Ed Markey's Lawrence, Malden roots

In January of 2013, Markey rang the doorbell at his father's Phillips Street, Lawrence childhood home, where a Dominican family now resided. "The accents were different, but the aspirations were the same," he said.

By Susie Davidson

Senator Ed Markey pointed to a push pin on a large wall map of Malden. "That's the house I grew up in, and still own," he said, as he explained that his relatives were educated people who had all left Ireland behind to work in America.

"No one leaves because they're doing great," he remarked to members of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) in February, 2018. They had brought a handmade mezuzah to his office, thanking him for being one of nine Massachusetts federal legislators who, the previous month, had twice voted against ending the federal shutdown until a deal was made to protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). [Next June, the Supreme Court may take up the fate of the program, which protects young people who were illegally taken to the US.]

Markey told them about his family's immigrant roots and how his father, who grew up in a triple decker in Lawrence, became a milkman in Malden.

His maternal grandmother had died when his mother was 17, leaving behind five girls. "My oldest aunt had to work, and my mother became the single mom," he said. Their father, his maternal grandfather, was a coal carrier.

"I'm the Senator from Massachusetts, can you believe it, from the second generation of immigrants!" he stopped to marvel.

He recalled one day as his family drove down Dexter Street, in a nicer section of Malden, when his aunt, who became a business manager at a local company and later, at Mt. Auburn Hospital, pointed to a home. "That's where I was a maid," she said.

Clearly, the Markeys were grateful to seize any opportunity in the new land.

"Your grandparents were among the truly 'Greatest Generation,'" Markey told the JALSA group.

In January of 2013, Markey rang the doorbell at his father's Phillips Street childhood home, where a Dominican family now resided. "The accents were different, but the aspirations were the same," he said.

Markey recalled his attempts to hire a young Domenican woman. At the interview, she revealed that she had graduated from a state college and in fact, had been the commencement speaker. "She has five sisters; it's identical to my family, and I asked her, 'where did you grow up?'" he recounted. "'In Lawrence,'" Markey recalled her answering. "And it was right around the corner from Phillips Street!"

But Markey's staff director said it would be illegal to hire her. "Are we going to let her go unrecognized?" he asked.

Three challengers have recently emerged in the 2020 Democratic primary race for the Massachusetts Senate seat held since 2013 by Markey.

Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III's candidacy has alone propelled the race into the national spotlight. He joins Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labor rights lawyer and Steve Pemberton, a business executive and advocate for the underprivileged.

All three are compelling candidates who well represent a wave of younger, progressive candidates taking on established Democratic leaders in the state.

They include Rep. Seth Moulton, who in 2014 defeated nine-term Congressman John Tierney, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley who, last September, beat 10-term Representative Michael Capuano.

But Markey, who prior to becoming the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts served as the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 7th congressional district from 1976 to 2013, could prove tougher to beat.

FiveThirtyEight.com's "Popularity Above Replacement Senator," which scored Senators’ net approval ratings for the first three months of 2019, given the political bent of their states, gave Markey a hefty +28 percent.

And Morning Consult has his 2nd quarter 2019 net approval rating at 53 percent, with a 23 percent disapproval, making him the 10th most popular Senator in the nation.

Change is good and competition is great. But any effort to succeed Markey is still daunting, given how respected and well-liked he is by so many.

I include myself in that camp. I've met him several times, and found him to be gregarious, genuine, humble and knowledgeable, and very proud of his working-class roots.

With JALSA, Markey displayed an impressive knowledge of Judaism and even threw in some Yiddish here and there.

"We have to put the lambs' blood on their doors to protect them from Pharoah's army, who is these days, the deportation crew," Markey said.

The High Holidays are approaching, and Markey as always will be fasting on Yom Kippur with his wife, Susan Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A., a former US Assistant Surgeon General First Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women’s Health; a Rear Admiral, USPHS (ret.); and a Clinical Professor at the Georgetown and Tufts University Schools of Medicine.

"JALSA made mezuzah cases, a door hanging that Jews traditionally affix to the doorposts of their homes, for the Massachusetts congressional delegation members that voted to protect 'Dreamers,' to thank them for ensuring that the door to America remains open for this generation of immigrants and refugees," said Executive Director Cindy Rowe. "'We must welcome the stranger' is the Jewish value repeated the most times, on 36 occasions, in the Torah," she said.

The JALSA contingent included Rowe; Massachusetts State Representative Frank Smizik; and Rabbis Jill Perlman of Temple Isaiah of Lexington and Mike Rothbaum of Congregation Beth Elohim of Acton.

"You're like Joshua blowing the shofar," Markey told them.

"The Jewish people remember what it was like to be a slave in Egypt, and we are in that time now," said Rothbaum.

"It's all about the stranger in your midst, and how you treat them," Markey agreed.

After Perlman presented the mezuzah, he said the current immigration impasse is a simple matter of who is entitled to protections under the 14th Amendment. He raved about the work ethics of his present-day, multicultural Malden neighbors.

"Now, we're trying to get standing for those immigrants throughout the US who are undocumented," he said. "We did it for gay marriage. You just keep moving along."

He said that the current generation has to continue the fight.

"If you recall the New Deal, the 60s, the civil rights movement, the Medicaid movement, the environmental movement and the other movements that shaped our modern history, well, this time concerns all those things," he said. "They are all now being threatened."

But he assured them that they had the tools.

"The assets are all there, and with social media, you just have to be creative," he said.

"Trump gives us a Pharoah to organize around," he said, citing a hastily-planned and well attended health care rally at Boston's Faneuil Hall the previous January. "And we had 15,000 people at the Muslim ban rally in Copley Square one year ago," he said, noting that Boston could help lead the way.

While he said that others around the country might refer to Massachusetts residents as "a bunch of Socialists," they could also clearly see what the state is doing.

"Massachusetts has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, and in many cases, the most successful companies and people," he said. "But here, we have capitalism with a conscience."

"It's the best of times, and it's the worst of times," he said, "because it is bringing out the best in people."

A few days after the JALSA visit, Markey told reporters that it would be up to the Republicans to decide whether a compromise on DACA would be included in the budget bill. He said GOP senators were in fact working toward one, because they would not want to be associated with large-scale arrests of youths at their homes in Lawrence, Chelsea or Dorchester.

He may well have been envisioning Pharoah's deportation crews.