Thread: Riverside NJ restaurant: 'Americans are not welcome'

'The town is lost,' says couple who left Riverside

By Monica Yant Kinney
Inquirer Columnist

Compared with the hotheads spewing racial spite, Helen Westenberger was positively polite in her response to the illegal-immigration crisis in Riverside.

That controversial ordinance fining people who rent to, or employ, illegal immigrants?

"It's too late," Helen, 69, says simply. "The town is lost."

Helen and her husband, Rudy, also 69, lived together in the house he grew up in for 39 years. In 1999, they reluctantly bailed, convinced that Brazilians in town illegally had changed the face of Riverside for the worse, forever.

They came for construction jobs and stayed when city leaders, desperate for a revival, looked the other way.

Some revival. When the Westenbergers put their twin on the market, it fetched just $75,000 - a full $20,000 less than what it was once worth.

Should they blame the Brazilians? Chalk it up to a buyers' market, with more than 100 other homes for sale in one tiny town? Who knows.

But if this is the cost of illegal immigration, who pays?

And if a single suburban town unintentionally became home to hundreds of undocumented foreigners - who bought property and businesses and pay taxes - is it really in Riverside's best interest to kick them out?

Welcome to America

You wouldn't know it from talking to him, but Rudy is German.

When his family arrived in 1952 - legally, sponsored by the local Lutheran church - the first thing they were told was to learn English, fast.

Rudy was 16. Soon, he sounded like any other American teenager. "Within a year," he says, "people told me they couldn't detect any accent at all."

Back then, immigrants knew to assimilate - or else. Speak English. Become citizens. Learn to cook American food, and like it.

What helped send the Westenbergers and their neighbors packing was how brazenly the Brazilians resisted becoming Riversiders.

Rudy used to love going to the Palace, a little restaurant on Scott Street owned by Greeks. When the family sold to Brazilians, he was horrified to see a sign on the door one day reading, "Americans are not welcome."

When I tell Rudy I don't believe it, he swears he has a friend who will corroborate. The sign wasn't up long, he admits, but long enough to sting.

Downtown businesses catering to Brazilians were certainly an improvement over abandoned buildings, but hardly a cause to celebrate.

"They took over stores for their convenience," Helen says, "not for the rest of us who lived in Riverside."

Helen worked for years as a manager at the SuperFresh in Mount Holly, where every week, illegal immigrants would line up to wire their American earnings back to Brazil.

She remembers one family disappearing from the neighborhood overnight. Rumor had it that they'd finally made enough money to go back home and live the good life.

"The town leaders thought immigration was going to be a good thing, that they would bring prosperity to town," Helen says. "But it was really only prosperous for the immigrants."

Gone, but not forgotten

When Helen and Rudy left Riverside, they moved all the way to Mickleton. Now, when Rudy needs to see his foot doctor, it's a 30-mile drive.

I know this because after spending a morning with them in their all-American retirement community, Rudy suggested we take a ride to Riverside.

Back in town, Helen immediately starts counting "For Sale" signs and pointing out work vans with Pennsylvania plates - a sure sign that Brazilian laborers are near.

Rudy drives past the cemetery in Little Italy. On Monroe Street, he tells me that in his day, "you had to be Polish to live here."

"Back then," he says, "Riverside was a league of all nations."

So what's the difference now, I ask? Shouldn't one who was welcomed be more welcoming?

Rudy would if he could, but he won't because they're illegal. It's a matter of principle. He followed the rules. Everyone should have to.

When we pass the old Palace restaurant, I see it's now a Brazilian joint called King Chicken.

The sign on the door is a sign of the times: "We speak English."

Rudy used to love going to the Palace, a little restaurant on Scott Street owned by Greeks. When the family sold to Brazilians, he was horrified to see a sign on the door one day reading, "Americans are not welcome."

Outrageous!

That's obviously the opinion they got from Americans that it's 'OK' in America to say "Americans not welcome". Ungrateful rot!

IndianaJones,

I do NOT BELIEVE that they got it from AMERICANS or LEGAL immigrants.

Perhaps, they got the ok from our LawBreakers.

Looks like ICE needs to pay a visit to Riverside.

Originally Posted by MW

Looks like ICE needs to pay a visit to Riverside.

If i had it my way, it would be a few Infantry Divisions!

Truly depressing I can relate, I moved from Northern Va. after lving there all my life because of the serious problems with illegals in my neighborhood. I stuck it out for 9 years and simply couldn't tolerate it anymore.

I have lived on the border of Riverside for 25 years. I grew up next to the town that now seems to be bringing so much attention to itself, and while I am ashamed of them, I'm not suprised. Riverside has always, ever since I remember, had a loser mentallity, where it was cool to be the bad one. The hatred most people in Riverside have for the Brazilians is for their own lack of work ethic and family values they have been forced to watch by the Brazilian people.

I know many of the Brazilians and I speak a good deal of their language, so I know how they feel. The business owners are going to be ruined they tell me, and in a town that hasn't had that many stores open since 1966. 40 years of bars, proof being the Guiness book record of having the most liquer licenses per 1.5 square miles some time ago. Along with the shafting of a pipeline called a light rail that didn't do sqwat for any economy it runs through, nor eliminate any major traffic burden. In fact, it's the biggest pain in the ass to deal with living in Delran near the tracks, or driving by them.

So get your heads out of your asses and look at places like Newark that embraced the community and now has an entire section of the city with businesses flourishing and people of all races bustling and buying items which creates tax revenue for everybody. Unlike the welfare that has genrally funded the section 8 housing in Riverside with little improvement if any amongst the poor whites and blacks. Remember, some of these Brazilians have to pay rent, food, plus a large fee to get in the country if they came illegally, or legally. It isn't cheap to come and set up in America at the exchange rates for the Rio to the Dollar, but they make it. So stop the hate and go to work Riverside. Buy your own white vans and bust your asses, or shut the hell up.

And they have never had a sign up that I have seen that says that. They are very welcoming in fact. And the food is wonderful.