Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 3 | Alternative Pathways to College, page 4

"Nashville leaders welcomed and organized them, then immigrant leaders continued the process," says State Representative Robert W. Briley, the Democratic Majority Floor Leader and grandson of a former Nashville mayor who spearheaded the consolidation of the Nashville and Davidson County governments in 1963. Briley represents neighborhoods in Nashville where about 20 percent of his constituents are foreign born.

NNAC placed added emphasis on reaching out to employers, who had little experience with immigrant workers, to teach them about different social and cultural practices that could affect the workplace. It also published two brochures: How Employers Can Expand and Diversify Their Workforce and Guidebook for Employers of International Workers.

NNAC also helped immigrants and refugees to navigate the complex, bureaucratic process of gaining proper credentials and licenses to pursue jobs and addressed challenges facing foreign-trained professionals in gaining U.S. certification by identifying barriers and by raising the issue with state legislators and the governor's staff.

"Nashville is the only community I know in the United States where the Chamber of Commerce and the business community have stepped up and said 'Let's make this work,'" says Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum.

Another of NNAC's initiatives, the "Board Bank," prepared refugee and immigrant leaders to participate on boards and commissions of local government and nonprofit organizations. Tahir Hussain of the National Kurdish Forum and a member of the Board Bank, now serves on the board of the local public broadcasting television station and is a graduate of Leadership Nashville, a 30-year-old initiative to train leaders.

"NNAC allowed us to build relationships with the Nashville leaders," Hussain says. "Still, if I said everything was perfect in Nashville, that would not be accurate. Sometimes we have to be aggressive and fight for our rights. But once we start talking, we are allowed to be part of the city and we feel connected to the mainstream." Hussain is also participating in a networking project called The Davidson Group, first created in 1980 to address black-white racial tensions, that matches Nashville mentors with individuals from racial and ethnic minorities.

Ongoing Debates

Tahir Hussain hopes that one day a Kurd can be elected to the city council or state legislature and it may take a high-profile political move like that to help some Nashville natives completely grasp and understand the change afoot in their city. Although immigrants and refugees have a strong and pervasive presence in Nashville working as teachers, construction workers, doctors, parking lot attendants, businessmen, landscapers and housekeepers, among other professions, the general public still does not seem to fully grasp the sheer numbers and diversity of the city's new residents even though, for example, the city has three Spanish radio stations, along with three Spanish and one Chinese newspaper.

That seemed particularly true in May 2001 when Tennessee became the first state in the nation to allow immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to receive a driver's license. With that single piece of legislation, immigrants suddenly became a water-cooler topic in Nashville because the city was instantly tagged as a welcoming haven with an open-door policy for foreigners. Efforts began almost immediately to repeal the law when grumbling increased about lengthy lines at driver test centers and immigrants using the license as formal identification.

Public reaction to the new law birthed two new vibrant, yet opposing grassroots movements--one to limit the flow of undocumented immigrants and another to help integrate newcomers into society. Each group was as zealously driven as the other and the immigrant and refugee debate in Nashville became loud and, at times, vicious.

One group voicing opposition to ongoing immigration is Tennesseans for Immigration Control, whose spokeswoman is Donna Locke. "Tennessee is on the road to bankruptcy because of massive, out-of-control immigration and because of the magnet for illegal aliens that Tennessee has made itself," says Locke, adding her view that pro-immigrant groups that help newcomers after their arrival, along with the money and resources dedicated to their assistance, attract large concentrations of immigrants to the South.

"We're getting illegals directly from their countries of origin, and we're getting illegals from other states because of the driving privileges that Tennessee offers, because of a free or nearly free health-care program that Tennessee citizens are paying to provide and because of employers willing to hire illegal aliens," Locke says. "It's a win-win deal for the employers and illegal aliens, and a losing deal for everyone else. We're subsidizing many legal immigrants as well."

The immigration control argument has been fueled by two local talk radio hosts including Phil Valentine, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress and published a book advocating conservative values with a chapter entitled, "Illegal Immigration is Dangerous to This Country." Valentine recently aired his show live from Washington, D.C. as Congress debated a law that forbids undocumented immigrants from receiving drivers' licenses and he regularly features guests like U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who was elected on an immigration-control platform.

One topic leading the talk show agenda is the recent national attention garnered by a county judge in a town near Nashville who ordered a Hispanic mother to learn English or relinquish custody of her 11-year-old daughter. The judge has since retracted his original order, but the case, centered in a largely white suburban town where the number of Hispanics has doubled in the last four years, carries all the overt ramifications of cultural misunderstandings.

The fevered pitch of the immigration debate has some established Nashville natives cringing. "It's anti-immigration to a degree that is frightening to me," says Representative Briley. "Once that debate starts, it becomes putrid real quick. There's a lot of ignorance that they are taking away jobs and influencing our heritage. It's a new form of racism," adds Briley, who at 39, is barely old enough to remember when Nashville was one of the first cities to integrate its lunch counters and high schools. "It's politically acceptable to be racist against immigrants in some parts of this city even when it's not politically acceptable to be racist against blacks, or at least not openly," he concludes.

Theresa Harmon is a spokeswoman for Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies (TRIP), which she says was formed in reaction to the state's issuance of drivers' licenses, which she calls "our de facto national ID," and "a passport to legitimacy." Harmon counters the charge of racism in regard to immigrants, saying, "It doesn't have anything to do with racism. What gives anyone a right to break our laws? Meaning, what is unclear about the word 'illegal'? What we're seeing is a Balkanization of our laws. Immigrants keep their culture and language, stay in an enclave and do not assimilate. They need to fit into our culture and not make us fit into theirs. We didn't make these concessions for immigrants in the past. Why should we make them now?"

"Everyone says we need immigrant workers for the economy," Harmon continues. "If that were true, California would have the greatest economy in the world and we all see that's not the case. When do you say enough is enough? Americans are the most generous people on earth, but they want it to be up to them as far as when and where."

Harmon was reared in a white middle-class Nashville neighborhood south of the downtown where many of the foreign born have congregated and where Rauf Ary operates his market. "This looks nothing like the Nashville I grew up in," Harmon says. "All the signs are in Spanish. There is no English spoken here. We need to do something about this."

Three years ago, she moved her mother out of the neighborhood and sold her childhood home. "Despite what you hear, blacks and whites have gotten along here," she says. "But now the illegals are taking over the jobs that belong to blacks and legal Mexicans. I'm seeing white and black flight when Hispanics move into the neighborhoods."

Next page: During this year's legislative session, Tennessee delegates have considered a slew of bills that both limit and expand immigrants' rights and benefits.

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