Not long after 30-somethings Anand Bhat, a physician at St. John Medical Center, and his wife Mythili, a dentist, moved into their downtown apartment, they came across the historic Union Club on East 12th Street and Euclid Avenue. The couple, who met while studying public health at the London School of Economics, didn't know much about Cleveland outside its blue-collar ethos. So they took the name literally.
"We walked in out of curiosity," recalls Mythili, a native of Bangalore, India, who recently arrived from Pittsburgh on a Heinz Fellowship. "Soon my husband turns and says, 'We can't become members. This is only for unionized people.' "
While the couple was mistaken about the Union Club — a private social club for the region's monied elite, their hunch about the difficulties in gaining "membership" locally were prescient. It is a common refrain from newcomers to Cleveland, where transplants are a rarity in the first place.
"Cleveland has a ways to go in opening itself up," says Lisa Wong, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans of Greater Cleveland. "The pace of how advanced we are in becoming a global city is slow."
The numbers are telling. Only 2.4 percent of Northeast Ohioans are Asian, ranking the region 46th among the nation's largest 52 metro areas. At 4.7 percent, our Hispanic population comes in 42nd. Meanwhile, 75 percent of Clevelanders are native Ohioans, ranking us 47 of 52 in birthplace diversity just behind Birmingham, Alabama.
While this speaks to a lack of diversity in Cleveland's culture, the problem is not just social. For cities like Cleveland that are trying to transition from less brawn to more brain, it is also economic.
"Immigrants may embody knowledge and skills that are not otherwise readily accessible locally," notes a 2011 study Immigration and Innovation by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. "They often have access to a different set of personal and business networks." Such factors, according to the report, add texture to a city and promote knowledge spillovers and innovation.
This is not to say that a global Cleveland doesn't exist. It does.
A recent report I co-authored for the Center for Population Dynamics at Cleveland State University shows that what the region lacks in the quantity of immigrants, it makes up for in quality.
Northeast Ohio ranks seventh in the nation in the percent of immigrants with at least a bachelor's degree (40 percent), just behind Washington, D.C. Also, more than one in five Cleveland immigrants have a graduate or professional degree, ranking the metro fifth in the nation, just ahead of Boston.
Largely, our global education and medical sector is attracting these high-skilled immigrants. The issue is whether greater diversity in our eds and meds community can be used for broader change. For all our existential fretting about Cleveland's brain drain, the real issue is brain waste.
We must create a community infrastructure that targets this group. One idea floated recently is for an organization such as Leadership Cleveland — which runs a yearlong program that connects professionals with Cleveland's power base — to develop a similar class solely for college-educated immigrants.
Meanwhile, frustration mounts. "I was very active in London," says Mythili, who enjoys working for causes that support social equity. "Here, it is somehow very difficult to know what is happening, who is in charge and who to contact if I want to participate."
While the demands of work and studies make participating in the community difficult for many Cleveland immigrants, there is no shortage of newcomers wanting to make an impact.
But the timeline for engagement is not infinite. "It is frustrating," continues Mythili. "I have been involved in every city I lived before. Even Pittsburgh has surged ahead in internationalizing."
Indeed, while Cleveland has plenty of potential to attract immigrants, the region has failed to recognize it is internationalizing.
In some cases, our failure to engage newcomers is self-inflicted, Wong says. For her, the first step toward civic engagement is creating a sense of belonging for new arrivals — something which should be a strength here.
"We have the biggest AsiaTown between New York and Chicago," she says. "But the city doesn't call it AsiaTown. It's called St. Clair Superior, so it's hard to find. These things add up. They add to the disconnection."
Over the years, Wong has known many immigrants who got connected and stayed, so she understands how these small comforts impact a newcomer's experience.
"A lot of people come here and look down on Cleveland," Wong says. "They know about the burning river but not about authenticity of the place — the Chinese restaurants, the authentic grocery stores."
Tapping into such experiences must be a priority — even for those here only temporarily. "When they leave, they are saddened," she says of those who have made such connections. "[They] tell me, 'I never realized Cleveland can be such a nice place to live.' "
This is perhaps the greatest benefit of immigrant involvement: putting Cleveland on the world's mental map. As the world shrinks with technological gains, the distance between us decreases.
The impact of migration is not so much whether someone stays forever but rather the connection between two points in space. Between these points flows capital — be it intellectual, financial or cultural.
This is how Cleveland was birthed. It will be how Cleveland is reborn as well.
Thankfully, barriers are beginning to break down. Old and new Cleveland are tugging at the threads of the region's tightly woven Rust Belt parochialism. Cleveland's eds and meds sector is unfurling a welcome mat for a more international city. And the Anands and Mythilis of the world are not knocking but walking in.
Slowly, Cleveland is readying.
"The Union Club has been actively recruiting us as new members since we stopped in," notes Mythili wryly.
The irony is well noted. Cleveland's traditions can either hold us back or propel us forward. Who we are is an asset — but only if we allow ourselves the freedom to be more than what we were.
