My friend Alice called while she had several hours' layover before returning to Iraq. The civilian contract worker was home on leave but is now returning.
She wanted to tell me how upset she was about Arizona. In her monologue, she had tales to tell about regional U.S. attitudes showing up in the conflict zone and how Bosnians -- who are Muslims, staunch allies and contract workers -- know to push back when pushed. There are stories about Filipinos who signed on for five years who will not see their families during the whole time.
She talks about her deceased mother, from a native Texan rancher family with limited English ability and her courage to speak up when that needed doing. What would she think about Arizona? How would she feel about the aspersions that she doesn't look or sound "American" enough? It bothers Alice, and she says it will continue annoying her in Iraq.
She has to go, Alice tells me. The PA system says an assembly is about to begin before deployment.
She leaves me in mid-thought about how politics catches you. Bernard Malamud, the acclaimed author, once pronounced that to be alive is to be political. It is a hard truth to accept, especially by nice, mild-mannered apolitical people when they face astringent attitudes.
Also hard to understand is how the air for serious discussion over immigration issues got so sulfuric. The shank was already being heaved as far back as May 2006 when CNN's Wolf Blitzer, interviewing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asked: "Tell our viewers who aren't familiar your personal story, how you got to where you are, your grandparents, your parents... I don't know if they came here legally or illegally. But give us the story."
Gonzales fell into the trap. The aspersion was cast not on who Gonzales was but who his grandparents were. He said three of his grandparents went to Texas from Mexico. Both his parents were born in Texas. But that wasn't enough for Blitzer, who persisted: "When they came to Texas, were they legally documented, were they un-legally documented?"
Gonzales said, "It's unclear. It's unclear."
Actually it's very clear. The attorney general is a U.S. citizen. Otherwise, what is the CNN relevance of pursuing this questioning about a time when "documents" and visas were probably not required the way they are now?
It is faintly reminiscent of the thinking that dominated for three centuries in the New World when a racialism sought to find impure Jewish blood among the Spanish-surnamed.
Again, the impulse is to pry into the personal, to find a "questionable" background. The purpose served is not to get answers but to define a suspicious class of people, then find the "legal" and "illegal" among them, as if that defines who's loyal and who isn't.
The inquisition raises the question of legitimacy. There is also one-ups-man ship here, because the element of doubt feeds the suspicion. Even when someone knows the other person is licit, just by having questioned the legitimacy is to bring up an element of doubt, likely association with a disdained class, making ethnicity in a democracy matter more than respect. After all, it is all about getting the upper hand.
Even in giving, there is a lot of taking. That happened recently when Alfredo Corchado of the Dallas Morning News received the prestigious Lovejoy Award for courage in journalism for his coverage of drug trafficking in Mexico. Twenty-one journalists reporting on these stories have been murdered since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The press release announcing the award said Corchado's family "legally immigrated" to the United States when he was 6 years old.
How tasteless, unthinking, uncouth, demoralizing.
Uncorrected, how far will this go?
I think it has already reached Iraq.
Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail him at joseisla3@yahoo.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
Rich posted at 6:47 am on Thu, Jul 15, 2010.
Mr. 666
Never said it was about race, here's what I said: "They attack some group, because it is easier to blame someone other than yourself. The Know Nothings of the early years, through the McCarthys who attacked an idea and those who believed it, the segregationists of the fifties and sixties, to the Pearces and Brewers of today."
You've tried valiantly to make it a racial issue, but it is an issue that stretches across society, the underlying cause is the same, insecurity and fear, and race can be used to promote that, but ideas, other things can and are used. There was nothing racial in the jailing of the "Hollywood Ten" but every other motivation was the same. A "group" doesn't have to be racially based or ethnically based, it merely can be. It is the dehumanization that is the problem. From "Jose" to "illegal alien" from a person to something that sounds like a bug eyed monster. In this case it is, rather obviously partially based in ethnicity. But the real basis is your own insecurities.
Masterrogue666 posted at 6:16 am on Thu, Jul 15, 2010.
Rich: You beating a dead horse. It isn't about race. It's about legal standing. Mexican citizens receive the "lion's share" of LEGAL immigrantion openings. If it was the reverse, then maybe I'd agree with you.
allamer posted at 9:27 pm on Wed, Jul 14, 2010.
Jose, I see the basis here for a dramatic, soul-searching novel appealing to all compassionate readers!
Rich posted at 8:13 pm on Wed, Jul 14, 2010.
Mr666
Every Russell Pearce in the world forced them to come here were such people spit on our heritage before failing. They attack some group, because it is easier to blame someone other than yourself. The Know Nothings of the early years, through the McCarthys who attacked an idea and those who believed it, the segregationists of the fifties and sixties, to the Pearces and Brewers of today. There is always someone to blame, but in the end we meet the enemy, and he is us.
They fail here, eventually. And that is what forces people to come here. It is the force that made us, and we force people to come here. Much as Pearce would like us to sink to the level of the third world country that limits how many people can enrich them.
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:42 pm on Wed, Jul 14, 2010.
I say you should "blame" the 12 to 20 million foreign national invaders. No one forced them to cross into this country ILLEGALLY.....
Rich posted at 6:23 pm on Wed, Jul 14, 2010.
There is always a scapegoat, Jose. Machiavellian politicians can always find them, and exploit them for power. The sad truth is that the world is full of insecure people who want, need, to blame someone else. Even here, where we are the descendants of the world's "wretched refuse." We emulate the worst of the "teeming shores" our ancestors abandoned, and feel, somehow righteous, doing so. I grew up thinking with the civil rights movement, we children of the refuse conquered that. Sadly, we have not. As a long forgotten Conquistador once carved on a rock: "Paso Por Aqui," That is best we can do.