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Columbia County community opens its arms to immigrants
BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER
08/21/2006

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BENTON — About 40 miles northwest of a battleground in an American debate over illegal immigration, no one is talking about undocumented workers or discrimination lawsuits.

Instead, Raul Lopez, a 22-year-old Mexican immigrant, is sitting in a volunteer fire hall across the table from a group of white teenagers, eating food prepared by white women.

He is smiling and relaxed. So is his friend, 27-year-old Miquel Lopez. So are several other Hispanic immigrants scattered about the room among about 30 longtime Benton area residents.

Something unique happened Sunday afternoon in the Benton Area Volunteer Fire Hall: two communities which have been largely at odds in Northeast Pennsylvania during the past few months met on friendly terms.

The Stillwater Christian Church organized the event in Benton, a borough of about 900 in rural northern Columbia County. Mike Delp, a pastor at the church, called the gathering a “friendship meal.”

The timing of the dinner was interesting. Early last week, a group of attorneys and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against an ordinance in Hazleton that punishes landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, forbids companies from employing them and makes English the official language.

The controversy surrounding the ordinance has deeply divided many in the city of about 30,000, largely along racial lines. Copycat ordinances have sprung up around the country. About 20 miles from Benton, Berwick is considering a similar ordinance.

Benton, too, is adjusting to an influx of Hispanic immigrants. As of six years ago, according to the 2000 census, Benton had only one Hispanic resident.

Updated census data is not yet available, but without question, Benton’s Hispanic population has grown since then. About a dozen immigrants showed up to the dinner. The church invited many others, but some are still afraid of getting too close to their mostly white neighbors.

“They’re leery,” Delp said. “They’re just not sure why we’re doing this. They seem intimidated by us so we try to invite them as graciously as we can.”

And longtime residents of Benton are not without apprehensions over immigration either, Delp said. According to the same census data, Benton is more than 99 percent white, and some members of the community took issue with flyers promoting the event, which were printed in Spanish.

“You just sense some resistance in the way they respond to you when we said we wanted to do this,” he said.

Any tension between the communities apparently evaporated inside the fire hall.

Each of the guests filled their plates with ground meat served over tortillas alongside lettuce, salsa and rice.

Adults from both communities exchanged handshakes and tried their best to interact with one another, despite the often limited overlap in their vocabularies. Most conversations didn’t go far beyond, “Hello, how are you?” But the friendly tone of voice often conveyed what was left unsaid.

Children, meanwhile, regarded their Spanish-speaking neighbors with innocent curiosity. Hannah Weidner, of Berwick, excitedly asked how to say a few simple sentences in Spanish.

“It’s so hard to remember all of it,” she said when someone told her how to say, “My brother visited Mexico” in Spanish. She and a few other children used a pen to write the newly learned words on their hands.

Raul Lopez smiled as Weidner attempted to decipher the scribbles.

“I feel happy,” he said through a translator. “And I feel better because I know people want to be friends.”

wmalcolm@citizensvoice.com
©The Citizens Voice 2006