The American Immigrant Experience

With each generation the story of the United States has taken shape, deeply influenced by native populations as well as the people who have come to her shores. Our home in Santa Fe and the surrounding region have been a particularly fertile crossroads of Hispanic, Anglo, and Native cultures, all contributing to the story of our community. In today’s program we reflect on that story through the eyes of those who have sought a better life in the United States. Through first person accounts, songs, and poems, we seek to deepen our understanding of the experience of those coming north, and how each arrival shapes our shared history.

Our story begins at a time when the decision to leave home was still far off, and the shadow of violence had not yet clouded the sky (The Garden). When the darkness comes it is swift and it is brutal (The Fall), leaving no choice but to abandon everything that is familiar and seek another place. We set out, and the path is marked by chapters of sorrow and hope, echoing the experience of so many generations that have come before. Though there are moments of despair, faith in a better future inspires us, and we keep moving (The Journey). Richard Blanco’s poem Mother Country takes us back to 1968 and a mother’s love for a family adapting to a strange new land. Caroline Shaw’s Her Beacon-hand Beckons recalls the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty and promises made but not always kept. (The Arrival).

Our final chapter (The Dream) sees us looking forward. Where can we go from here? Easy answers elude us. Could singing together be one way, perhaps, to truly see one another? North, by the band Sleeping At Last and Jocelyn Hagen’s Hands take us to that place, beyond words, where we can look into another’s eyes and stand united, together.

–Joshua Habermann