'Desire to get ahead' drew people of diverse backgrounds to Johnstown region
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Foreign-born residents comprise only about 1% of the population in Cambria, Somerset and Bedford counties.
That rate, among a combined 250,000 people, is well behind the state average of 7.4% and the national number of 13.9%, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data compiled for 2019 to 2023.
Faces of Immigration logo
And it is a much different environment than in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when immigrants flocked to the region to work in steel mills and coal mines, following generations of Germans, Welsh and Irish who arrived earlier. The waves of workers came from Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Italy and elsewhere.
Many journeyed to the new land to make money. Others escaped persecution. Some did both. By 1880, 40% of Johnstown's residents were foreign-born, with that number swelling to 85% in the Cambria City neighborhood, according to information at Heritage Johnstown's website.
Modern immigration tends to involve professionals in the medical, technology and education sectors, many arriving from India, other parts of Asia, the Middle East and from Latin America.
BURKERT 2
Richard Burkert, President & CEO of JAHA poses inside the Johnstown Flood Museum on Wednesday, August 16, 2023.
But there has been a common thread over the decades.
'Basically, they were driven by desire to get ahead,' said Richard Burkert, former CEO of the former Johnstown Area Heritage Association, now known as Heritage Johnstown.
David Hurst, executive director of The Steeples Project that preserves and repurposes old ethnic churches in the Cambria City Historic District, said immigrants come to the area to 'start over with hope and a prayer.'
Hurst, whose wife, Keiko Hurst, emigrated from Japan, said: 'It's the experience of every single immigrant who comes to this shore. They literally turn their back on, give up and walk away from everything that they had.'
'Similar to this area'
Delaware and Shawnee natives inhabited a land then called 'kwənəmuxkw,' meaning 'otter' in the Unami-Lenape language. It eventually developed into Conemaugh or Connumach for 'Otter Creek.'
The area's hills were filled with deer and other wild animals. Fish swam in the valley's three rivers.
Joseph Schantz, a German immigrant also called Joseph Johns, founded Conemaugh Old Town, which became Johnstown, in 1800. It was a little town amid that same mostly natural setting.
Later, waves of people arrived from Eastern Europe. And, in some ways, many of those immigrants were probably reminded of their homelands when they saw the local landscapes, farmlands and little towns in this part of the new world.
Khandakar Raihan Hussain
Dr. Khandakar Hussain
Dr. Khandakar Hussain, from Conemaugh Health System, feels the same way, even though he hails from a much different type of homeland, Bangladesh, than those previous immigrants did.
Both locations have places for him to hike and fish – although in Bangladesh he caught fish to get food, here it is about recreational fun at the Quemahoning Reservoir. Agriculture is important in both communities, with his native region being a major tea producer.
'Part of the reason I stayed in Johnstown, it's so funny, is because the area where I am from, Sylhet, it is similar to this area, excluding the snow part,' Hussain said. 'It's a valley, too. It's a nice hilly area. That's why I like it. And the rainy part, it also rains all the time there.'
Hussain came to Johnstown, following his uncle, Anwar Hussain, who worked at Conemaugh. Khandakar Hussain quickly 'fell in love with this town' after spending a year in New York City immediately after arriving in the United States.
'A different culture'
Immigrants wove their various cultures into Johnstown's identity.
At times, there were churches and social clubs for different ethnic groups in neighborhoods, most notably Cambria City, where their contributions are still celebrated with the annual Cambria City Ethnic Festival and the Polacek Family Johnstown Slavic Festival.
'When they became American, they did it on their own terms. … What they did was merge some of their customs with American ways,' Burkert said. 'In a way, they basically enlarged what it meant to be American, changed it.'
International Dinner Show | Gella Family Foundation
Kamal Gella, of Johnstown, organizer of the Gella Family Foundation's International Dinner Show held at the Richland Township Fire Department banquet hall in Johnstown on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.
In a similar spirit, Kamal Gella, from Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, India, shared his culture by hosting an Indian-themed International Dinner Show in 2024.
'It is important for people to learn about other cultures,' Gella said. 'It's even an opportunity for people to enjoy Indian food and also to experience a different culture.'
Like those past immigrants, Gella has embraced the region, calling it 'a great place to raise children, a wonderful community' that 'gave me an opportunity for growth.'
Gella has served with numerous organizations over the years, including Westmont Hilltop School District's board of directors, Johnstown Concert Ballet and Gallery on Gazebo.
'I think it's important for each one of us to give back to the community,' Gella said.
'Community of immigrants'
Many immigrants and migrants from elsewhere in the United States came to the Johnstown region – at least in part – because they were marginalized, threatened or attacked where they were living.
Barry Rudel
Barry Rudel, a representative of Beth Sholom synagogue, gives a presentation about the history of Jewish businesses in Johnstown at Gallery on Gazebo in downtown Johnstown on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024.
Barry Rudel, a historian and representative of Beth Sholom synagogue in Westmont Borough, said Jews often arrived after having 'escaped poverty and persecution.'
According to Rudel's research, from 1854 into the 1880s, the German Jewish community in Johnstown was 'highly interrelated,' coming from the Hesse-Darmstadt region. There were 240 Jews in the city at the time of the Great Flood of 1889, with 24 of them dying. Approximately 1,000 Jews arrived from 1881 through 1924, when familial chain migration was common.
Many were part of the merchant class, with arguably the most well-known being the Glosser family that owned and operated Glosser Brothers Department Store located in the city's downtown.
'The impact that Johnstown's Jewish community has had on the general community has been and is immeasurable,' Rudel said. 'First of all, the whole community was a community of immigrants. … Johnstown's Jewish immigrants' impact on the general community is now through the second and third generation of immigrants.'
Deacon Wilson
Deacon Jeffrey Wilson, Pleasant Hill Church talks about not being allowed in the Johnstown Housing Authority Prospect Community meeting on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.
Meanwhile, many current local Black residents trace their family histories to men and women who left the repressive Jim Crow South as part of the Great Migration in the early 20th century. They were enticed to the North with the promise of work in the steel mills and coal mines.
Although representing migration, by definition – not international immigration – they still traveled to a new land and added their culture to the Johnstown story.
'I think that, through the Great Migration, there were a lot of gains that were made by the African American or Black community in the city,' said Pleasant Hill Baptist Church Deacon Jeffrey Wilson, a community leader who is well-versed in local history.
'Many of those people that came here in particular from the Deep South, they stressed education. Many of them taught their sons and daughters and their grandchildren that they could have a life that would not be as difficult when it comes to labor, for example.'
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It takes enormous perseverance, and coalition building, which is quite difficult. You have an online environment where people are calling each other out all the time over purity politics. I often find it funny but also depressing that I get the most criticism from my friends on the left. It can be all kinds of things. I'm currently building an organization called the School for Moral Ambition. We are building fellowships for ambitious, talented people to take on some of these very pressing global issues, whether that's animal factory farming or tax avoidance by billionaires. But that stuff needs to be financed. So we work with groups like Patriotic Millionaires, for example — wealthy people who say, hey, tax me more. But for some on the left, it's like, ewww, you're working with rich people. In my book, I talk about the noble loser, those people who like to say, 'I stood on the right side of history. We didn't vote for Kamala (Harris), because Kamala was pro-Israel.' 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But I've always appreciated those parts of religion that force us to reckon with the bigger questions of what life is actually about. My mother is an incredible woman. She is the only one who keeps getting arrested in our family. The other day she was arrested again as a 68-year-old climate activist. For her, it's always been very natural and logical to live in line with your own ideals. A lot of people think certain things, but they don't act on it. Many of my friends on the left care so much about poverty and inequality, and then I'll ask, 'How much do you donate to effective charities?' and very often, the answer is nothing. What I've learned from my mother is that you can just do what you say. She's also never been afraid to use the power of shame. A lot of people say that shaming is toxic, and I tend to disagree. I think there's a reason why we humans are pretty much the only species in the whole animal kingdom with the ability to blush. They thought it was hilarious. Those are the moments when I make my mother proud. John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir, 'More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother He Never Knew.'
