the simple, as well as the great and the
mighty, must be able to make their contribution. This contribution can
become possible, not as the result of any compulsory scheme, but of
conditions favoring noble, generous, and sympathetic living. The
family is an institution based on the affection of the parents and
their self-sacrifice for the life and future of their children. Of
all institutions it exemplifies the power of co-operative effort, and
demands sympathetic and patient understanding. This is perhaps
especially true of the foreign-born family.
This discussion of the family problems of the foreign-born groups in
relation to the development of a national consciousness and a national
unity is based on the belief that no attempts at compulsory adjustment
can in the nature of things be successful. Sometimes the interests of
the common good and of the weaker groups demand for their own
protection the temporary exercise of compulsion, but the real solution
lies in policies grounded in social justice and guided by social
intelligence.