Risotto From Sri Lanka Is Just as Good

Mr. Cohen’s story is deservedly inspirational but I must confess it left a sadness in me, for I feel, generally speaking, many of the able to work but out of work people of America don’t have the grit, determination and will power needed to better themselves like this Sri Lankan couple have. Most young American men would never “lower” themselves to wash dishes ten hours a day to get ahead, or, like Latinos, work in the stultifying slaughterhouses that produce meat for the American diet. Everywhere I go, businesses are looking for help, at AutoZone and Wendy’s. My haircutter will give me a year’s worth of cuts if I can find a stylist that will stay with her. Vegetable farmers, after Trump has scared Hispanics away with his ICE raids, cannot find workers to prepare their fields. Something is skewed with the white workers of America. They are bitter because immigrants supposedly take their jobs but they refuse to take the jobs immigrants would instantly take. Maybe we’re softer than we think? Maybe we want to fantasize, to start at the top of the ladder not on its bottom step.

Hopefully Ramesh Kumar Balakrishnan and his wife will also serve Sri Lankan meals. Jet lag or no the first thing I did after touch down was enjoying the food there - every single time. Can't beat it.

"Attilio Fontana, a senior League politician ..... said in January, “We need to decide whether or not our ethnic group, our white race, our society should continue to exist or be wiped out.” Which is exactly what Americans said 100 years ago..... about Italians. My Italian friend in our coffee group is darker complected than my black friend in the same group. Can we just start to look inside people? There we are all the same.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country but it is afflicted with the same problem as the rest of the third world. There is dreadful overpopulation and a misogynistic culture. The elites are comfortable with a mass of citizens living in filth on the streets. They just drive past in their SUVs. Emigration is the only option for almost all Sri Lankans. There is no place for them in their native country. In the US we have a very large proportion of doctors from Sri Lanka since the medical schools in Sri Lanka specialize in preparing medical students to go to the US. since there are few opportunities for them there. Let us hope that Italy and Germany keep their gates open for more Sri Lankans to replace their shrinking populations who expect everything to be handed to them just because they were born in Europe.

The problem for the immigrant is not that the small circle of people that know him for his skills and hard work discriminate against him. It is when the immigrant encounters strangers, maybe on the street, or while taking a bus, that the problem arises. The context is then missing, and the immigrant is seen only for his/her skin color and race. If Mr. Balakrishnan were to take a bus in his town, he will most likely feel uncomfortable because of racist comments and looks from fellow passengers that do not know him....

I like Sri Lanka and would point out that it is better than Italy in many ways regarding ethnicity. A nice article but corrupt in its implication regarding illegal and unrestrained immigration from third would pestholes. The "no-go" zones are real and provide an overwhelming refutation of such liberal "feel good" fare. Cohen or anyone else is free to walk through any large European immigrant zone after dark (or even in broad daylight in many) and report back on the real state of affairs.

Roger, I’d say you’re too good for the NYTimes but I’m not sure where I’d rather see you published. Your pieces always have a depth and are never schlocky. Thank you for continuing to share your perspective.

Nice story. Though, there is no shortage of successful immigrants. In fact, this story is somewhat underwhelming. Just look at all the immigrants coming from a similar background and that are Fortune 500 CEOs. Or that East and South Asians immigrants are the highest earning groups in the US by a long shot. Of course there are exceptions... Both supporters and proponents of immigration need to learn you can not use a few people to make judgements on a entire population

A heartwarming story. Immigrants want a chance, and if they get one - as they used to, in better and more socially equitable times - they make the best of it and everyone profits. As an aside, this story illustrates that you'll get more authentic Italian food with a foreigner cooking in Italy than with an Italian cooking anywhere else. So much of food is about the territory.

The West has discussed colonialism and imperialism for a long time now. The consensus? Both were bad. Why? Plenty of reasons. It is destructive to local communities. It destroys indigenous cultures. The US proposed the principle of self-determination. That people's have the right to forge their own destinies and to protect their way of life. This principle applies to all nations and cultures- not just 'deserving' nations and cultures. The West is being asked to destroy itself through cultural destruction. No other countries have accepted this fate (throughout history). They have always defended their lands and ways of life. I have no doubt that most immigrants are good people. I also have no doubt that they are attached to their own cultures and mores. We would not ask them to give those up and so I am astounded that we are being forced, by radical pro-illegal immigration advocates, to give up our values. We, in the West, can and do help people all over the world. We should help them have opportunity in their own lands. The inundation of immigrants, legal and illegal, is causing the rise of reactionary politics. We have a choice- limit immigration and protect our own societies or continue to see our nations torn apart. It is time to say no more. The West is not the safety relief valve for the worlds over-population. That will just create massive poverty for our own people without really helping anyone.

I owned a restaurant in the Bay Area in the 1980s. Young guys from El Salvador who had escaped the civil war in their country started to apply for dishwasher jobs. Jose Luis showed up one day, in his 20s, short but strong, no smile on his face, didn't speak much English. He started that day even though I was a bit wary, he seemed a bit dangerous. He slowly learned a cooking job and worked for me for the next 15 years. He told me that as a boy he was given the choice to either join the Salvadoran rebels or be killed. He took his chances and a bus to Mexico, then crawled through a drainage pipe into the US. "I didn't know if I would get killed in that pipe. I decided to go with God." Jose Luis is probably the finest, most honest, hardest working and generous person I ever worked with, of any background. He became a citizen, got married and had four children, bought a house. I often think of him to this day, some 15 years since we last met. And to think I was a little afraid of him on that first day so long ago.

The True God has his favorites the apple of his eye he showers with blessings and his chosen he is a friend to then a father to his love for them is eternal as they obey their father and seeds of rebellion are cast out. OPEN to interpretation who are these chosen ones in the minds and hearts of men. What a revelation to believe all are chosen the rubbing elbows experience may change your mind But then who is in charge of filling their chosen with love pleasure hope sweet sweet smiles happy faces of children protected from every danger gifted with talents that look like they sure do come from the proverbial heaven but then that John The Baptist comes and says things that disturb the powers that be

Anti-immigrant fervor is not so much opposed to such people as the family described in this article, but to uncontrolled immigration. I don't think anyone feels that countries, especially their own, should have absolutely no limits to immigration. The question then is what limits are reasonable. I feel the lack of discussion and articles about the lack of clarity about limits feeds the fears and intolerance of anti-immigrant fervor. Another great uncertainty and fear closely related to the above which we can't keep putting off discussing seriously is the very real but difficult to discuss and deal with existential issue of the limits to continuing population growth imposed by the necessity of maintaining the health of Earth in terms of the possibility of nuclear war, climate change, of the disspoiling and depletion of Earth's finite resources.

Our decadent society needs fresh and energetic blood. our great grand parents had it.

My wife, who's German, and I are enmeshed in a world of people from other countries. She suffers from Parkinson's; we couldn't continue to live in our house without the dedicated support of people from Uganda, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Peru, all of whom came here, in the manner of immigrants through the ages, to improve their own well-being and give their children a leg up. Then there are our sons-in-law, one who emigrated from El Salvador as a child and the other from the Philippines as a student. Both have PhD's and are doing well in their careers. They and our daughters have given us two charming and beautiful grandchildren, with a third on the way. I look upon it as putting the human race back together.

This story is being repeated in our own backyard hundreds of times over. Here in New Jersey, there's an enclave of Indian shops, groceries and restaurants in a town called Edison. My wife and I visit the place for shopping Indian spices and food items. But the reason we like to go there most is to buy a specific South Indian dish called Masala Dosa. My wife who picked up a fondness for dosas during a visit to India two decades ago thinks that this shop on a street corner makes the best dosas in the world. But the irony is dosas at this shop are not made by South Indians, but by a Mexican. The way Mr. Cohen describes Balakrishnan making Italian dishes reminds me of the meticulous precision with which Carlos makes his dosas. It's like watching an artist making his masterpiece. Carlos is humble and self effacing, claiming that he learnt his craft from other South Indian chefs. But there's a twist to my account. Unlike Balakrishnan, Carlos has to watch his back. He's undocumented and has not seen his family back home for eight years. He hasn't seen his small son growing up since he left home. Why can't we embrace these hard working immigrants the way Italians have done in Agazzano?

Arguments for and against immigration are so generalized and lead to misunderstanding. I don't think anyone would dispute immigration as depicted in this story. The husband and wife are a perfect example of immigration assimilation. Learning perfect Italian and making better risotto than Italians themselves! Bravi! What preoccupies people is illegal immigration, the fact that there really aren't that many jobs for poorly educated immigrants, the fact that the brunt of support for illegals is on the back of the middle class, the fact that needs of citizens are not met, yet illegals are being aided. It's a question of fairness, an innate and inextricable human quality. I say this as a grateful legal immigrant and citizen in the United States.

Thank you for this story. There are so many similar ones; they need to be told repeatedly.

As an immigrant, and from a country where other immigrants have come in. I can say this, there are right ways to do immigration and wrong ways to do immigration. If you are just taking in men of military age, and without any plan for them then there is going to be trouble. I look at Canada for sensible immigrant policies, few families who are extremely vetted with a plan on how to assimilate them.

I just came from Rome. From the way people are talking, I expected an ethnic mix like New York or London. Instead, with few exceptions, everyone had that familiar white but not too light look of Italian-Americans. There are immigrant hotel workers and street vendors, but the diversity of was in the American and British tourists.

How many times have we read, "but we didn't mean Juan who has a nice family and works hard, or Krishna who has been here many years, or Julietta who is wonderful with children, etc." How do we ever get past the fear of the unknown other, the belief that any outside change is threatening?

These people are Hindus. No one in Europe is fearing the Hindus.

Keep it up, Roger. IMHO, you have a strong and unique understanding of the soul of Europe and its culture. Your insight puts the historical developments of our lifetime in personal and broad perspective, interprets their meaning, warns of their consequences , all based on personal experience and direct observation. This is vital for the next generation in the US and Europe. if it is not to step into the same pile as their forefathers did. May you live long and write up a storm that will feed and cleanse our lives with wisdom, faith and hope!

A beautiful heartwarming story of one immigrant succeeding in one foreign country. Now just multiply this by the thousands and thousands of such people. The net result is not only that one immigrant's family is saved and uplifted but that in the collection of such immigrants the host country's economy gets a huge boost. This simple reality of an act of human kindness and decency that also provides an economic boost is a fact that escapes the right wing nuts.

A great story. Especially so as it features a young Sri Lankan couple, propelled in this case seek a future in Italy. "Hari honday" as they'd say in Sinhalese (don't know how to say that in Tamil). I've come across dozens of real people like this all over the world, making a new life in another country far from where they came from -- thinking just now of a young Ecuadorian and Ukrainian couple setting up a pizza shop on a street in Palma de Mallorca, and young Zimbabweans making a new life in South Africa. Roger, keep telling these stories.

Roger, at your best today. Yes, on the surface your story is an n = 1 report, just an anecdote about one person, not a study of all immigrants from country x to determine if they will be a net benefit to their new country, Italy, Sweden, USA. But no, it plants the idea in minds that are at least a bit open, that the best possible approach on meeting a non-mirror image person is to close your eyes and just listen. What's on your mind? What's in your mind? That is how we work here in comment land. We know nothing about the person whose comment we are reading. But perhaps in 1500 characters or fewer that person gets us thinking, wanting to know more. Same for the 8 to 10 asylum seekers we volunteers meet every Tuesday at Linköping SE Red Cross "Träna svenska". Some will become Balakrishnans keeping Sweden able to function or making it a little better. But in the two hours we spend with them, each has made our day better, on that we all agree. Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com Dual citizen US SE

Really heart warming story...

“If you come and expect everything, it’s a terrible mistake. I was a house cleaner, and then I became a cook and my former employers came here to eat." Gowry's success story happened in Europe but reads like the American Dream. Individuals like this couple and untold scores the world over want exactly that: an opportunity to thrive. They seek not to hold down other people, but to work their way up. Don't fear them, fear those who manipulate hate.

The waves of people coming to Italy from boats is the driving force of anti-immigration, just as the perception that the US is receiving a drowning wave of illegal newcomers from the poorest regions south of us drives our own reaction. Fair or not, seeing thousands come in as refugees from dire lives elsewhere, only to swamp local resources, drives resentment. Who in the world is working to stabilize the regions that have been driving people out? We have real questions to address on population, climate, war, food resources and opportunity in overwhelmed regions. No one plans to starve intentionally to relieve another nation's desire to reduce the burden of immigration. People will risk everything for the survival of their children. Our Sri Lankan chef would be fine - fully accepted - had Italy not been, like Greece, a major landing spot for desperate sea journeys. Refugees in numbers that overwhelm nations drive fear. We could set the world on a task to try to improve the lots of people before they hop in a terrifying boat. But we are not big on foreign aid or foreign relations, and we let the problem grow, until the backlash is evil.

Nice story but of course all the carefully selected vignettes and anecdotes that the Times and NPR can muster do not add up to real science or sound policy about the impact of open immegration on local or national economies or communities. Merkel and Germany dominate European policy setting. This results in the austerity being imposed continent wide on public sector spending, even through local recessions and against local preferences. This also results in the hyper regulations that Germans celebrate (there is a "right way" to make sausage and beer, why not write it into law?), the Brittish resent, and the Italians ignore. The German hegemony also results in an unwillingness to address evil (like Al-Assad for example), at its source (with intervention in Syria, for example) but a simplistic and unsustainable blanket welcome to the refugees fleeing evil. If heartwarming vignettes could expand the demand for niche restaurants then Italy could welcome all the refugees in the world. Wow. Happy ending. If the Italian economy, the Italian sicial welfare system, the Italian healthcare system, and the Italian education system have bounds, it there is limited capacity to serve citizens and immigrants, and if there is limited demand for small niche restaurants - then Italy cannot accept unrestrained immegration dictated by their northern friends in Berlin.

It brings to mind the expansion of refugee camps across the Nations of Civilization. My parent was to recount thirty years ago how Jack, her second husband and my Irish-American father, was seen climbing the hill in Capri in her direction. He took a piano stool and bashed her admirer on his bald plate, eliminating the competition. A flamboyant union destined to flounder, they divorced and The Red Queen, as I call her, became an architect and expert on how to turn ruins into excellent housing. The use of water was an essential, and she was a pioneer of space allocation and solar energy. A commentator from Roger Cohen's essay on Hungary posted a remark of how would one feel if trespassers were setting up housekeeping on one's patch of green. While Europe welcomes tourism and its business with accommodations and restaurants where the food is on occasion Americanized, the hour is here for an International Humanitarian Forum to determine how best to locate a healthy viable living environment for those in flight for their lives, or the 500,000 children wandering this earth without shelter. While 'Africa' reminds this American of Our Lot in Life, it will require a Herculean effort to settle those of us caught in the winds of war and persecuted accordingly for being in the wrong place. Con amore e risotto.

Very few people I know in Italy are against individuals, and especially individuals like the man and his wife portrayed here. But the problem isn't the well-motivated, hard-working, and friendly foreigner one meets here & there. The problem is the sheer numbers of undocumented foreigners that recent Italian governments (now vanquished in the last election), with the encouragement of the EU, have allowed to come to Italy in the past 5-6 years. With its flatlined economy (due in large part to EU austerity policies) and large unemployment rate, Italy is in no shape to provide enough jobs for these people, and what jobs there are ought rightfully to go first to Italians. This is the part of the story that Cohen has left out. Another part can be found in the centers and around the train stations of many Italian cities--hundreds upon hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans and Arabs hanging around all day with nothing to do. Not the migrants success stories that Cohen would like to paint.

What a beautiful story. I hope some day I can eat at Palazzo dei Camini. But keep in mind, in this story assimilation is celebrated, not condemned. Immigration enriches society, but only if the goodness of both the native and the immigrant cultures can be fused. The melting pot works.

In the end, despite how concerns of elites divide us ... people are people just about anywhere.

If you are interested in a maybe more meaningful (in the sense that has the potential to influence Italian culture) integration story in italy you could take a listen to the rapper Ghali. His parents are from Tunisia, he is right now the most successful rapper in Italy, always on the top of the charts, he sings in Italian but sometimes put in Arabic words and Islam references in his texts, the song Wily wily is a good example. I really like him and his music give me hopes that we can make this integration thing work.

I spent half of the last four years with my former boyfriend’s family, based in a small town in Northern Italy. No matter the conservative rhetoric of the locals, a strong work ethic is an openly prized quality. A lot of the charm of Italy has to do with the people’s pride in whatever menial work they do on a daily basis: making the homemade pasta, tending to the “orto”, the backyard vegetable garden, fixing things around the house, on the car...simple things that many of us don’t pay attention to but cumulatively that make a fundamental difference to quality of life. That attention to detail and effort is what was recognized in these immigrants. Great story and refreshing read.

I attended the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's Luisa Miller earlier this week. The prima donna, a Bulgarian soprano, brought the house down. As did Placido Domingo and a bevy of singers from across the globe. The audience, by the way, was obviously a polyglot group. And so it struck me: What kind of evening might this have been without the contribution and participation of 'aliens', had it been restricted to white, Christian Americans? Our lives and our world are the beneficiaries of all this mixing and are enhanced in innumerable ways. A fine risotto is a combination of a number of ingredients; imagine how dull that dish would be if it were comprised of only some plain old white rice.

This is an uplifting, wonderful story but as an economist I have to point out that it needs to be balanced against the fact that Italian unemployment is 10.9% and youth unemployment is 32.8% (latest number) Given these numbers , for every immigrant securing a job there is one Italian with one job less. And the most common way immigrants secure jobs is that they are willing to work for less. The situation is different for economies where the unemployment rate is at its natural level (Germany would be an example, at 4.6%) , but Italy is not one of those economies.

This is absolutely the best thing I've read in months. People are people, the World over. Give them a chance and you might be surprised, delighted and even impressed. Thank you, Sir. A little inspiration, and wine, goes a long way on dreary evening. Well done.