Why Did So Many Hispanics Come to the U.S. Illegally Since 1965?

It’s time to update things.  I have focused so far on the Italian end of the “Hispanics are the new Italians” theme that I have been pursuing.  I have hardly mentioned Hispanics yet, for the good and sufficient reason that they just didn’t figure into the national discourse about immigration until rather recently.  But they certainly do now, so here’s a brief summary of when and why things started to change.

The 1920s immigration laws that I discussed in an earlier post placed quotas on how many from where could legally enter the U.S., while effectively barring Asians and Africans outright.  As evidence of just how little Hispanics figured in the picture, the new laws placed no numerical limits at all on immigration from Latin America or the Caribbean.  Hispanics still weren’t of major concern when the next major alteration to the U.S. immigration laws took place during the 1960s, but things would change in the decades that followed.  Consider:

In 1965, the estimated number of people from Latin America residing illegally in the U.S. was near zero.  Today there are an estimated 11 million of them.  Together with the legal immigrants and the children of both, Latin Americans now constitute almost 10% of the U.S. population.

So what happened to bring so many here?  It’s not that complicated a story, but there have been many twists and turns along the way.  It’s also been over fifty years now, and other factors have contributed during that period.  I’m only going to write about how it all began, and zero is a good place to start. 

To begin, we have to expose the reality behind the numbers in the highlighted paragraph above, particularly that first “near zero.” Then we need to discuss a classic example of what happens when Congress, despite all the good intentions in the world, doesn’t do its homework.  Together, these two stories reveal the beginning of the process that led to our current national fixation with “the immigration problem.”

The statistical zero for illegal immigrants in 1965 is deceptive.  There were actually a great many Mexicans living in the U.S. before that date, depending on where in the country we are looking, but most important on the time of year.  They were encouraged to work in the U.S., but not allowed to stay permanently.  They were migrant laborers, here legally courtesy of the Bracero Program. 

The Bracero Program had originated during World War II in answer to the agricultural labor shortage that military service had caused.  We grew a lot of food to feed our troops overseas, and we needed people to grow and harvest these crops.  Mexico, just south of us, had a large number of unemployed or underemployed people.  It was a natural fit.

It also wasn’t new.  The Bracero Program basically just legalized a migrant labor practice that had been in place long before, if officially unacknowledged.  The program helped to provide the badly needed agriculture labor, while ostensibly guaranteeing better working conditions for the migrant laborers (plus pay of $.30 an hour!).  The Bracero Program began in August 1942, when our government and that of Mexico signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement.  The first braceros entered the country in September, just in time for the sugar beet harvest season.  During the war itself, not that many braceros actually participated in the program, but the labor market was so tight that they were important, often important enough to require the payment of bribes to get a labor contract.*

As with many “wartime expedients,” the program not only survived, it was greatly expanded after the war.  It was highly profitable for growers, of course, ridding them of any real responsibility for their workforce, as well as any number of people who carved out a profitable niche in this mass circular movement.  However, even if we assume that the Program delivered on its promise of better living conditions, the life of a migrant worker was hard and degrading.  It was also a dead end, condemning these men and their families to a lifetime of transient peonage.

By the 1960s, blatant prejudice had gone out of fashion in most of America.  This was the age of the Civil Rights Movement and a host of other efforts aimed at ameliorating some of the worst components of the American national psyche.  Rather overlooked amidst its more publicized activities, the U.S. Congress, for the very best of motives, took two actions, one in 1964 and one the following year.  These two would interact to form a vise of most peculiar shape and function, one that slowly forced increasing numbers of Mexicans—and others from Latin America—into the U.S. illegally.  This phraseology means that, in the early decades at least, those entering illegally did not so much make the choice as be forced into making it.

The first of these actions was the 1964 termination of the Bracero Program (over vociferous objections from Mexico, it should be noted).  Congress phased out the entire program by 1968.  The long-established legal infrastructure that had provided the labor for our “economic miracle” of cultivating the Southwest ceased to exist.  The laborers were still needed, but now legal immigrant worker status was required.  Each had to enter legally, then stay and work under existing programs for resident aliens.  There were several problems with that right away, but one the biggest one didn’t appear until the following year.  That was the 1965 passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The Immigration and Nationality Act is a lesser-known component of LBJ’s “Great Society.”  It replaced the obviously racist 1920s quotas, and attempted to establish a neutral immigration system that focused on family reunification and labor needs. During the negotiations that led to this Act, our border with Mexico was not a major focus of attention. Hispanic immigration—legal or illegal—was a minor issue in 1965.  The Act did, however, impose the first numerical restrictions, capping the total immigrants allowed from the Western Hemisphere at 120,000.  Subsequent amendments between 1978 and 1980 further lowered the allowed numbers.

Thus, to glowing reviews, the trap was set, and what should have been foreseen took place.  A large number of Mexicans, whose life had been tending crops in the U.S., while technically living in Mexico, faced a cruel dilemma.  Their migratory living had been eliminated, but Mexico had no work for them (which was largely why they became migrant workers in the first place).  They could not legally immigrate to the U.S, where there was work to sustain their families, as the 1965 Act and subsequent restrictions had capped the legal residence options at much too low a number.  The result was obvious, at least in retrospect: a migration that had been circular and legal became one-way and illegal.  The 1965 Act increased legal immigration from Latin America—up to the max, in fact—but in combination with the end of the Bracero Program, the two managed to create an entirely new problem, that of illegal immigration.   

In the decades after the 1965 Act, illegal immigration mushroomed, particularly from Latin America. Mexico was by far the most frequent country of origin.  By not paying attention to how capping the number of legal immigrants allowed in the U.S. impacted their previous decision to terminate the Bracero Program, the U.S. government laid the groundwork for the illegal entry of millions of Latin Americans, with the resulting upsurge of nativism and xenophobia in response.  Illegal immigration continued—and increased—in later decades, and the reasons for that lie in the comparison of international economies.  Still, everything needs a creator, and for the problem of illegal immigration from Mexico, that was clearly the U.S. government. 

  

*Thank you, Wikipedia!

Columbus Day and the Italian Heritage; Further in Debt to Hank Cisco

Last October, I began a series of monthly posts dealing with ethnicity and immigration, focusing as always on my subject towns along Pennsylvania’s lower Schuylkill River.  I drew comparisons between attitudes toward immigrants now—largely Hispanic—and similar views about Italians, their predecessors as the most suspect immigrant minority in the U.S.  In February, I acknowledged that much of my inspiration came from my mentor and friend, Hank Cisco, the Ambassador of Norristown.  Hank is a proud Italian-American, with a long record of support for efforts to commemorate Norristown’s Italian heritage.

This post is again inspired by Hank, who sent a group email with a link to an article in the Italian American Herald.com, entitled “Columbus Being Pushed out of the Picture in America?”  This fits right in what what I have been writing about.  He asked for feedback, and here is mine, late though it is.

Keep in mind that what I have already written about ethnicity—and that’s a sizeable, and growing, amount—and what I shall write, in this post and forthcoming ones, derives from my perhaps unusual perspective.  As I have written before [6/26/15], I view and comment on ethnicity from the position of an outsider.  I possess no ethnicity, for a combination of circumstances, but my primary emotion from that is one of regret.  I am sure this will lead to my thinking along different lines for this subject.

The Italian American Herald is dedicated to preserving the Italian heritage in America.  The essence of the article’s argument is that, in its own words, “Part of preserving is protecting and slowly there is erupting a movement to abolish Columbus Day, a holiday near and dear to Italian Americans.” 

The statement’s phraseology demonstrates, but does not take into account the uniquely bifurcated nature of Columbus Day.  I can think of no other federal holiday that has been celebrated for such different reasons for so long.  It is a federal holiday, and has been since 1937.  The public holiday has always celebrated the beginning of the European cultural influence in the Western Hemisphere.  Yet it is also very personal, “near and dear to Italian Americans,” who celebrate it in their communities and organizations for the fact that Columbus was Italian.  The article itself links the public and the personal view of Columbus, implying that opposition to Columbus Day demeans Italian culture.

First, some background information about federal holidays.  To begin with, the fact that a date is a federal holiday does not actually mean a great deal.  Technically, such recognition applies only to federal employees and federal property.  The federal government is prohibited by the Constitution from requiring any state to observe a federal holiday.  This leaves it up to the individual state to decide.  For Italians, the ability to opt out is where the problem comes in, because a few states have chosen not to celebrate the event, or at least not as regards Columbus.

Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, South Dakota and Vermont do not observe Columbus Day, but for reasons that vary widely.  South Dakota and Vermont recognize “Native American Day” and "Indigenous Peoples Day" as a direct alternative to Columbus Day.  Alaska’s reasoning seems to be that the date falls too close to Alaska Day.  Hawaii cannot be said to have any meaningful connection to Columbus at all, so its recognition of “Discovers Day” might be interpreted as being more inclusive than it seems.  In addition, a few municipalities have themselves abolished Columbus Day observances, following the lead of The Peoples Republic of Berkeley, California.

 Now to the nub of the argument:  Are efforts to disestablish Columbus Day directly—or indirectly—an attack on America’s Italian heritage?  

Here is where my status as an outsider comes into play.  I have always been aware of the public nature of Columbus Day; in my upbringing, Columbus Day was for celebrating one’s “Americanness,” and I can recall no emphasis at all on the Italian aspect.  The fact that the Spanish had an Italian show them the way to the new world was just one of those interesting little factoids of history.  Columbus Day was all about the civilizing mission of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere.  Columbus was purely a symbol; his being Italian had virtually nothing to do with it.  The public message celebrating the spread of western civilization runs closely parallel to the personal message that celebrates Columbus being Italian, but there is separation between them, visible at least to this outsider.

Although I cannot feel it as an Italian would, I have learned of the day’s importance to Italian Americans, and see the Columbus monument in Norristown a prime example not only of the day’s significance to them, but to that civilizing message itself.  They may run in parallel, but there is a close connection between the two.

The subject article says that “slowly there is erupting a movement to abolish Columbus Day,” but just how threatened is Columbus Day?  That clearly depends on where in this large, diverse country of ours that you live.  The author recognizes this, and even seems to find it understandable, when she says, “No wonder people are challenging Columbus Day and winning support to change it to Indigenous Peoples Day.  In the American Midwest and West, where the Italian populations are scarce and the American Indian population is huge, Oregon and Minnesota’s Italian American population is about 110,000 and others mentioned don’t reach 100,000.” 

The message I take from this is very American: the people are the authority, and the more local the better.  That means the response to any attempt to disestablish Columbus Day is going to vary quite a bit.  Anadarko, Oklahoma has abolished Columbus Day, but Norristown, Pennsylvania is not going to.

Although I would not use the term “erupting,” Columbus Day is clearly under pressure.  But here’s the rub: in all of the actions, proclamations, statements or whatever taken or made by any state or municipality opposing Columbus Day, I have yet to see one—not even one—directed against Italy, Italians, or Italian Americans.  Columbus long ago became a symbol of Europe’s “civilizing” influence on the Western Hemisphere, its public persona.  In 1892, decades before it became a federal holiday, much of the nation celebrated his 400^th anniversary with what Wikipedia calls “patriotic rituals.”  That process had continued, but today we celebrate diversity, with organizations such as Italianamericanherald.com among the celebrants of diversity, Italian style. 

It turns out that celebrating diversity is not a universal good for everyone, as Italians are discovering.  Columbus is part of Italian heritage, and his memory is employed to help sustain and nourish a distinct Italian American ethnicity.  But for anyone who identifies with “indigenous peoples,” sustaining their ethnic history requires recognizing the havoc wrought upon them by the new immigrant Europeans.*  For them, Columbus is a symbol; not of Italy or Italians, but of Europe, the civilization that raped and plundered the Western Hemisphere.  The fact that he was Italian is of no significance.  Italy did not even participate in the rape and plunder of the new world for the good and sufficient reason that Italy did not yet exist.

Unfortunately, while there may be no offense intended by Native Americans, there definitely is offense taken by Italian Americans.  But is the downgrading of Columbus in areas where Italians are massively outnumbered by Native Americans a symptom of the downgrading of Italian-American history?  Perhaps only someone such as I, utterly lacking in ethnicity, would even ask such a question, but I do.  I would like to hear some thoughts on this from you, my readers, and in particular would enjoy your thoughts on my public/private distinction.  How valid is it?

I will conclude with the one point in the article with which I wholeheartedly agree: “Educating all generations is vital to Italian Americans sustaining their heritage, culture and traditions.  Honor the roots of our Italian ancestors who forged onto a new land and were once the unwelcome immigrant.”  Regardless of the fate of Columbus Day in areas with little Italian American population, those parts of America that do possess such peoples should follow the advice quoted above.  This has been the central point of all my writing in this series on ethnicity that has focused on Italian Americans.  They were indeed the unwelcome immigrants, once.

*They have a point.  Within two generations after the arrival of Columbus, the native population of the Western Hemisphere had dropped by at least 90%, largely due to European diseases.  Most of those who remained alive, or their descendants, were subsequently either killed or enslaved.

Maintaining A Sense of Community: A Very Big Job For This Very Small Town

Last month, I wrote about the very small town (current population, some 1300 people) of West Conshohocken, Pa., which is literally besieged by vehicle traffic, due to hosting an intersection of interstate highways within its already tiny boundaries.  The feeder roads and ramps to the interchange have not only taken land that used to be houses and playgrounds, they have divided what remains into small, isolated pockets.  I saw in this scenario a chance to inquire whether a sense of community—once a prominent characteristic of West Conshohocken, as of its sister towns on Pennsylvania’s lower Schuylkill River—can survive under such an assault.  I concluded the post with an appeal to the residents of West Conshohocken to send me comments on the current state of their community.  I promised to write a post about the opinions I would receive, and this is it.

But first, a reality check.  If we are going to discuss a town’s sense of community today, we must first understand and appreciate just how difficult a task our towns face, through no fault of their own, even those not subjected to anything close to what has happened to West Conshohocken.  The simple fact of life today is that the deck is stacked against towns trying to retain their long-time sense of community, and the smaller the town, the higher the stack.

It didn’t use to be that way; in fact, it used to be exactly the opposite.  Every town on the lower Schuylkill River, including West Conshohocken, came into being when the technology of the times almost mandated not just the creation of a town, but of closely integrated and tightly-packed towns.  Each town, regardless of size or specific geography contained within it—because it had to—almost everything people needed: workplaces, shopping, houses of worship and sources of entertainment, all usually within walking distance.  You got to know your neighbors, because you worked with them.  Wives shopped together at just a few stores, so the proprietors got to know people as individuals.  You didn’t see everybody at worship, but you saw those who were most like you, due to the town’s ethnic churches.  As regards the (scarce) leisure time available for entertainment, the world of these towns may have been limited, but local theatres brought the outside world to a town’s residents, first by hosting many of the day’s touring entertainment options, and later through films.

When people lived, worked, shopped, worshiped and relaxed, all within the same town, they felt a strong sense of responsibility toward the community they had created.  Thus each town, knowing that for anything short of a major disaster it was largely on its own, created its own community protection, with a professional police force and one or more volunteer fire companies.  The fire companies, in turn, did a great deal more than just fight fires; they became, together with the ethnic churches, the core social organizations of each town.  These community protectors were also staffed by community residents, further cementing the bond to one’s town.

This idyllic picture is a huge generalization, of course, and one important point it disguises is important here:  the smaller the town, the fewer people there were to staff the fewer industries, patronize the fewer local shops, worship at the fewer ethnic churches and so on.  This was, and still is, relevant for West Conshohocken.

But whether in large towns or small, that was then; this is now, and things have changed, by pretty much 180 degrees.  Today, in virtually every aspect of daily life—work, shopping, worship and entertainment—the cultural incentive is to look outward, away from where you actually live.  What percentage of a town’s residents actually work in the same town?  You do not see your neighbors at work like you used to, and that has weakened communities everywhere.  And shopping?  If you live in one of my subject Schuylkill River towns, I’ll bet you don’t do much shopping there (except, of course, if you are seeking trendy things on Bridge Street in Phoenixville).  I’ll spare you a rendition of what has happened to the ethnic churches along the lower Schuylkill River, but nothing is sadder, more damaging to the sense of community, than the closing of such a church, and even West Conshohocken has been affected. Last, but by no means least, tectonic change in communications have rendered entertainment into something you almost can’t find in town anymore, particularly a small one.  It’s so readily available in every home, why go outside?  There are still big events, of course, and they aren’t held in the river communities any more (except maybe Phoenixville, again).

These changes have made it much more difficult for a smaller town than for a larger one to create and sustain a sense of community feeling, and West Conshohocken has suffered from them all.  Then, of course, there has been the interchange.  This is a physical divider, separating an already small town into even smaller, and largely isolated, segments.

So that’s how this outsider views West Conshohocken, beset by far more than the usual impediments to community.  That’s why I asked for responses from West Conshohocken residents.  A summary of them follows, but first, let me make it clear that the number of responses does not allow me to make a claim that any one of them is representative of the community as a whole.  Second, people with a grievance are more likely to air it than those who lack such a stimulation.  This hold true under almost every scenario, and the current status of West Conshohocken is no exception.

With those caveats in mind, here are some generalizations I derive from listening to those who actually live within the community.

First, the vast majority of the replies by residents spoke not of the West Conshohocken community today, but that of their childhoods.  I suspect, from their phraseology, that this is a silent statement about the way things are today, but it is also evidence that the town’s smallness helped to sustain a close sense of community, despite the many other drawbacks.  Community is all about personal relationships, and West Conshohocken residents were profuse in their memories of them.  As one resident put it, “West Conshy was the best place to grow up; everyone knew each other or if they didn’t they knew some in your family.”  This apparently applied to an earlier Police Chief, of whom it was said, “…he didn’t need to chase anyone, he knew all of our parents.”

Whether the memories are silent statements or not, those that addressed the question of community today were close to unanimous in their opinion, and it wasn’t favorable.  Most who claimed to have lived there all their lives echoed the words of one who said, “it has changed, not for the better.”  Today, “it would be nice to have a few things again other than buildings and houses,” said another.  A life-long resident who lives “across the street from the blue route off ramp” has it particularly bad, suffering from noise and vibration as “the trucks go by all hours [of the] day and night.”  One statement in particular seemed to sum things up, striking an obvious chord in me: “This isn’t West Conshohocken anymore, it’s just a place people need to travel [through] to get where they’re going.”

     But one response served to add some needed balance to the picture.  It came from a member of Borough Council who—significantly—is not a life-long resident.  The intersection drew him to West Conshohocken, as it does for others, because it provides “immediate and direct access” to the major destinations in the region.  The fact that someone of relatively short residence can be elected to such a neighborhood position also reflects the ongoing change within the Borough.  He is living testimony to his claim that, “There is an on-going balance being struck between residents whose families have lived here for generations and newer residents.”  But the most promising part of his response—for me, at least—was his use of the phrase “on-going.”  Adjustments to change often take longer than the change itself, and square in the face of such enormous obstacles, West Conshohocken continues the fight.  The end result is still uncertain, but I believe the Councilman is correct when he claims, “there is still a lot of fight in us.” 

They are going to need it.

It’s the Size of the Fight in the Dog That Matters, Remember?

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,.”

                                                                                                               (overused cliché of unknown origin)

It’s time for a change of subject.  I write about national issues, using the eight towns on Pa.’s lower Schuylkill River as my specific subjects.  My general issue of late has been diversity, with the focus on immigrants to the Schuylkill Valley, then and now.  That has meant that I focus on the largest and most diverse among my subject towns.  But this month I am going to take a look at a town that is not only the smallest, but also the least diverse of the eight, West Conshohocken.

West Conshohocken deserves more appreciation than it gets.  Every one of the eight towns has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, particularly after a brief post-WW II prosperity, but West Conshohocken has suffered well out of proportion to its relative size.  Circumstances of birth and location have always worked against it, but its residents still managed to create a vibrant, if miniscule, community, built around the traditional anchors, its ethnic churches and volunteer fire company.  The debacle that spanned the sixties, seventies and the early eighties left little of what used to be, but the community survived.  Then, in yet another blow, this one quite literally to the body, it was West Conshohocken’s fate to host the instrument of regional renewal, the interchange(s) of Interstates 76 and 476.

The result, if measured solely in property values, has been spectacular.  I, as an outsider, can see that quite readily.  But I, as a professional attempting to add historical understanding to the toolbox of those seeking community revival upriver, have to also ask about the cost to the community.  It think it’s an important question, with relevance to those upriver also.  It’s also a question that can only be answered by the community’s residents.

Numbers have always worked against West Conshohocken, because it has always possessed the smaller—or later—ones compared to anyone else.  It was the last borough birthed on the lower Schuylkill, in 1874.  It was a healthy baby at first, with the second largest initial population of the eight towns.  It was doomed, however to be the runt of the litter, due to circumstances of timing and location.  The timing problem was its late delivery, and its location problem was that it was just across the Schuylkill River from Conshohocken.  The 1880 Census listed the brand-new borough of West Conshohocken as housing 1,462 residents.  By that date, however, Conshohocken had already been a borough for twenty-four years, and possessed a population of 4,561.

Conshohocken’s close proximity had a lot to do with its much smaller neighbor remaining so small.  The larger borough’s established and large commercial sector just across the river has always had a dampening effect on commerce in West Conshohocken, particularly after the Matsonford Bridge was “freed.” 

West Conshohocken illustrates perhaps the best of any lower Schuylkill River town how first survival and then growth depended on how it managed a dichotomy that required combining two extremes: distance and closeness.  Distance, or rather the difficulty of achieving it, founded both Conshohockens, as it did every other river town, in this case via Matson’s Ford.  The Schuylkill at that time as a considerable barrier, and points at which it could be crossed in relative safety became well known.

Each of the Schuylkill River towns began as one half of a river crossing.  Those enterprising enough to locate themselves at such crossings were the first businesses, and employers.  Travel over distances thus brought each river crossing into being, and sustained its early growth.

As a result, the commercial offerings of every such emerging town were for a considerable time focused more on those who passed through than those who lived there.  That began to change when a new way to conquer distance entered the Schuylkill Valley: the railroad.  In not too long a time, traffic along the river, using its floodplain, began to exceed that crossing the river at those special points.  This easier, quicker and cheaper access to distances brought industry to the river towns, and then the immigrants to work in the mills and factories.  This is where closeness enters the picture.

Connections to distance built the towns, but the need for closeness determined how they were built.  The physical appearance of West Conshohocken, as well as its sisters along the lower Schuylkill, is due to the fact that the overwhelming percentage of its occupants had to walk from home to work and back again during the week.  They then had to repeat the process to and from another location on Sunday, plus similar small journeys to obtain life’s necessities in the era before refrigeration.  Work, housing, worship, shopping, everything was built in close proximity to everything else, because it had to be.  West Conshohocken followed the pattern, in smaller numbers and amidst some of the more challenging terrain of any river town, and packed in what it could as closely as it could.

Each river town managed this balance of extremes during the eras of the horse and wagon and the railroad, but were mortally challenged by the automobile and the truck.  The death of the railroads severed the close connections of each town to the wider world, while the automobile and the truck required a great deal more space within each borough to accommodate them than had the railroad.  There was too little room for the expansion of streets—and the creation of parking lots—that the automobile required, and the result devastated the borough shopping areas.  If West Conshohocken lost less in raw numbers than any other river town during this period, that was because it had the least to lose. 

The automobile revolution would fundamentally change every town, and for the worse, but none would suffer worse than West Conshohocken, whose curious fate it was to suffer along with the others during a long period of decline, then physically host the instrument of regional revival, that quintessential symbol of late 20^th Century America, the Interstate Highway Interchange.  For West Conshohocken, that meant, on balance, more suffering.

The blows came in two stages.  First, an exit off the brand-new Schuylkill Expressway was planted on its soil.  Adding insult to injury, it even became known as “the Conshohocken exit.”  But the big one was the second, which arrived with the construction of what began as the “Blue Route,” first appeared as the “Mid-County Expressway,” and was completed as Interstate Route #476. 

The 1980 publication of Montgomery County, The Second Hundred Years caught the process at mid-point, and the chapter on West Conshohocken contains this revealing quote:

“[West Conshohocken] has no sewers, no doctor, no lawyer, and no pharmacist.  Although the borough has been devastated by the coming of the Schuylkill Expressway and the Blue Route—it lost commercial enterprises, 125 houses and the taxes they paid—the residents seem content in their small, friendly community.”

As the opening and closing sentences point out, West Conshohocken never possessed several of the usual standard features of urban life before the Second World War, but managed establish a true community nonetheless.  But make no mistake about it; the new superhighways did indeed devastate West Conshohocken.

The physical devastation is the most obvious.  In all, as much as 25% of West Conshohocken residences may have been sacrificed to the superhighways, according to my friend Jack Coll, Conshohocken historian par excellence.

West Conshohocken paid an additional penalty, as the land lost to straightened roads and widened streets quickly filled with automobiles and trucks.  These vehicles represent the prosperity that the Interchange has brought to the region, but expediting their movement through town, at the expense of anyone who might think of walking anywhere, has become the necessary policy.  These roads—and the flood of vehicles on them—have sundered West Conshohocken into what to this only periodic visitor seems like isolated sections.  Walking within the Borough of West Conshohocken requires following an indirect route, crossing the roads only at a few specified points, in the brief period in which pedestrians are allowed, and even then often weaving between cars blocking the walkway.

So here we have a town, always small, but which today houses fewer people than it did when it first appeared, almost 150 years ago.  Some of the picturesque old buildings remain, but the Borough has no old downtown, because it never had one at all.  The Interstates have brought prosperity to both Conshohockens, but the smaller borough has paid by far the greater price.  The cumulative effect has been to render what had once been a small but vibrant (and all the more closer-knit due to its size) community into a regional traffic bottleneck cut into sections by wide roads, a place where few live but through which a great many pass on a daily basis.

These things are easily visible to outsiders like myself.  But the answer to the effect of all this prosperity on the community of West Conshohocken can only be determined by hearing the views of those people who actually comprise that community, those who live there.  I follow the Facebook pages devoted to West Conshohocken, and am quite willing to believe that there is a lot of fight left in this little dog. 

That’s why I conclude this post with an appeal to the residents of West Conshohocken to read this post and send me comments on the current state of their community.  I’ll follow up this post next month with one on the results of my request.  I also post a link in broadly urban-oriented Facebook pages, and believe that the experience of this tiny community in the face of such tectonic forces will find an audience.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts.