Revealing immigrant roots

This successful businessman and city councilor recently explained his feelings on immigration and surprised people with the story of his parents coming here illegally many years ago. The same story can be told by many successful people in this country. DP

Chelsea councilor recounts how his Argentine parents, who had lived here illegally, became Americans

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff

CHELSEA - City Councilor Roy Avellaneda traces his political stance on illegal immigration to a pair of newlyweds from Argentina who spent their honeymoon huddled under a rug, on a cold, hard floor in Dorchester.

His parents - Vicente and Isabel Avellaneda - arrived in America in 1970 with suitcases, winter coats, and $500. She stitched trousers in a factory; he baked bread on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury. And for two years they lived in uneasy secrecy as illegal immigrants, like so many of their neighbors today.

Avellaneda's long-kept secret spilled out at a recent state hearing on immigration, following years of reluctance because of the vitriolic national debate on the issue. He said his family is an example of the success that might await the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants if they are granted permission to stay. His parents are now US citizens and own a landmark bakery on Broadway.

"People wonder where my position comes from," Avellaneda said, in an interview. "There's my answer: It's my roots."

The news stunned a crowd that had known Avellaneda as a champion of immigrants' rights - he and other councilors voted last year to declare Chelsea a sanctuary city, a haven for all immigrants. But many immigrants from Central America also were skeptical o f the tall, bespectacled councilor. They view him as a member of the white elite, a college-educated politician who speaks Spanish with an Argentine accent.

"It took me by surprise," said Gladys Vega, executive director of the nonprofit Chelsea Collaborative, who knew Avellaneda's story but didn't expect him to share it. "I asked a woman, 'Did you understand what he just said?' She said, 'I can't believe it. I thought he was a white guy. I didn't think he was one of us.' "

Nationally, politicians and others have recently held up their own stories to show the contributions of illegal immigrants, from 76-year-old US Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, whose Italian mother was once here illegally, to 21- year-old Henry Cejudo, an Olympic wrestler and gold medalist and the son of illegal immigrants from Mexico.
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