Sunday, January 13, 2008

One Great Beast


By Carlos López Dzur

Some of our immigrants in the United States have learned to be presumptuous about the feat of crossing the border. The newcomer and their leaders glamorize the value of unlawful arrival and its risks. They are boastful as a group. Folk songs and corridos anounce that «la Migra me hace los mandados». That is, U. S. Border Patrol agents are like obedient messagers or boss-boys for undocument aliens. Lyrics like those are done by composers in service for Northern druglords. The humble person feels fear. The boastful, not. They go to Mexican restaurants and paid when marking those songs at rocolas to listen them. Singers from Northern groups are walking spokesmen of such folk repertoire.

Immigrants feel heroic, sort of patriotic, and worthy of receiving a nice welcome. The majority has done its task and thinks that they deserve a prize of recognition. The hard-working people will help their families as go earning money. Migrant's life will be a crusade of risks and dreams. They send money to Mexico, South and Central America. The economy of their countries of origin is fortified with its remesas. A local community of accomplices in solidarity expected them to arrive when they go back and return, but not all people will cheer them up when be here. This will generate great levels of controversy. Male or female, an undocumented immigrant can remain trapped in a fascination that can be called the Great Beast. The profane Vulgo / Profanum Vulgus.

Perhaps what their judging neighbors will say about them be unearned and unfair; but it concerns to what is title of this comment: the Great Beast. Its image of mob and vulgarity. Culture of poverty is our true and local disgust. As subculture destroys the art of living. Time over time, it originates the loss of primary relationships such as family bonds in favour of goal oriented secondary relationships. When a person isn't prepared to a new environment, he gets and remains dazzled. Modern consumption-capitalism have shaped a society where many persons have to sell their personality in addition to goals of easy and quick gains, vida loca and fantasy.

But some Latinos and white people will be their accusers. This moment is not an epoch in which to immigrate was a heroic adventure to admire. Politically, it cannot be that way because the mentioned newcomer is the one who has arrived illegally. In these days, an «immigrant» means a deceiver, the one that infringed the law when moved from one country to another without the consent of any goverment. To enter to alien country, to cross toward its land, is task of political disobedience.

This is a crucial point. Unlawful entrance to a country [that is not our own] challenges the political power of other people, the neighboring nation. The nation-state made immigration a political issue: by definition it is the homeland of nation defined by shared ethnicity and / or culture. The U. S. citizens believe in their right to to accuse undocumented alien as invaders. Currently, America is not, neither can be, as generous as when Emma Lazarus, in a poem entitled "The New Colossus," which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, wrote: «Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free»

Recent immigration patterns have changed. The global volume of immigration is high and the US people thinks that already received a great quota of them. The politics of immigration have become increasingly associated with others issues, such as national security and protection against terrorism. The new ideology is: We, Americans first. Immigration must be selective. Even when ethnic selection has generally disappeared, the priority is usually given to the educated, skilled, and wealthy.


The reasons for immigration have not changed. Individuals and families still come to the United States with a vision of improving their lives, but the implementation of existing restrictions and new ones every time more hostile never will cease.

Indistinctly of which be their personal ideologies, race or position, many U. S. citizens can feel anxious when our communities are facing a cycle of migratory waves. I have heard and met many American-born Latinos that are ashamed of being Hispanic or having immigrant parents o relatives. I have listened to a prediction that is equally a lament. Or a complaint. The immigrant mass is a hindrance. It creates too many problems and prepares the ruin of community. We cannot leave that our supreme governors be the mob.

Not other words [but a «mob», «undesirable multitude» or vulgo] are the ones that I have heard from opinionated mouths and friends. And what is implicit when the name VULGO is given to this people is a description that English philosopher Thomas Browne wrote about the «Great Enemy of Reason and Virtue: a Beast, monstruosity more prodigious than Hydra».

Is this an accurate, completely true, description of migrant community? Or it is a desperate point of view, elitist or demagogical concept by the groups that think that way?

Politicians who speak solely to exploit the hard feelings and to avoid their incapacity to legislate in favor of proper solutions to what call a threat to national stability do not interest me a great deal; but one must learn to hear the neighbors who observe daily the nature of their contact with unassimilated, economically deprived, and generally hostile immigrant population.

As a marginalized minority, still without the English language or with insufficient education as potential citizens, its Americanness would be challenged. The first quality or flavor of being ethnic immigrant is to be suspect of something.

Not few times, in many occasions ~ the feeling is mutual. Same as white people, Latinos reject certain kinds of undocumented aliens. Agreeing judgment is adopted from those who are ruling social groups. When mentioning this disaproval, I do imply the criticisms that are done against poor Mexican and Hispanic undocumented migrants in general.


I will try to answer two or three of these questions within this context. The first one: why some good people in our neighborhoods has a bad impression over immigrants? Which among undocumented communities are the ones who cause a negative opinion? Is it a justifiable concern for us?

To explain the why, let me add this: In law and politics, the earlier connotation of being an undocumented labor worker in United States is painful and peyorative in a way. The first thing to doubt is if the ethnic migrant in question has a legal residence; si es un ilegal, sin papeles; the second one, to suspect and repudiate on him that he could be, due to his / her employment and activities, probably a poor and a contributor to social infections. Puede que sea un criminal de otro tipo. When one judges their neighbors it proceeds from the idea that one must be an a productive person who follows in the footsteps of their self-made parents. A person must deliver something or try to make enduring contributions. A person is not a value to others by merely existing.

To arrive to American lands does not guarantee neither satisfies passively the economic goals of liberty and welfare that we all try to comply with.

It will be judged as persona non grata the parasitic individual and the one who lives in continued poverty by whim. However, it is not fair that migrant workers be evaluated by wrong behavior given by a few. The majority of them understands the importance of family and education, the need to study and work hard to achieve life's goals. Without denying the rezagos and miseries that remain (as Latinos who are poor, uneducated, gang proxies and don't speak English), the largest group among Hispanics living in USA today is made up of predominantly young, educated Latinos who were either born or raised in here.

Racial bigotry and self-devaluation are likewise deplorable attitudes. That’s happening. Immigration issue is a machine for generating any kind of opinions. About immigrants and its things can be written hundreds of encyclopedias. Each ethnic group has something to remember. There was a time in Colonial America when many Europeans who wished to come to the colonies could not afford passage money. A similar experience related to the semi--slavery and exploitation that today «coyotes’s victims» suffers (or under corrupted employers) then were lived by European migrants. They indentured themselves to ships’s captains or established colonists, agreeing to work for a set terms, usually between five and seven years. As the Afro-American, European indentured servants in Colonial America knew what is like to be subject to a master.

Study after study, sociologists reveal that all immigrants to the United States have had to face prejudice after their arrival. Gregory Rodríguez and many other Latino Americans have had to endure wave after wave of anti-Latino sentiment. «As a result of these strong and continuous waves of anti-Latino sentiment», «many Latino immigrants, especially, Mexicans, were forced to conceal their cultural heritage in order to get ahead. For decades, it was not uncommon for Latino to claim to be of Italian or Spanish descent in order to avoid hostility while living in the United States».

Still there are some who no celebrate their cultural inheritance neither their diversity. It is not easy bear a hidden trauma: the first sizeble group of Latino to become “Americans” did so through the conquest and annexation of the Southwest in 1848. A sucessful writer Richard Rodríguez wrote in his book Hunger of Memory about how to cope effectively with a society in which Spanish is not the primary language and the value of the trauma of adjustment. Institutional life and struggle for sucess require cultural assimilation and a great deal of loss.

Without historical references, neither white people nor Latinos consider that their families were immigrants in the past. Anglocaucasian migrants do not want to recognize themselves in the mirror of history neither in the historic speech as the violent conquerors. On the other hand, for Mexicans isn’t easy to be resigned to that first image of the Latino as “defeated foreigners».

They are in denial with scarce desires to look at behind. Why the fear?


But the pre-packed and trumped-up enemies always come in the times of shortage or bad economy. This occurred in the 1930s. Mexican cheap work here are been recruited during boom times and expelled during busts. Then, a campaign is sent to characterizes alien field workers as the ones that were taking jobs from “real Americans”. Some studies suggest that up to the 60% of those Mexicans forced to leave in the 1930’s were actually American citizens. For greater misfortune, through its institutions, the Mexican government stole its savings from them. Neither of here neither of there. The respect lacks.

In specific political speech, nationally the word «immigration» becomes a bad word. The immigration issue is a hot potato, la «papa caliente», in American politics. The migrants ~ there are the people who discovers where the root of international problems is, where the open discrimination or widespread or more subtle racism are. Immigration contains in itself the germ of culture of poverty. Not only that. It brings more problems with itself. Ones of the most subjective and difficult to judge things are the cultural differences created by the sense of otherness in terms of foreign migrants reception by others who were living in the cities before their arrival.

The economic and material aspects of the undocumented immigrant's presence is more evident and quantitative: rapidly-increasing populations in our cities can mean housing shortages and newer groups of residents competing for most rundown housing. Community leaders have observed that ethnic group and their gangs use to create territories that they defended against change. That also led and contribute to gang activity or to the formation of an autonomous subculture as children were socialized into behaviors and attitudes that perpetuated their inability to escape the underclass.

Communities feel unhappy when learn what things implies such culture of poverty or its infectious presence in their area. Antropologist Oscar Lewis described the characteristics of this social disease: «the culture of poverty have a strong feeling of marginality, of helplessness, of dependency, of not belonging. They are like aliens in their own country, convinced that the existing institutions do not serve their interests and needs. Along with this feeling of powerlessness is a widespread feeling of inferiority, of personal unworthiness».

The reach of global media and American styles and norms fight for capturing the existing message in this subjects and they are the persons who become very vocal about it.

Some of our immigrants have learned to be presumptuous about the feat of crossing the border. The newcomer glamorizes the value of his arrival. As person feels heroic, sort of patriotic, and worthy of receiving a nice welcome. He / she will help the family as go earning his / her incomes with hard job. Migrant's life will be a crusade of risks. A community of accomplices in solidarity expected him or her to arrive, but not all people will cheer them up when be here. This will generate great levels of controversy. Male or female, an immigrant can remain trapped in a fascination that can be called as the Great Beast. The profane Vulgo / Profanum Vulgus.

Perhaps what their judging neighbors will say about him be unearned and unfair; but it concerns to what is title of this comment: the Great Beast. Its image of mob and vulgarity. Culture of poverty is the true disgust. As subculture destroys the art of living. It originates many times the loss of primary relationships such as family bonds in favour of goal oriented secondary relationships. When a person isn't prepared to new enviroment, get remains dazzled. Modern consumption-capitalism have shaped a society where many persons have to sell their personality in addition to goals of easy gain or fantasy.

Latinos and white people will be their accusers. This moment is not an epoch in which to immigrate was a heroic adventure to admire. Politically, it cannot be that way because the mentioned newcomer is the one who has arrived illegally. In these days, an «immigrant» means a deceiver, the one that infringed the law when moved from one country to another without the consent of any goverment. To enter to alien country, to cross toward its land, is task of political disobedience.

This is a crucial point. Unlawful entrance to a country [that is not our own] challenges the political power of other people, the neighboring nation. The nation-state made immigration a political issue: by definition it is the homeland of nation defined by shared ethnicity and / or culture. The U. S. citizens believe in their right to accuse undocumented alien as invaders. Currently, America is not, neither can be, as generous as when Emma Lazarus, in a poem entitled "The New Colossus," which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, wrote: «Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free»

Recent immigration patterns have changed. The global volume of immigration is high and the US people thinks that already received a great quota of them. The politics of immigration have become increasingly associated with others issues, such as national security and protection against terrorism. The new ideology is: We, Americans first. Immigration must be selective. Even when ethnic selection has generally disappeared, the priority is usually given to the educated, skilled, and wealthy.

The reasons for immigration have not changed. Individuals and families still come to the United States with a vision of improving their lives, but the implementation of existing restrictions and new ones every time more hostile never will cease.




La mosca muerta y el barbero



No comments: