The powers that be continue to scramble for immigration reform, drafting bill after bill to thwart the invasion into our heartland. Last year, it was a fence; now it’s some incompressible heap of legalese that most citizens won’t care to read and immigrants won’t be able to. Another example of bureaucratic absurdity. And as people rise up, or rather, peer through those little windows in our living rooms to pass their judgments on the issue, we’ll glimpse another example of public stupidity. I say that only because it rhymes well with absurdity, but I’m not taking a crack at American stupidity. Ignorance is the more operable word. Not the kind that makes spelling dog difficult, but the kind that says Joe American the dockworker is probably quite ignorant of what life is like in the shanty towns of Mumbai. Now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s move on.
Everyone seems to know this issue, and yet, no one does. Everyone wants reform of some kind, and yet these bills seem to please no one. Maybe that’s because every person that opens their mouth regarding immigration, whether in support of, or opposition to, is just too damned arrogant to admit how slippery a handle they really have on the issue. Maybe it’s because no one truly knows who these immigrants are, or worse, what America is. If you hear a talking head on your television screen speaking optimistically about a reform bill than can accommodate all concerns over immigration (those of the immigrant and those of the “they’ve taken our jobs” alarmists), know that he is lying. He or she doesn’t know half of the concerns out there, and Congress is about as diverse as the country clubs its members patronize.
I have lived with a half-Mexican for three years. She is not Catholic. She doesn’t know how to make a tamale. She is a hard worker, but as far as I’ve been able to tell, will not do the jobs most Americans don’t want. The stereotype unravels in a thirty-word summary. She’s the child of a Mexico-born mother, and an Alabama-born father of Welsh ancestry. A match made in…well…America. We are both from Louisiana, a place with a rich immigrant past (from slightly further east), but where today people think Taco Bell is the cuisine of our southern neighbors (That was until Hurricane Katrina opened the doors for a wave of immigrant workers unfamiliar to most Louisianans.). We’ve discussed this issue extensively, my partner and I, as well as with her mother, who speaks English with a thick accent and a word choice to make an American college student scrambling for the dictionary. They support immigrants; they support America. Neither knows exactly what to call themselves: Chicano, mestizo, Latina, Mexican, American, Mexican-American. We’ve never settled on a name, no doubt because there are too few labels and too many possibilities of people. They have dark hair, healthy tan skin, speak Spanish fluently. They do not bend over lettuce crops in the Salinas Valley, live huddled-up in a too small apartment in fear of deportation, or stand at day worker locales hoping to get picked for a crew before neo-Nazis (newly inspired by the government sponsored bigots, the Minutemen Project) come by to mug them.
Now we live in California, perhaps the epicenter of this debate. We read the pamphlets, knew what to expect, or at least, the image of the immigrant framed in the media. Of the myriad conflicting stories, most are told by fear mongers on the right or impassioned activists on the left. One tells the story of un-American thieves, their conniving trickery used to undermine our legal system, swindle jobs and social services away from hard working “natives,” while all the while weakening the heartland. The other paints a suffering, to bastardize Hobbes, “noble immigrant”: an uneducated, poor, but nevertheless hardworking, loyal, just, eager-to-become American pillar of our society.
Who is correct? No one, really, because the people who’ve defined the parameters of this debate have hardly any street experience with the people for whom they advocate, or against whom they fight. Maybe they’ve had lengthy discussions with their cleaning lady over her concerns about schooling and healthcare, or they’ve read an entry in the crime section about a double murder committed by Ricardo, an undocumented gang member in east L.A who unequivocally represents the danger of open borders. These definitions are fuzzy, to say the least—simplistic descriptions of an enormous population of people. Some are hard working, some art not. Some are criminals; others know the letter of the law better than you or I, and pay possess a greater respect for it. Some want to be citizens; others have come out of desperation, seeking a higher quality of life, but still mourning the loss of their real home. Some, in fact many, join the service and give their lives for this government, while others see this government caring for ordinary people about as much as those they flee. Let’s stop with these definitions. I’ve met people with long stories about their trials and tribulations trying to become legal, learning English, working their way up the vocational ladder, and still fighting a behemoth government bureaucracy. I’ve met others that are purely just visiting. They want nothing more than to go home, but begrudgingly stay for want of the material improvements America has to offer. They may admit this, but they aren’t kneeling before the stars and stripes. You know what this kind of diversity—the laziness and dedication, patriotism and indifference, criminal and upstanding citizen, intelligent and stupid, religious and secular—among the immigrant community reminds me of? America. Immigrants appear no guiltier or worthy of any of these attributes than the average citizen. Whatta ya know. They aren’t all that different from us.
And while we relinquish our grasp on the so-called understanding of the immigrant population, let us stop branding anyone as un-American until we define what it is they are not. They are illegal, perhaps, but only according to passages in law books.
My own life has been, and likely will always be far easier to live than the life of an “illegal,” because of one major accomplishment, which earned two invaluable rewards. I was born a U.S. citizen. No small feat, being born geographically positioned with boundaries that have stood for about 2% of human civilization. If not for the Louisiana Purchase, I would be a French citizen. Ooh la la! Merci beaucoup, Napoleon, pour ta générosité. Now I’m a documented, legal worker in the wealthiest nation on earth, clearly, we are told, because today’s Americans just plain work harder than the rest of the world. We haven’t inherited a wealthy nation; we earn it each day. The Russians, the Chinese, the El Salvadorans, they could have it too if they worked like we do. And because of our hard work, I earn considerably more money for the same job performed anywhere else in the world. Now that I live in California, I earn considerably more than when in Louisiana. That’s not blind luck; it’s because Californians are better than Louisianans.
The other reward is one of class, having been given enough status in this society to attend college, make mediocre grades, and take a degree that adds even more to that hard earned salary. But this is not a gift, it’s a well earned reward for four grueling years in New Orleans, attending about 50% of my classes and drinking Thursday through Tuesday. I deserve something for my efforts, something more than those deceitful illegals. Be they martyrs suffering for the poor, or thieves looting the American dream, neither was born on American soil. The message to them should be clear: Opportunity for all, a staple of American governmental philosophy, stops at the border.
Pat Buchanan and the likes, Newt Gingrich, have been traipsing the country, crying about Americans loosing America. Well, I’ve never considered myself owner of this land. He warns of a language take over. Odd, in a country that has never in its history been 100% English, Christian, white, or as boring as a nation made solely of that would be. So Pat’s no model for the American being ripped off. No one is, really. Certainly not Newt. As difficult as it is to define the invaders, it’s even harder to define where they are invading. The color of our cities is ever-changing, our religion constitutionally unspecified, our language the product of mass immigration, pop culture, and poor education funding. We often, as Americans, brag of foreign ancestry, citing that 1/36th Swedish ancestry, or showing a photo of Grandma Celia the Russian, when we need to feel part of a culture. Maybe it’s because, as Americans, we have no specified national culture. Pat and Newt fear the waving of the Mexican flag at demonstrations is a sign of the immigrant plans to take control of the south west. Have Pat or Newt ever been to a St. Patrick’s Day celebration? Don’t give ‘em an inch, or they’ll want textbooks printed in Gaelic. They both urge the undocumented workers to learn English. In fact, they implore they must learn English. This coming from two men who speak on a behalf of a nation that can’t speak English, led by a president, who…well…
If there is anything we can permanently call America—something not in need of adaptation every few decades—it’s the idea on which the nation was built. No, not religious freedom. No, not freedom from tyranny. These ideas are not unique. Rather, it’s the idea of a free-for-all, a vibrant land of very little government that belonged to no particular ethnic, linguistic, or religious group. A place where anyone who possesses the will can grab for a piece of the pie, uninhibited by any overarching authority, and protected from unjust theft (That is unless they are bare-assed and wear feathers.). This idea, this very American idea, should know no place of birth. The founders didn’t discriminate. If there’s any lesson to be learned from our history, it’s that this country is constantly being stolen from those less resourceful by those with an unrelenting vision for something better. An idea we preach vehemently, until not in our favor.
