I, too, am an immigrant.
I may not be brown-skinned, but I’m still here to take your job. My parents took your jobs, too. I’m not sure if these are jobs Americans just won’t do. All I know is that we’ve worked our butts off to build the life we’ve got in this country. And I know undocumented immigrants who work even harder.
I may not wear a hijab, but I know what it’s like to be a refugee. I know what it’s like to fear the government of my old homeland, and to hope and pray that I will be accepted in my new one. And yet what my family experienced is nothing compared to those fleeing their bombed out houses and lives in Syria.
I’m lucky to have white skin, so I don’t stand out too much. Unless I speak and you hear my accent, you may think I’m one of you. Even if you do hear my accent, you won’t mind, because a European accent is sexy/cute. I’m just another fortunate person enjoying the fruits of this country’s success. “God bless you! Welcome to America!”
But I can never allow myself to feel too comfortable. Because in a society which needs scapegoats, nobody is ever really safe. And you need scapegoats. You’re angry and frustrated. Things haven’t turned out the way you hoped they would, so you’re looking for someone to blame. This will not end well. Today the scapegoats are the people coming across the southern border. Tomorrow they might be anyone who speaks a foreign language in public, or anyone who doesn’t salute the flag quickly enough. Someday, the scapegoat might be you–the person who’s pointing the finger right now.
I can also never allow myself to point the finger, because that would make me an ugly hypocrite. I am grateful to be able to live here, and I can’t close the door on others who want to come in, only because their culture is different or their religion makes me uncomfortable. After all, we immigrated from a country which, at the time we left it, had a Communist political system. What if my family was automatically suspected of wanting to spread Communism? Everyone from that part of the world could have been a radical Communist, right? What if we were considered too high-risk to be allowed into the States? Doesn’t matter that my family actually opposed Communism. Many refugees today are running away from ISIS-style fundamentalism because they hate and fear it, but we are suspicious of them anyway.
So when you talk about how we should keep “them” out and how “they” make us unsafe, I can’t help but feel a little anxious.
I was once one of “them”. I still remember what that’s like. And no matter how Americanized I become, I will never be exactly like you–I will always be an immigrant.
11/04/2017 at 3:19 pm
as always, a great post. thank you!
11/04/2017 at 9:38 pm
Dzieki za przeczytanie 🙂
11/04/2017 at 3:29 pm
This is very touching and I wanted to tweet out the link, but you don’t have media sharing, or did I not see it?
By the way, hope all is going well and strong for you.
11/04/2017 at 9:38 pm
Thank you! I hope everything is going well for you, too, and that you’re having a great start to the holiday season…let’s face it, we’re there already!
Ya know, pathetic as this is, I’m not sure if I have media sharing. Is that something which would require a paid account? It’s amazing how basic my knowledge of WordPress is.
11/04/2017 at 10:00 pm
On the admin side of your blog there should be a left-side border. Towards the bottom is “Settings”. There’s a sub-menu that says “Sharing”. There, you can choose what media buttons to put on your posts.
There are lots, some that I’m unfamiliar with, but the most common are Facebook and Twitter. That way, if visitors to your blog have accounts on other media and want to share your posts with their followers, they can click the button and it will post a link and a few lines from the beginning of your posts on their social media timelines.
11/04/2017 at 5:50 pm
Well done!
11/04/2017 at 9:38 pm
Thank you and many thanks for reblogging!
11/05/2017 at 4:33 am
We all forget that we came from immigrants.
11/05/2017 at 5:50 pm
Yep, we sure do!
11/04/2017 at 5:51 pm
Reblogged this on Praying for Eyebrowz and commented:
You really should read this this piece from eurobrat.wordpress.com.
11/05/2017 at 2:14 am
I speak from England. My view is that those who have managed to get here have qualities that bring much to offer – as they have done through many centuries.
11/05/2017 at 5:53 pm
Completely agree! I’ve found that a lot of immigrants have an adventurous and enterprising spirit which only contributes in a positive way to their adopted home countries. We want to work hard and make our home better 🙂
11/05/2017 at 11:40 pm
Exactly 🙂
12/11/2017 at 4:02 am
Everyone in existence has immigrated from somewhere else. The real problem is many have forgotten their point of origination as well as their purpose in being here at all. 😔
12/11/2017 at 5:48 pm
Exactly! And I love that America is so diverse and has people of so many different cultures and ethnicities…I think that’s what makes it an exciting place. But a lot of people have lost sight of that, unfortunately.
12/15/2017 at 12:30 pm
Great stuff, as usual.
“This will not end well. Today the scapegoats are the people coming across the southern border. Tomorrow they might be anyone who speaks a foreign language in public, or anyone who doesn’t salute the flag quickly enough. Someday, the scapegoat might be you–the person who’s pointing the finger right now.”
And THAT is why our modern, worse-than-1984, surveillance state is so incredibly fucking dangerous. You can no longer walk down the street, surf the net, buy something with your credit card, use your stupid-phone, get groceries, or even fart in a public place without being monitored by several Stasi groups, corporations, or billions of Little Brothers out to destroy people out of vengeance/fear/boredom.
Databases of everything we do are being compiled to predict/manipulate/control us. Just ask any Russian Troll. They obviously watched the old Twilight zone episode, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street (or the 2003 version) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_Street The Lesson: All you gotta do is fuck with their devices and they’ll turn on each other in a millisecond.
Yet everybody still naively says “Oh, I’m not a terrorist, a criminal, or even very interesting. I have nothing to be afraid of.”
Until it’s too late, that is.
Anybody who still has a mildly functioning memory should know how incredibly fucking fast social mores can change and how serious the consequences of being “out of step with the times” can be. For example, call your secretary “honey buns” like you used to in the 70’s, or try to kiss her during the booze-filled office Christmas party like you did just a couple decades ago. See what happens next…even if it’s between the very same individuals.
That changed pretty darned fast, didn’t it? One minute, it’s “innocent fun” to chuckle over at the next office party. The next minute, you’re drinking yourself to death as a homeless, unemployable, social pariah, living in a cardboard box in the back alley.
Another (albeit ludicrous) example that may strike a chord with some is…What happens when Islam wins and we’re forced to live under Shania Law? How long until the khaleesi-phate goes through the surveillance videos of closed-up liquor stores to identify the infidels most in need of punishment? Hell, ISIS hackers may already have and used facial recognition & websites like Loserbook to dig up names, addresses, habits, etc.
Privacy no longer exists. Presumed innocence no longer exists. Legality or “Back then, everybody else was doing it too” no longer carries much weight. Today’s “innocent action” could be tommorrow’s biggest Thought Crime and you can be punished retroactively for it. Thanks to modern technology, the lynch-mob doesn’t even have to show its face anymore. And the “evidence” is forever, just waiting for the right circumstance to turn YOU into the scapegoat.
NOBODY should let themselves feel too safe because none of us are.
12/16/2017 at 2:45 pm
Absolutely true. It is impossible to predict what the howling online mob will go after from one day to the next. This is how we go at lightning speed from exposing cases of true sexual assault to poor Garrison Keillor getting canned because he might have accidentally touched a woman’s back years ago. You think you’re safe, normal, politically correct? Just wait, because what you said a few weeks ago will suddenly be completely unacceptable and you will be ostracized. It’s like a new Victorian era, except instead of haughty ladies whispering judgmental stuff about you to each other behind their fans, it’s a bunch of Interwebz snobs leaving angry emoji all over your page.
The one I feel really sorry for is the genuinely well-intentioned person who decides to run for office to “make things better.” You don’t stand a chance when people can dig through your entire past online. Everyone has said something embarrassing or stupid at one time or another.
12/17/2017 at 10:42 am
Not me 😉
Yeah. If there is ANYBODY still left who actually does want to get into public life to “make things better”…those people are lambs running to offer themselves up to be sacrificed for the sheer entertainment value of the dung-throwing mob. It’s way worse than (The Simpson’s) Springfield out there now. People spend all day on their fucking phones just waiting for the next hashtag lynch-mob to form, so that they can hit the scapegoat with their dung the hardest.
And the technology has made it all soooo quick & easy to dig up dirt (real or imagined) and bury people under it. You don’t need a torch, a pitchfork, or even break a sweat anymore. You can just sit on the comfy couch in your parents’ basement, sip a mint julep, wiggle your fingers a few times, and tell yourself what a hero you are. As opposed to what you actually are; an unemployed/underworked, lifeless, loser that’s addicted to technology…and the inherent nastiness it produces.
“This database says you bought into a mutual fund in 1983 that owned stock for 6 months in a company that sold weapons to Saddam Hussein. You support radical Islam! Traitor! Traitor!”
The Russian Trolls must be laughing all the way home after work every day…in their Lambos.
Of course, everyone always assumes that all of this data is accurate (Computers make errors???) and that the individuals identified are actually the Scapegoats…like that German guy who was grabbed up 10-15 years ago at an airport and sent off to be tortured. “Oops! Wrong guy. Same name as the guy we’re looking for, just 3 letters different..and 4 inches & 75lbs. But still not our fault.” How many Bill Smiths are going to have their life ruined because of what some other Bill Smith supposedly did?
And since you brought up the infamous back patter & goat raper, Garrison Keiller…you ought to write something about this truly bizarre “sexual harassment situation” in a future story. It’s one of the damned strangest things I’ve ever seen. I’ll try to save my opinion until you do. (Not that I’m all that sure what my opinion is. I just know 1/3 of my TV line-up has disappeared.)
12/19/2017 at 9:29 pm
Hah…I don’t know if I can bring myself to write about it. But I completely agree that the ease of online mob “slacktivism” is what makes it so horrifying…. No need to think anything over, just post something!
12/17/2017 at 11:29 am
They already came for you. Lucky for you, you just weren’t here yet.
Witness this average, patriotic, American (armed with a US flag lapel pin) coming after your ilk, as he did on an almost weekly basis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSL2Y9UpEOM
Here’s his view on immigration and what Makes America Great (the first time)
and his view on “art”.
and how to make America safer.
You give the average American access to the microphone and this is what you get.
Sorry about all the videos, but I think it’s all still very relevant….far too relevant…(but still funny as hell…as long as you don’t think about how little has changed.)
12/19/2017 at 9:31 pm
Oh Lord, that first one was too funny…I miss intelligent TV shows.
01/13/2018 at 7:41 am
Nice write up..
01/13/2018 at 7:41 am
Nice write up.. I love it.
01/13/2018 at 1:07 pm
Thank you! There has been so much anti-immigrant sentiment here lately. It’s very sad.