Normally I try to avoid politics in this blog, but recently I saw an article in the New York Times that made my blood boil.
It’s here, but if you have trouble with that link, the gist is that a conservative minority shouted down immigration reform–including an amnesty provision–that was supported by a more laid-back majority. And that’s the way that democracy goes: the decisions are made by the people who show up. I get that, and I accept it.
What I can’t accept is the quotes from one of that minority’s organizers. “These people came in the wrong way, so they don’t belong here, period,” a Mrs. Monique Thibodeaux is quoted as saying, shortly after playing follow-the-leader on God knows what red-state-based website. But here’s the one that kills me:
“In my heart I knew it was wrong for our country.”
Oh.
Now.
You know what I know in my heart? It’s that Mrs. Monique Thibodeaux, fancy French name aside, needs to get the hell over herself. And I’m not just saying that because her unbearable smugness in urging her friends to join her little crusade rubs me all wrong. I’m saying it because I’m giving some serious thought to making a run for the border, myself, and it’s not because I’m after anyone’s fucking food stamps.
Let’s start with the language thing before I overheat entirely. Just before I left for Paris in March, I had a dentist appointment, at the end of which I spent some time chatting with my long-time dentist’s long-time receptionist, who was about to retire. As we discussed our respective futures, the new receptionist’s ears perked up at the news of my plans. All of a sudden, our previously pleasant conversation began suffering from constant interjections about how it’s one thing to visit a country, but if you’re going to live there, New Receptionist just thinks that it’s inexcusable not to learn the language. And I do mean constant, and it’s weird, but I really didn’t get the impression that the language she meant was French.
Now. I speak French–see, Nick? I’ll admit it now. I do. But I also have felt the intense relief that rolls in when I don’t have to: when I can drop my game face and just speak. And I think that presuming to degrade someone for undergoing a massive life change and yet still wanting to hold on to any last thing that reminds them of what kind of a person they once were–funny, insightful, poetic, clever, soothing, efficient, informed, poised; whatever–is just absolutely sick.
Oh. And by the way? It’s only polite to learn a phrase or two even if you are “just visiting.” Please don’t think that I didn’t notice your guilty pause just before you qualified your bigotry to suit your shady past; I know as well as you do that you had just remembered screaming, “Eeennnglissshhhh?” at some poor waiter in Rome or wherever.
Judge not lest my God (who is, frankly, far more creative than your own) drop you in the middle of Basque Country without a phrasebook, you over-blowdried witch.
But it’s more than just that. It’s the miles and miles of red tape that encircle even the simplest visa process that have me going out of my skull. A while back I wrote about going to the American embassy in Paris and seeing a woman denied a visa to visit a friend of hers in Queens. And I can’t write about the nightmare that is the French consulate; aside from the sheer impossibility of turning the constant babble into coherent paragraphs, the whole thing just gives me the shakes.
See, I’m realizing something now. This whole thing about how people come to America–or anywhere–For A Better Life? Like it’s some abstract thing where they just decide to do that one day? It’s nonsense. It’s a stupid fairy tale, and you should know better…and if you don’t, then listen up.
Let’s say my Somalian woman at the embassy really was trying to jump her visa and live out her life in the outer boroughs. I can tell you a few things off the top of my head: 1) It wasn’t so that she could live off of welfare. French social services blow ours out of the water. 2) It mattered to her. She did not go home and say, “Rats! Now I need a new scheme.” I believe–and you do, too–that there really was someone waiting for her in New York, and our lives are enriched by our loved ones in ways that cannot be replaced. 3) In matters like this, there is no back-up plan. She is not, no matter what my dentist’s receptionist may think, completing a visa application at the Italian embassy as we speak. 4) And none of this addresses the shame that we should all feel–as she undoubtedly does–if she was, in fact, just trying to spend some time with a dearly-missed friend.
This all has, of course, become very near and dear to my heart. I know that Mrs. Monique Thibodeaux was not picturing me in her head when she said those horrific things; I’m white, for one thing, and I’m not especially poor for another. I’ve got a fiancé who is impeccably legal, and he has managed to secure an excellent immigration attorney on my behalf. And yet it’s people just like her who have created a system in which even I, with all of my advantages, can see a real upside to going a little bit Thelma & Louise, here. And the killer irony of the whole thing is that I could get away with it tonight. After I dutifully appear at the consulate for the appointment for which I will have waited three weeks like the good girl that I am, it may well be too late.
Legal immigration is, apparently, a nearly endless process, and it has that clichéd quality of being just like peeling an onion; you know the thing that I mean. And it’s a high-stakes game, and please don’t ever forget that, because I am far from the only person these days who is stuck both with and far from her family. There is no Plan B, and there is no “Oh, well.” A Better Life does not mean easy street; it means that a true crisis has been reached, and A Worse Life has become entirely intolerable. If the system–which is designed specifically not to work–should happen not to work, there is only Ophelia-esque madness left for me; for us.
People don’t subject themselves to this for fun, and their loves and lives mean no less than yours just because they cannot hold a conversation with you, Mrs. Monique Thibodeaux & Co. If you have been so fortunate as to have been born in the country where you belong, then it’s time to unclench and show a little decency toward those who are still trying to get there.
Brava!
Comment by Nancie Kay Shuman — June 15, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
Dear Caroline: I do understand your feelings, but you are not here. A white woman in my neighborhood was lynched and hung in her bathtub, jeers are made in the street. Members of La Raza (the race) are openly stating there are here to take back their land by violence. Actual polls show the American majority (not minority) is against this energy. It is a shame, since it hurts cross-culturing with friendly forces and countries, which everyone wants. Men (for whom there really isn’t work) are being bussed into areas, then there is nothign for them to do all day (but our taxes are teaching them skills, anyway). The push is from big business to break the unions (so that all Americans will not get benefits. It really is a larger game that you’re not more aware of. Already, with redlining, taxes, higher housing costs, whites often cannot (truly) afford to stay and work in urban areas (which KEPT them more diverse, which is what we want). As that demographic is pushed out, the country is becoming LESS DIVERSE since many other factors come into play, making there be less exchange, not more. Please keep reading the other side of the issue (about taxes, money and how real areas necessarily become less diverse) with badly managed “immigration.” (This is not really what’s going on, judging from my area—which is trying to bust American worker unions).
Comment by anna — June 21, 2007 @ 11:25 am
Anna,
lets not forget that illegal immigrants are also paying our taxes on items they purchase while here without recieveing ANY of the benefits from those tax dollars. They purchase things like food, clothing, and work neccessities for themselves while they are here and they bring business into small towns that might otherwise be going under simply by being bussed into them looking for jobs. Just because the business they are bringing is of a different skin color than the white majority, and just because the businesses they support are those that have learned to cater to their needs as opposed to yours is no reason to suggest that we ought to run them out of town. More than this- a larger white population does not make a town diverse by its sole existence. Lets not forget that whites of european immigrant backround have been the majority in this country since the very early days of our nationhood and immigration laws- with an immigration rate of only 2% at times, and often the largest immigrant groups coming from western and eastern europe.
And on another point, while it certainly is inexcusable that anybody be lynched (in their bathtub or otherwise), how can you be so ignorant as to ignore the fact that this is effectively what the white settlers sere doing when they took over the midwest from the native americans. Or lets go even one step further here- whites were lynching blacks until the 1960′s for god sake and while two wrongs don’t make a right I would just question the self righteousness behind your assertion that their desire to take back the land:land we- to be honest- did steal from them, is some sort of atrocity. Perhaps we ought to be looking at ways to give it back to them in ways that are safe, sane, and fair to both parties.
But then thats just this east coast liberals point of view- what do I know.
Oh one more thing. Whites have had the upperhand with employment opportunities since the inception of immirgration law-and slavery really- white men still make 1.00 dollar to every 80 cents black men make ( this figure may be slightly outdated to be fair, though its definitely still not equal) and black women are still the lowest paid workers on the pay scale, coming under white women.
Comment by MJ — June 21, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
MJ,
there is no sales tax on clothing, or food (there is, however, sales tax on prepared food, like the kinds found at Taco Bell, Baja Fresh, or Q’Doba).
also, I have a hard time believing anyone was lynched in their bathtub for racial motives, had to be something else. Not after racism was ended forever by having Don Imus removed from the airwaves…
Comment by Captain Howdy — June 23, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
call me old fashioned, but I believe fire is magic!
Comment by Dr. Zaius — June 23, 2007 @ 6:04 pm