Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions has likely never had his hair cut on Washington Street in Boston.
If he had, he wouldn't have said this: “Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming here because they have a provable skill that would benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society." That's what Sessions said in a 2006 Senate speech on immigration reform. Huffington Post excerpted it last November, when Sessions was nominated to be President Donald Trump's attorney general, tasked with defending the rights of all Americans. The full speech is here and Sessions' comments on Dominicans begin about 13 minutes in:
I was thinking about those comments as I sat in a barber's chair on Washington Street in the Egleston Square neighborhood of Roxbury, under the care of a very capable hand with the straight razor, the scissors and the clippers. My barber hails, like most of the many barbers plying their trade on Washington Street do, from the Dominican Republic.*
Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming here because they have a provable skill.
Washington Street has a unique history. As every Bostonian knows, it curves and jogs on its way from Boston's center to the city limits. That's because it follows the route George Washington rode when he entered Boston victoriously in 1776. At the time, it was the only land route in or out. When Paul Revere said, "one if by land," it's fair to assume this is what he meant.
But when a newly sworn President Trump said his oath of office would be an "oath of allegiance to all Americans," it's unclear whether he meant to include the Dominican-Americans who have made this stretch of Washington's famous road their own.
PEOPLE: You don't have any Latinos in the Cabinet.
TRUMP TEAM: That's bc we wanted the best and the brightest.https://t.co/NgYCkjBhwf
— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) January 19, 2017
In fact, Trump's start is very much like his predecessor's finish: It has a misplaced sense of optimism. President Barack Obama was unduly optimistic about human nature and justice. Trump appears to harbor a kind of magical optimism about discrimination: "When you open your heart to patriotism there is no room for prejudice," he said in his inauguration speech, Friday.
We wanted the "best and brightest," Trump's spokesman said Thursday in blithe response to someone who pointed out there are no Latinos among Trump's cabinet picks. And Sessions' 2006 comments would meet House Speaker Paul Ryan's "textbook definition of a racist comment."
So it's no wonder Latin Americans like Jose de la Rosa would like some reassurance. De la Rosa came to the US from the Dominican Republic at age 20 and overstayed his visa. He paid his own way through Northeastern U., working at an Alamo rental car office. In 2005 he got married and in 2010 he and his wife, Zoraida, founded a home health care service.
At its start, Guardian Healthcare had three patients, three nurses and about $50,000 of the de la Rosas' own savings in capital. Now, Guardian serves 10,000 patients a year and employs over 200 people, de la Rosa told me. At first, its clientele was mostly Spanish-speaking. Now, the brochures in the lobby of its office on Centre Street in Jamaica Plain are all in English.
In 2012, de la Rosa claimed his own piece of Washington Street: He opened a bar there near the Roxbury/Jamaica Plain line, called Coco's Lounge. It shut down in 2016, but de la Rosa is on to another investment: he's working on bringing in an outside investor to expand Guardian's private-pay business. "I don't want people to just say, you hired good people and they made it grow. I want to be part of it," he told me.
For an immigrant entrepreneur like de la Rosa, Sessions' comments rankle. "This is a guy that excluded completely the Dominican community," he said. "That was just 10 years ago. He needs to go around our neighborhoods."
Sitting in that barber's chair, looking out at Washington Street, I thought about what people like Sessions might have said a hundred years ago about my own fathers, who were poor Georgia Irishmen. I couldn't tell you what skills they brought, if any--but I can speak for the Dominicans in one respect. I've had haircuts all over the world, from Naples to London to Oakland, Calif. Boston's Dominican barbers are the best on the planet.
So, to Trump and his entire cabinet I offer an opportunity to get fresh and at the same time dispel some of the fear and anxiety about whom the president means when he says, "your hopes and your dreams." Come to Washington Street and get a haircut with me. I go about once every two weeks. Maybe we will run into David Ortiz.
*Editor's note: The author volunteers on the board of Egleston Square Main Street, a nonprofit that supports small businesses in Egleston.
