The guests at the Vilcek Foundation’s inaugural awards dinner didn’t have to sing America’s national anthem to convey their faith in this country. Their words Tuesday night at the Mandarin Oriental told the story.

“Standing in front of you are two illegal aliens,” the show-woman of the artistic couple responsible for “The Gates,” Jeanne-Claude, said of herself and her husband, Christo, when they rose to accept their Vilcek Prize. She was born in Casablanca, he in Bulgaria. They came to New York in 1964.

“We used to be [illegal aliens], along with our little boy, Cyril, who will be turning 46 soon,” Jeanne-Claude said. After three years, they had a party to celebrate their green cards. “We drank beer,” she said.

Then they created the 24-mile “Running Fence” in California, wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, and oversaw the installation of miles of orange curtains in Central Park.

“Please do not think we are corny when we say, only in America,” Jeanne-Claude said. “Correction! America’s got nothing to do with it. Only in New York City.”

New York City was also welcoming to Jan and Marica Vilcek. The couple, born in Bratislava, Slovakia, arrived here in 1965 as refugees from communist Czechoslovakia.

Dr. Vilcek became a professor and researcher at New York University School of Medicine, while Mrs. Vilcek, an art historian, joined the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Vilceks established their foundation in 2000 with the fortune they made from a drug Dr. Vilcek helped develop for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Their philanthropy was quiet until they made a $105 million gift to New York University in August, the largest gift the school had ever received.

Now the foundation is coming into the spotlight with the purchase of a landmark townhouse on East 73rd Street and the creation of the Vilcek Prizes to honor foreign-born Americans in the arts and sciences.

The inaugural prizes, which carried a $50,000 cash award, went to Jeanne-Claude and Christo and the chairman of the cancer biology and genetics program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Joan Massague.

“I haven’t wrapped anything. I am trying to unwrap some of life’s mysteries – biological entities that run amok,” Mr. Massague, born in Barcelona and last year named Catalan of the year, said.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Massague declined to detail his work on TGF-beta growth factors.” The Christo and Jeanne-Claude side of the wedding doesn’t want to hear about it, and my side doesn’t want to hear about it again,” he said.

Jokes, science, and art aside, the repeated theme of the evening was the importance of immigration to America’s success.

“Over the past few years, graduate school applications have declined in response to the difficulty students have with immigration,” the keynote speaker, Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s president and a Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Harold Varmus, said. “Even though the situation has improved, anecdotes trump data, and the perception persists.”

A post-doctoral fellow in Mr. Massague’s lab, Roger Gomis, who hails from Barcelona, articulated the benefits of doing research in America. “Here the project drives everything; it’s not a question of funding. Nothing is going to stop you,” Mr. Gomis said.

“We have to not forget that immigration has made this country what it is,” arts patron Agnes Gund, who presented the arts prize, said.

Asked about his journey into philanthropy, a quintessentially American activity, Mr. Vilcek said, “I guess we have adapted.” He cited the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation as a model. “I admire their work. Their essential theme is also immigration.”

The Vilcek Prize is the design of Stefan Sagmeister, an Austrian immigrant to New York, who said none of the awards he has received – including a Grammy – were worthy of imitation.

The award is eye-catching and provocative. In fact, those who handled it seemed inclined to throw it like a thunderbolt. Mr. Sagmeister designed it on a computer and it was made out of resin using a three-dimensional printer, a technology developed for rapid-prototyping. There is also an old-fashioned element to it: A craftsman covered the surface of the names on the award in silver plate. The Museum of Modern Art is interested in having one for its collection, the executive director of the foundation, Rick Kinsel, said.

agordon@nysun.com