Let's talk about immigration. I recognize that there are problems
inherent in the acts of illegally entering and staying in this country,
but I am troubled by the recent trend in the language being used to
describe border crossers. It is all too reminiscent of some bad ideas
and dark times. I am afraid that we are taking some major steps
backwards into the ideology of race inferiority.
I've written about this already after I received my issue of Intelligence Report
in January; I am still saddened by the idea that there are people who
think there is such a thing as an "illegal" person. That is the
language that we see most often and that is the thing that I find most
loathsome in this whole debate: this idea that there are people who are
themselves inherently wrong in their legality or right to exist. Rather
than referring to someone as here illegally, we refer to them as a
person as this illegal thing. It's a subtle difference but it is one
that has caused a distinct shift in our thinking about race and
identity. If we now describe people based on their status or behavior,
what are we saying about a person's humanity?
When we invalidate
the person themselves with a label that has nothing to do with who they
are but has to do with their status, we deny their right to existence
in the same way we exist. Why don't we say that people who speed are
illegals? It amounts to the same thing: breaking our laws. Yet, we
don't call people who break every day laws illegals; nor do we call
people who are in prison illegals. Why is that? I think it is
interesting to note that the people we refer to as illegals tend not to
be people who came here illegally from Asia or Europe; we almost always
are referring to people who crossed the border from Mexico. I find that
additional bit information the straw that breaks the coyote's back in
this entire thing. It is finally the thing that elucidates the true
meaning behind the term and the thinking: racism rears its ugly,
destructive head and calls itself nativism. It may be true that there
are more people crossing the border from Mexico than there are people
coming here illegally from China, but that does not change the fact
that if we are talking about people who are here illegally, we are
talking about all people who are here illegally. Would we be having
this same discussion with the same language if the problem were
originating from Canada? I doubt it.
I am puzzled by the
thinking that assigns value to people based on nothing more than
arbitrary birth; it is as if people think we have a choice in our birth
and the ways in which we are raised. There will always be people who
either willfully or ignorantly refuse to recognize their own luck in
being born in a country where they are allowed the luxury of choice;
these are the people who assign value to differences in DNA and seek to
view the world through the lens of hatred. We will always have fringe
groups who do not and cannot represent the whole. What I find very
disturbing about the recent "illegal" language and movement is that it
is becoming more and more a part of the common parlance and accepted as
appropriate by people who should know better. I don't think the label
of illegal is the same as any other descriptive label; you might call
me a professor as a label of what I do and am, but not to describe my
status as a person. You also wouldn't call me a legal because it is the
de facto assumption. There are many labels you could apply to me or
anyone else and if you choose a negative label you have chosen to paint
me as something wrong. That's certainly everyone's right, but we do
tend to make these things specific to the person. If you think I am a
bitch, that might be because you've decided that something I've said
was bitchy; chances are good you didn't come up with that decision
based on nothing. That does not mean you're right, it just means you've
based it something you think you've observed that is specific to me. If
you were to instead call me a drunken mick, you would then be applying
a stereotype to me that has absolutely nothing to do with the person
that I am; I do not drink outside of an occasional glass of wine or
champagne. It is the same with the label of illegal: when you apply the
concept of wrong to an entire group of people you are applying
something you have no right to apply. You are taking away their
identity as a person who possesses biological equality and assigning
them value based on the arbitrary drawing of lines on a map. You are
literally stating that their citizenship is more important than their
biological equality.
It is imperative that we stop referring to
entire groups of people as one thing or even a set of things. What
would happen if Barack Obama suddenly started calling all cognitively
disabled people "retards?" What would happen if John McCain started
referring to people who live in poorer areas in this country as "ghetto
rats?" Honestly, the outcry on both sides would be tremendous, and
rightly so. We recognize that language and the labels we apply to
groups of people are powerful tools we use to understand our world and
to navigate our diverse society. It isn't wrong to group people
together by behavior or even race, but it is wrong to do so in a way
that strips people of their equality and function as a person. It is
also wrong to assume that our limited experience is true for all people
at all times; just as the guy in the above picture is documenting his
bad experience, he is also attempting to apply it to an enormous group
of people and make it appear true for each of them. The problem with
these groupings will always be that the group itself is made up of
individuals who are only loosely tied together and will forever be
changing. There is no such thing as a static group of people because
people degrade and die; the change inherent in life is something that
will always make these stereotypes unrealistic.
I've been arguing this issue on Disaboom
and the thing I continually state is that our particular experiences
with people who might be here illegally are specific to us and the
people we've encountered; those experiences are limited in their
representation of the whole. My experience with the next generation of
people who came here illegally, even the people who came here illegally
but are now citizens, is one of great warmth and and promise. I
realize, though, that there are many people who have had the opposite
experience with people in the same group. What I do not understand is
the idea that these extremes of experience are anything more than a
small portrait of the people we have met and nothing more. I would no
more say that all children of parents who came to the United States
from Mexico illegally are full of integrity and brilliance than I would
that they are full of violence and degradation. How would that make
sense? The ones I've known have been great, to be sure, but I do know
that they are great because they are,
not because they were raised by parents who came here illegally. If I
were to assume that a person's integrity (or lack of it) is something
they have only because they were born in a particular place then I
would have to assume that my integrity or the integrity of any citizen
of this country is not of our own making. Simply stated, we would take
away the choice for our behavior in taking away the choice from others.
We can't decide that someone else's behavior is based solely on their
membership in a group of people and then decide ours is chosen and
individual; it is either true for all of us or is it true for none of
us.
In the end, I think the idea that people are more entitled
to consideration if they are born in a geographical region is one that
will doom us to ignorance and dark, dark times. Aside from the obvious
fact of stolen land and an immigrant nation, we are a nation that
refuses to be pinned to one cultural idea. The only basis we have to
understand each other and to live with people who are vastly different
from us is our acceptance of the idea that we are all born equal and
all entitled to the rights that inhere themselves to humanity. If we
reject that idea, for whatever reason, we are denying our fundamental
American idealism and we are denying the fundamental nature of
biological equality. That can never be a good thing.
Picture credit
