Philly restaurateur takes on immigration
Jim Kenney joined a public discussion on the role of immigrants in the city and its restaurants.
Ben Miller, the South Philadelphia restaurateur out to spark a chef-driven movement for immigration-law changes, got some high-wattage attention Monday.
Democratic mayoral candidate Jim Kenney dropped by Miller's Barbacoa restaurant for a public discussion of the role and history of immigrants in the city and its restaurant industry.
Miller's wife, Barbacoa chef Cristina Martinez, is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Miller has been using social media to trumpet what he says is widely known privately: immigrants, many of them undocumented, are essential to America's $550-billion-a-year restaurant trade.
"My wife is undocumented. Her son, who is working with us," also is undocumented, Miller said. "These people are so valuable to the industry."
As Miller and Kenney spoke, about two dozen immigration activists, food-service workers, and reporters listened.
"They are valuable to us in the city. It's not just the industry," Kenney said. "I look at the attendance in the Catholic Church. It has fallen off. . . . These are the people who are going to fill those pews again and fill those schools again. It's the cycle of America."
Kenney said the exploitation that many Latino immigrants experience has precedents in earlier waves of anti-Italian and anti-Irish bigotry.
"My people were where these people are at one point. 'No Irish need apply.' They didn't like our religion," Kenney said.
"If you read Irish history in America, it is exactly what these people are going through. And if you are an Irish American or another hyphenate American and you can't empathize, then you don't know your history."
On the eve of the mayoral race he is predicted to win, if for no other reason than the huge registration advantage of Democrats over Republicans in the city, Kenney said the immigration issue is more important than local electoral politics.
"A lot of people who are not documented . . . can't vote," Kenney said. "It's not about them voting for me. It's about them being treated like human beings."
Miller invited many of the city's prominent chefs and restaurant owners to the discussion. Just two chefs - Dionicio Jimenez of Center City's El Rey and Tom McCusker of West Philadelphia's Honest Tom's Taco Shop - attended.
In an interview after the lunch discussion, Miller said he started his immigration activism a year ago, tweeting into the void. For Sunday, he has scheduled the next in a series of meetings to try to build the movement. Among ideas under consideration are a flier with facts and figures about the contributions of undocumented immigrants, and the creation of a logo that could be affixed to the windows and menus of supportive restaurants.
"We want to create a dialogue that is safe enough and popular enough that more chefs will come forward," he said.
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