Immigrants' View of Harvard

When I told my paternal grandfather of my acceptance to Harvard, the retired builder and son of a Rumanian immigrant turned nostalgic. "Never in a million years when I was pumping gas in the Bronx terminal market did I think my grandson would attend Harvard," he told me. My mother's father, an immigrant from Warsaw and a shopkeeper, wept and drank to my health.

While the Statue of Liberty, whose 100th anniversary celebration begins today, represents a promise to America's immigrants, Harvard in many ways is the fulfillment of that dream. But that success can also mean the loss of an identity at the hands of Harvard, America's juggernaut of respectable heritage.

When immigrants came to this country in search of success, often their first desire was to see their children educated. Overwhelmed by the abundance of schools in this country compared to elsewhere, the opportunity for most to receive an education, immigrants relish the chance to see their children attend any university. But Harvard University, whose 350th birthday party begins in August, is still somehow special among all those schools.

Harvard represents the traditional America, dating back to its Anglo-Saxon heritage. Succeeding in the United States in many ways means assimilation, achieving some ideal of what an American should be, and Harvard is an integral part of that ideal. This University was founded by the original American stock of New England. Its ivy-covered brick walls, wood-panelled rooms and highbrow image are part of the traditional English heritage and elitist manner still maintained in this nation of equals.

Often, despite a constantly touted diversity, students leaving Harvard comment on the homogenizing effect of their four years in Cambridge. That process begins early in a student's Harvard career. The suggested summer reading for incoming freshman is the Education of Henry Adams, a bible of New England culture written by the same man who complained of immigrants snarling a weird yiddish. (I like to think it was my ancestors who annoyed this 19th century man's sensibilities.) At the 350th anniversary celebration, Charles, Prince of Wales will speak at one of the main convocations, the one dedicated to celebrating Harvard's Anglo-Saxon roots.

Some say we should reject assimilation. A friend of mine questions why the newest generation of New York Jews wants to attend Harvard. If we all just went to City College like our parents did we would be in just as good an educational environment and we would not have to sell out and become part of America's dominant class and its aristocracy, he argues.

But immigrants come to this University anyway, some becoming part of its most stifling traditions, others resisting them but still receiving the Harvard seal of assimilation on their resume. Most are probably less cynical than my friend, and more similar to my grandparents, viewing their educational triumph as a culmination rather than an aberration. Getting into Harvard means acceptance. But often that assimilation can mean changing the immigrant heritage without changing the institution at all.

And that's the message Lady Liberty doesn't deliver when the immigrant first sees her. Success in the United States means becoming American. Fortunately, in some areas of the country the culture changes accompanying the entry of immigrants have altered the fabric of American life. At Harvard that transformation has hardly happened.

Perhaps non-Anglo-Saxon immigration is too recent a phenomenon to transform Harvard substantially, one of the most ancient institutions in the United States. But that doesn't mean schools like Harvard should be avoided, rather there should be constant pressure on them to change. Pressure that we sometimes forget to apply just as we forget our fleeting ethnic heritages.

When the sons and daughters of immigrants watch the birthday celebration for the Statue of Liberty this weekend, hopefully it will serve not as a reminder of their opportunity for success here but of their roots elsewhere. Even at the most venerable of American institutions we should not forget our differences and try to feel completely at home in some other tradition.

Perhaps my father's words of advice to me before I left for college seem to be the best solution to the dilemma Harvard presents. "You'll do well," he said, "If you dress British but always think Yiddish."