Antonio Garcia has been content living in Philadelphia since he immigrated from El Salvador six years ago. Garcia, an apartment sophisticated maintenance man, lives with his wife and three children in Northeast Philadelphia, an area with “so many cultures.”
But Garcia, who left El Salvador in part to find better educational opportunities for his daughter with Down syndrome, is beginning to worry about his prospects.
“We are worried about Trump,” Garcia said. “We hope he doesn’t do much of what he says.”
Garcia and his family were among more than 100 people who attended a Thanksgiving dinner Sunday at the Old Pine Community Center in Society Hill, hosted by HIAS Pennsylvania, an immigration services and refugee resettlement agency. In the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election – after a campaign season filled with murky rhetoric about immigrants and promises of mass deportations – an underlying undercurrent of anxiety has emerged.
HIAS Pennsylvania executive director Cathryn Miller-Wilson said in an interview that many of the agency’s clients were “sad and scared” after the election, grappling with the question: “What does it mean to be in a country that is hostile to me?”
Last year, the agency served 6,000. people, the expansive majority of whom were immigrants seeking legal assistance. Miller-Wilson said she tried to assure them that despite the “victory of anti-immigrant sentiment,” Trump’s election was driven primarily by economic considerations and “not hate.” (Miller-Wilson, however, argued that restricting immigration would not be an economic boon but a “disaster”.)
Although HIAS Pennsylvania briefly considered canceling Sunday’s “Grateful Together” event – held every Thanksgiving – it decided “absolutely not,” Miller-Wilson said. “We really need to show customers that we are still here for you.”
For Sunday dinner, foldable tables covered with red and yellow plastic tablecloths were set up on the community center’s basketball court. Volunteers stationed along the walls removed turkey, stuffing and cornbread from foil trays while customers lined up with plates. Children ran around with pages from coloring books.
“We know most of you are concerned about the future, and so are we,” Miller-Wilson told the crowd, which included people from many countries; Translators were on hand to translate into Spanish, Pashto, Rohingya and Dari. But “the future will be better because you are here, sharing the present with us.”
That message was echoed by several Democratic officials who also addressed the crowd, including U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, who told attendees she understood “how important it is that we remain a welcoming country” and thanked them for attending.
City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier said her mother immigrated to Philadelphia from the Caribbean as a teenager with “the same determination and hopes that everyone else has.”
While “I know we are living in uncertain and tense times,” she said, “the Philadelphia City Council welcomes you.”
Israel Hernandez was among those who confronted this uncertainty at the dinner. Hernandez came to the United States from Guatemala six years ago; through a translator, he said he left with his son because he had drug problems and Hernandez feared he would be killed.
His 17-year-old daughter, Carmen, joined her father in April in Philadelphia. But another daughter is still in Guatemala, and Hernandez fears she will no longer be able to come.
While Hernandez said he won’t worry about his fate under Trump, he “can’t stop thinking” about his daughter. He doesn’t want her to be alone, but he also doesn’t want to return to Guatemala, given the problems that made him emigrate.
Some dinner attendees said they didn’t pay much attention to the elections and didn’t think about their results. Paulino Dikuiza, who came to the United States from Angola five years ago, said he left his country because of his political activities there. At this point he said: “I am not a politician,” he said in French.
Mashal Ahmadzai, an immigrant from Afghanistan who came to Philadelphia with his family a year ago, said he wasn’t concerned about it as a green card holder. “We have the documents,” said Ahmadzai, who works as a forklift driver. He believed that the “risk to us” was miniature.
Garcia, a native of El Salvador, says he hasn’t had any problems in his six years in Philadelphia. His older son, Dylan, 13, said he and his 11-year-old sister were content to join their parents in Philadelphia four years ago; after moving here, his parents had a third child.
“There are a lot of families here,” Antonio Garcia said. “We work hard and contribute.”
