Fourth of July, Immigrant Style

Monterey Park sits only 15 kilometers east of sunny downtown Los Angeles, but it has a suburban feel that's different from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Noodle restaurants and tea shops, many with signs written in Mandarin, line the streets of Monterey Park.  This small city has the largest concentration of Chinese-American residents in the country.  
But like much of the rest of Southern California, Monterey Park is anything but homogeneous.  It has a growing number of residents who are Vietnamese Americans and has become home to many other immigrant groups.  This is especially evident at the city's Bruggemeyer Library, which has hosted literacy classes for almost 2,000 immigrant adults who went on to become citizens.
  One of these new citizens is Irina Selkova, from Russia, who recently took a class at the library and admits that before then she knew little about the significance of the Fourth of July holiday beyond the fact that Americans like to celebrate it outdoors, with lots of food, flags and fireworks.
"I knew it was a big holiday since before coming here," said Selkova.  "But what really surprises me is the degree to which people get involved in the celebrations: Nobody is pushing them to go out and be patriotic."
Selkova is one of the dozens of newly naturalized U.S. citizens whom the City of Monterey Park will invite to its Fourth of July celebration this year.  For more than two decades, the city council has used the federal holiday as an opportunity to introduce its new citizens to the rest of the community and recognize them with a certificate that welcomes them to town.
"This is unique to our city -- I'd never heard of another place doing it," said Robert Aguirre, who plans the event, which welcomes an average of 100 new citizens each year.  "Every year we commemorate the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo. But our Fourth of July event brings everyone together and invites even more diversity into town."
Eduardo Sevilla has been living in Monterey Park since 1986, when he moved here from his native Honduras, and has been celebrating the Fourth of July for almost as long as he's been in his adopted country.
"Tell me about a Latino immigrant, like myself, who doesn't celebrate Fourth of July," he said.  "It's impossible!" Family and community are so important to immigrants from throughout Latin America, he said.  "And we love to party."
Sevilla's wife, Gabriela, of Mexican heritage, cooks traditional Mexican foods for the big holiday, including tacos, carne asada and pozole, a traditional stew with corn and many different kinds of meat.
Since he always gets July Fourth off from work, Sevilla usually spends it outside, helping to cook, listening to music and welcoming friends -- especially those who are recent arrivals from Honduras.  But this year it will be different.  Sevilla will celebrate a personal milestone: becoming a U.S. citizen after almost 30 years in the country.
Latino immigrants throughout Los Angeles typically join in on the Fourth of July festivities.  One of the best-attended fireworks displays takes place near downtown Los Angeles, in the historically Mexican neighborhood of Boyle Heights.
"We like to go out with a bang every year," said Diana del Pozo Mora, who was born to Mexican parents and raised in Boyle Heights.  "We get some of the wildest fireworks displays around."
From afternoon until well past sundown, families occupy every patch of grass on Hollenbeck Park for grilling, playing games and listening to live mariachi music and DJs playing salsa.
"Our Fourth of July celebration just keeps getting bigger," said del Pozo Mora, who estimates that around 10,000 people will come this year. "The immigrant families in Boyle Heights have been craving a place where they can gather and celebrate their new roots in Los Angeles. There was a need, and they've found a way."