Stu Bykofsky: Immigrants are key to the American spirit
CONSIDERING THE recent headlines, I went looking for an Iranian, and found one, but the interview didn't really pan out.
CONSIDERING THE recent headlines, I went looking for an Iranian, and found one, but the interview didn't really pan out.
That's how it goes sometimes.
But sometimes you find what you need, even when you are not looking for it.
It was a couple of days before July Fourth and I wanted to retell America's story through a fervent believer - one of the 500 seeds blown from distant shores who were naturalized as American citizens that day in the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
That's where I met beaming new American Lanre Simeon Sogbesan, 35, formerly of Lagos, Nigeria, now of tiny Temple, Pa., a few miles north of Reading. He was there with wife, Felicia, and their two daughters, Ife Leah, 4, and Busola Esther, almost 2. The cute girls were Americans before their father, by virtue of being born here.
Felicia got her immigrant status first and arrived here in 1998. Lanre filed to come here as a spouse, but so did a lot of other people, he told me in lightly accented English. He had to wait his turn.
The 32-year-old Felicia became a citizen in 2003, and Lanre was admitted that same year, after five years of separation. During those years they saw each other only three times, and each time Felicia flew to Nigeria. "I was not permitted to come here," Lanre said, then adding, "It was worth the waiting."
Felicia didn't waste her time while here alone. She studied at Temple's medical school and became a pharmacist. Lanre is a mental-health professional.
Some few Americans, I know, don't like immigrants, legal or not. How could anyone possibly have a problem with the Sogbesans?
They studied, they worked hard and they just bought a new four-bedroom house where they will raise their daughters.
During the naturalization ceremony, guest-speaker Mayor Nutter thanked the immigrants for coming to America, and for settling in the Philadelphia area. With July Fourth then around the corner, he talked about the Founders' belief - enshrined in the Declaration of Independence - in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In America, he said, almost any dream can come true.
It's like he knows the Sogbesans.
Clutching his citizenship certificate, Lanre rhapsodized about America, saying that citizenship is a "privilege." I asked him why he feels that way.
"It doesn't matter where you come from," he said. "If you can prove yourself, you can be whoever you want to be, you know."
You will probably not be surprised to hear that tiny Temple, Pa., was white as an igloo until the Sogbesans moved in. The neighbors, Lanre concedes, were "very, very skeptical" and stand-offish at first.
Lanre noticed a police cruiser outside his home one day running his license plate. He wanted to go out to ask why the officer was doing that, but he took Felicia's advice to ignore it.
After a while, the cops didn't come around, and the neighbors did.
"When they saw we just nice people, do our job, come back home, you know, they saw there was no revolving door with every Dick and Harry coming in," Lanre said. "Strictly me and my family. Now we're the best of friends."
There's no denying that flecks of racism, or xenophobia, stain our national character. There's also no denying that there's less of it all the time.
When I asked them if they believe in the American Dream, Lanre smiled and said yes, while Felicia nodded her head furiously.
They are the reason Lady Liberty lifts her lamp beside the golden door, why America must always welcome immigrants. They redeem our promise to the world. They replenish our American spirit.
Thomas Jefferson was wrong when he said, "The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
What we really require is an influx of immigrants, the keepers of the American Dream.
Legal immigrants, who wait their turn and do the right thing even when it is aggravating.
Like Lanre and Felicia Sogbesan, two of our newest, proudest, most patriotic Americans.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: