By Elizabeth Bernardi

The Somerville Museum hosted the final event for its “Immigrant City: Then and Now” exhibit last Thursday. “Just Off the Boat” was a free-spirited, multi-generational conversation about the experience of being an immigrant to Somerville and the child of non-English speaking parents.

Six panelists joined several dozen attendees in a roundtable set-up for the event, moderated by Alex Pirie of the Welcome Project, which initiated the current exhibit.

Pirie began with a bit of show-and tell, pulling out a small pair of children’s socks. “These are the socks my grandfather wore when he entered the Port of New York in 1882,” he said. Then he described how the evening’s event came to fruition.

Originally, the Welcome Project, housed at the Mystic Housing Project wanted to host a simple reunion.

“We wanted to have a reunion between people who used to live in the Mystic Housing Project 40 years ago and now,” said Pirie. But they quickly realized that the city has changed too drastically in the last 40 years to expect the current residents, most of whom are recent immigrants, to relate to the past residents, most of whom were not. “Their experiences aren’t at all the same.”

Organizers were also aware of the relevance to current events, Pirie said, noting current national and local tensions over immigration enforcement and reform.

Eventually, they settled upon a conversation among different generations with similar experiences – the children of parents who didn’t speak English.

The six panelists ranged from teenagers to lifelong Somerville residents in their 70’s. They are the children of Haitian, Greek, Venezuelan and Italian parents, to name a few. Around them sat Somerville residents who paired off to introduce each other to the group – Fernanda from Brazil, Bindu from India, Mary from Ireland – and it was quickly apparent that many cultures were represented in the room.

Pirie provided context for Somerville’s change, giving a brief history of immigration in the city, and later, placing the panelists’ comments in context. Museum director Evelyn Battinelli, the daughter of an Italian immigrant and a panelist at Thursday’s event, recalled the May Day parades that used to take place in Somerville’s parks.

“We would dress up in crepe-paper costumes,” she said, and the children would pack picnic lunches in red wagons then process into the parks. Pirie described the importance of these parades, which served as a sign of relieved tension between the Catholic and Protestant residents.

In addition to providing historical notes, Pirie asked a series of questions of the panelists, and after each had a chance to respond, he opened the questions up to the room.

The panelists each recounted their favorite things about being teenagers in Somerville. Current teenagers Esther Sainterling and Lara Bertholdo talked about their friendships, and how they spend time with friends.

“Somerville’s so diverse,” said Bertholdo, “I have friends from all over the world. Except for like, Australia.”

The older panelists agreed, remembering that instead of going to the mall, they “hung out” on street corners or in the parks. Now, though, said Battinelli, that would be impossible.

“My daughter, who grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” she said, “doesn’t know one street from the other because by then, she wasn’t allowed to walk. We were already driving her.”

The discussion turned at one point to assimilation. The panelists shared the customs and traditions they brought to Somerville from the old world. Panelist Victor Docouto, for whom Portuguese was his first language, said he adopted a special goal.

“I strove to lose any trace of an accent,” he said, his only accent now representing the life he’s spent in Boston, “because that was the thing that made you different.”

He thought for a moment, and spoke again.

“I don’t know now if that was such a good thing,” he said of his success.

The conversation touched on many then-and-now distinctions, as well as the complexities and paradoxes of being an immigrant – wanting to fit in, for instance, but simultaneously wanting to retain one’s heritage and identity. The night had a distinctly positive tone, though, and there was no shortage of laughter.

When Pirie asked each panelist to share an embarrassing moment, the rest of the room quickly rose to the challenge. A teenage girl talked about walking home from the grocery store with her mother and four siblings, all carrying bags and marching in a row because they had no car. A Dutch woman described arriving in America thinking she was fluent in English, only to be perplexed by a request at a checkout for her “coupons,” a cultural term nobody had warned her about.

Aru Manrique, a panelist who came to the United States from Venezuela, recounted his first Halloween here. “I was in seventh grade, and all I had was this Peter Pan costume, so there I was in tights,” he said, drawing a laugh. To make matters worse, his brother, seven years older and fully fluent, briefed him on the protocol. As a practical joke, he told Aru to say something much ruder than “Trick or treat” at each house. Door after door slammed in a confused Manrique’s face.

Language confusion was common, recalled Rich Kazakis, who served as a panelist with his wife Anthrouri.

“My mom sent me to the store for a light bulb, and I came back with a ‘Boston Globe!’” he said, because, “I had used the Greek word, ‘globo.’”

Manrique summed up his experience in Somerville: “The city has always been a mix – different kinds of mixes, it changes all the time. But one thing about Somerville is it lets you decide who you are, and it gives you strength.”