My Immigrant Song

My names (past and present) tell an American story.

My grandfather Fred and my father, Paul.

For most of my life, I thought of myself simply as an American, as if I had sprung from Uncle Sam’s head reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and waving a little American flag, like the ones they hand out at the Dunwoody July Fourth parade.

I knew that my people, like most everybody’s people, had come from somewhere else. Heck, that’s why we ate sauerkraut and blood sausage when my maternal grandparents visited, right? But our family’s pre-America stories were never very central. We weren’t immigrants. We were, you know, Americans.

It wasn't until my 60s that I grew curious to know more about my family, to understand their experience and how it shaped them, and, perhaps, me. (I know, I know! But I was busy raising kids and building a career.)

This curiosity was sparked by hearing about my wife’s experience as a first-generation Chinese American. Her parents immigrated from Taiwan in the 1960s after childhoods spent on the mainland, fleeing first the Japanese, then the communists. My partner is an all-American success story, but her family’s history and struggles to adjust to America loom large in her life.

The current divide over immigration also fed my curiosity. The observation that we are all immigrants is trite. But that doesn’t make it any less true. 

So, let me tell you about my family and my name.

My paternal great-grandparents, Giuseppe and Anna DeTato, arrived in western Pennsylvania around 1905 from Chieuti, Foggia, in southern Italy. The couple had eight kids in the U.S., including my grandfather, Raymond DeTato.

So why isn’t my name Randall DeTato?

While the DeTados apparently arrived in America legally, their son Raymond, my grandfather, did bend a few rules to establish himself.

Young Raymond was a skilled bricklayer. However, he came of age in a region hard hit by the Great Depression. So, he lit out for Chicago, where he stood in crowds of unemployed men at job sites, hoping to be selected for that day’s crew. He was constantly disappointed.

When Raymond vented his frustration to a fellow job seeker, the man responded bluntly. “They’ll never hire a wop before a white man.”

A few days later, the hiring boss called out for a bricklayer named Fred Lewis. The third time he called out, “Fred Lewis! Where’s Fred Lewis?” my grandfather raised his hand and said, “Right here!” From that day on, Raymond DeTato lived life as Fred Lewis.

Fred went on to live a colorful American Dream life. In that pre-digital age, my grandfather served in the Marines during World War II and enjoyed a long career as a mail carrier under the name Fred Lewis. 

He and his wife, Peggy, a fiery redhead, had four kids. Their eldest son, my father, was a career Chicago police officer who retired as a captain and served as a police aide to Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington. A daughter became a successful business executive.  Another son was a lifelong con artist who ran scams in Chicago and later in the desert Southwest. (My uncle once had the nerve to collect deposits from my dad’s fellow cops for suits that did not exist. ) 

This wasn’t the first instance of shady behavior in the family history. When my dad and his siblings were young, Fred supplemented his income by playing poker and working for the neighborhood’s mob-sanctioned sports betting operation. 

So, why isn’t my name Randall Lewis? It was. For about eight years.

My parents got married because they had me. She was 18, and he was 21, and they were terribly mismatched. The marriage lasted seven turbulent years.

My mother’s second husband was Dick Bloomquist, a second-generation American whose grandfathers had came from Sweden to work in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. 

Dick’s parents retained much Scandinavian stolidness and frugality. When Dick told his mother he planned  to take us on a lengthy summer camping vacation, Grandma Peg replied tartly, “I’m glad to hear your house is paid off.”

Dick Bloomquist adopted my sister and me, in part, to ease my mother’s social concerns. (“Blended families,” with members sporting different last names, were an oddity). At age nine, I went into a lawyer’s office as Randall Lewis and emerged as Randall Bloomquist.

Eighty years after Raymond DeTato had to give up his identity in exchange for a short-term construction job, I’m blessed to make a comfortable living doing what I want to do, not what I have to do.

To my four children, Fred Lewis is a dim figure from the long ago. They don't really understand that the road to their lives, so full of options and opportunity, began in the 1930s version of today’s Home Depot parking lot, where young immigrant men gathered looking for work. I don’t blame the kids for that. Many Americans have lost touch with their origins.

As we navigate the current debates, we should reconnect with those origins and our own immigrant songs.  The resulting music will lead to more empathy and understanding for the people behind the arguments.