Xenophobia
by Jorge Vargas
I will not attempt to start off by writing eloquently about freedom, liberty, democracy, and humanity – all of which have been violated in the past week. Instead, I will delve directly into the depths of the situation which so recently occupied the gilded halls of the United States Congress.
Illegal immigrants, almost by definition, are almost never fluent in the language of the host nation at the time of their first arrival – except in the case of Spain’s Latin American immigrants and the case of some African illegal immigrants in the United States, Great Britain, and, mostly, France. They are almost always poor, or else they are escaping some great fear in their home country. Furthermore, it should be pointed out, illegal immigrants do not only flee to the United States; they are also in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, South Africa and so forth and so on. You name it, they’re there.
And there is, naturally, the key fact: They are immigrating illegally because they are in desperate need of a better future for themselves, and, through themselves, for their children.
Does that group sound like a threat? Could you possibly feel threatened by the fact that fifteen of them live in an apartment for one? Do you see a threat in the fact that they speak a foreign language that is being taught to your children, and that may have been taught to you, in school? Is their food menacing to you? Are they stealing your job as a lawyer or a banker or a teacher or a cop? And if they are stealing your job, does that not mean that you have to work harder? Will you not agree that the United States - and every great nation - was founded by the hard work of others, and therefore, it can only be continued by the hard work of individuals?
The United States feels threatened by illegal immigrants. The great behemoth. The nation with one of the greatest educational systems ever known to humanity. The empire making neo-colonies of Iraq and Afghanistan, and which has set its sights on Iran in the latest Western ploy to control the Middle East. The financial center of the universe. Threatened by illegal immigrants? Afraid of them? Or racist against them? Racist of the Other?
How about yourself?
The United States Congress has recently violated something deeper than freedom, liberty, or even democracy, although in doing so, it violated all three. The US Congress violated humanity when it listened to the vociferous complaints of the eternal bigots who speak from their gilded pulpits spewing out egocentric exaggerations aimed at manipulating the uncomprehending citizen into fearing grown men who have been humiliated by humanity, having to spend their days working on the gardens of individuals who call them 'Jose' without ever stopping to learn their names. That is exactly what the US Congress has done.
And yes, there are some who will speak of the economics of the situation and they will argue that less cheap labor is better for the economy and so forth and so on. I know the economics of the situation, unlike most of the pundits who claim that they understand, and I have no reason to lie about it either: There is no loss by admitting cheap labor into the US workforce. It would, in fact, make the US more competitive against nations like China and so forth. Now, keeping them illegal and allowing them to work below the minimum wage sounds even better but you have to consider that this will foster a perennial low class and throw the United States closer to the 'Third World' than it has been since the 1930s.
Then comes the argument regarding the loss of 'American values.' Will not the children realize that American values were tarnished the instant that the defenders of democracy forced millions into the dark corners of the sprawling cities? Was invading Iraq without cause or reason much more lethal to American values? Furthermore, were not your grandparents, parents, or perhaps even yourself, born outside of the United States and, thus, not citizens of the US at one point? And when your ancestors came here, did they speak English right away?
Then comes Samuel Huntington's claim that Latin American culture will replace that of the US if immigration is not halted. The Germans said that about the Jewish presence in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, didn't they? There was a particular fellow with a moustache and parted hair who was a big promoter of that sort of culturalist argument. Do you remember his name? The first clue is that he was a Nazi.
None of those arguments carry any weight, nor do the many others that I lack the time, space, and patience to go through since they are each more ridiculous than the one before. What does carry weight is the following:
The United States is becoming an exclusivist, nationalistic, racist nation. Or at least, it is becoming dominated by exclusivist, nationalistic, and racist individuals. Other nations have fallen to such temptations. Nazi Germany, which has already been referenced in response to Huntington's absurd and unfounded theories, is one of them. Imperial Spain is another, as was Iraq under Hussein, along with Franco's Spain. And to delve back into the classic list of nations, there is the Roman Empire that put ‘citizenship’ above all else, forcing the rest into servitude, a move which was pivotal in the Roman downfall. Those are all nations that never accepted the poor and huddled masses of the rest. The United States will soon join the list.
And there are, of course, the positive aspects of immigration. The individuals which have been turned away by the US Congress could have been our future Beethovens and Washingtons and Pattons and Einsteins. After all, the great men in history were not all white, Protestant Americans. Some of them were filthy street kids or bastard children once. Some of them were criminals, drunkards – Churchill, for instance, meaning no offense to one of Britain’s greatest Prime Ministers – and some slept with the slaves and fostered illegitimate children. The contributors to society have come from every social circle and what the United States has said to the whole world is not that it is going to take racist and egocentric actions – the world already knew that when the US invaded Iraq – but that it considers itself so self-sufficient that it need not take the brilliance of the Other.
If you are still not convinced, then I will not be able to further dissuade you, but I would like to challenge you to go to some Latin American nation to try to find work. I guarantee you that they would treat you not only like a human, but as a guest in their home.
