The Immigrant: a delta of Love

My name is Fr. Javier San Martin, SJ and I work in the Hispanic Ministry of Mobile, Alabama.

When someone decides to say goodbye to his country and to emigrate to a different culture, he takes with himself all his life, all that his country has given to him. These are treasures an immigrant can decide to preserve and share with the culture that will receive him. It is possible, however, that quite an opposite feeling can be generated in the immigrant that makes him have an inferiority complex and that his culture is somehow second-rate; and because of that, he tries to hide himself, to pass unattended, to hide his customs and to stay in the shadows.

In orography there is a curious phenomenon that can help to understand better how an immigrant should behave. When a river comes closer to the sea there is created a long space that it is call "delta" in which the river approaches the sea and mixes with the water of the ocean. In some cases when the river is abundant and the delta stretches for many miles, the water takes on it own character. It is no longer the pure water of the river nor is it the pure water of the ocean. It is a new water enriched by the elements which both the river and the sea share.

In a similar way, we can conceive the immigrant's life as the river that, taking its own wealth, enters in coalition with other seas, with other cultures. It would be erroneous to think that the immigrant cannot contribute anything to his new country. It would be equally erroneous to think that a culture it is already complete, and that it doesn't need anything from other cultures of people that come from abroad. It is well to remember that the United States was formed from a melding of diverse cultures, and its wealth in fact resides in this fact. Moreover, it will continue to increase if it is open to rivers that come from other parts of the world.

Consequently, when one decides to emigrate he should in the first place, feel proud of his own earth, his own culture, his own language and of everything that he has received in his native country. One does not emigrate because he wants to turn his back on his country and his culture. That would be betray the homeland that nurtured him and would impose a guilt that he would take forever upon his shoulders. In addition, he has to face the new horizon with the spirit of assimilating other cultures, imbibing all that his new home will give him, knowing that this combination of what he takes and of what he receives, will enrich both.

However, this will be possible only if the immigrant departs from his native shore with an attitude of LOVE - a love for what he has, and with grateful love which will permit him to receive what he will find in his new environment. In this way, the delta of his life will yield positive fruits for him and for the culture that welcomes him.

Cordially
Javier San Martin S.J.
jsanmartin@shc.edu