In a way, it's not surprising that anti-immigration rhetoric has gained such prominence in a post September 11th world. While people opposed to illegal immigration unfortunately come in all shapes and sizes, the impression that I get is that the core group that believes in this stuff is composed of the whitest of the white people, the anglo-saxon, possibly Irish or Germans, Americans who somehow believe that they have a 'right' to this country.
The flag waving and patriotic rhetoric post 9/11 seem to have resonated most strongly with them, also.
After all, practically everyone else in America has to some extent or another been a victim of the America. Blacks in the South. Asians in the West. Native Americans all over the place. Also the descendents of people who, either because they were Jewish or because they were Southern or Eastern European, were imported over here for sweatshop labor at the turn of the 20th century. Add to that miscellaneous later comers who have experienced discrimination of one kind or another and you find that there are many more people who the American dream has ate up and spit out than have straightforwardly benefitted from it, without oppression of some kind.
Even though flag wavers come in all flavors as well, my guess is that the people who wave the flag and salute with "Proud to be American" stickers are more heavily made up of anglo-americans who's ancestors came here as farmers rather than industrial workers, than it is made up of people who, although they might currently be doing well, have these skeletons of hardship and discrimination in their past. Or, of course, not even in their past.
The nativist sentiment, ironically championed by people with names like "Tancredo", is connected in my mind to the sort of primal white supremacist narrative about the origin, purpose, and destiny of the United States, something which has little to do with reality and which instead legitimates already existing unequal power differentials.
Lou Dobbs, the conservative, repressed, northeastern WASP stock broker turned illegal immigrant hater, represents this white supremacist strain in it's purest form. Who better to complain about Mexicans than someone who looks and acts like he's been to Andover and who works Wall Street?
The illegal immigration debate is, at its core, a debate between the reality of the United States and the image of it in the minds of some of it's more privileged citizens, and the sooner we can move the popular image of the United States closer in line with the reality of life here the sooner we can start effective work to make this a more equal society.
As long as the white supremacist narrative upheld by Minutemen, anti-immigrant haters, their allies, rural whites, Western whites, elite stockbrokers, President Bush, and their like, continues, this is unlikely to happen.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
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The problem I see with illegal immigration as opposed to legal immigration is that the businessmen and industrialists are doing the same thing to these people as they did with the irish immigrants and other immigrant groups – they are using them for cheap labor and to undercut the progress that has been made by unions for workers. There is little regard for the impact of all this cheap labor on the societies healthcare, educational, or housing systems. The growing divide between the have and have nots is a very serious problem now in the united states with a growing poor and permanent underclass.
Many blacks have been hardest hit by the massive influx of cheap labor, skyrocketing housing prices, and strains on the healthcare and educational system. 25 years ago in the southern California area even a janitor could make enough money to afford a decent house and a car etc. etc. Now that is no longer the case.
It is not that Americans are against immigrants. What we don’t want is to undercut all of the progress we have made for workers and worker rights decent housing, healthcare and education. We do not want to see them eroded by foolish immigration policies and massive influx of cheap labor. What we want are sound immigration policies which protect the things that many of us have fought for, and some of us have died for.
There is much more overt and racist narrative growing in the southwest than the poor rural white racist narrative. It is the racist narritive of the so called reconquista’s - La Raza de Aztlan - and it is a movement which is growing very strong. Under the guise of “Mexican nationalism” and “native peoples rights” - people of mostly Spanish decent are claiming the territories of the southwest for their people and their “race” and they consider all others to be interlopers.
So called liberals better watch their flanks … their clammy compassion for the "oppressed" and immigrants is being used for racist and nationalistic political purposes.
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