As an avowed liberal living in a time when moral conservatives control the federal government, we are fighting a war based on government lies, the Vice-President blatantly disregards the science of Global Warming to help his oil baron friends and also refuses to acknowledge which of these friends helped him craft energy policy that strips away the protections of the past four decades, and the party of "small government" hypocritically tells the poor that it's not the government's job to help them by regulating the pharmaceutical industry or utilities while telling gays and lesbians they cannot marry, women they cannot have abortions and teens that condoms don't exist, I sometimes find myself thinking about the populist revolutionary spirit of the 60s. At least the 60s as portrayed in my Gen X/Y culture that is heavy on idealism and passion, if lacking in the tedium of the logistics of organization and patience. Nevertheless, despite knowing that many of the minute details have been glossed over, seeing images of the National Mall awash in a sea of people committed to justice and peace and idealism, is enough to make me envious and even a little punch drunk with a nostalgia for that which I've never been a part of.
I often get frustrated by the lack of anger among people in general and also who I know personally. They are very smart but for whatever reasons don't follow the news or among those that do, are able somehow not getting pissed off at the world. How can we sit idly by while thousands are dying in Darfur, civil liberties are obliterated in Russia and China and the government wastes tens of millions of dollars in Iraq (a recent article illlustrated how we paid for like 215 health clinics but just like 25 have been built or something ridiculous like that).
There are three issues lately that have most provoked me: intelligent design, AIDS in the Third World and the genocide (as deemed by Colin Powell, too) in Sudan. My interest in the genocide in the Sudan comes from Nicholas Kristof's columns in the NY Times. He has lived up to the highest ideals of Journalism, being a voice for the voiceless, shedding light on the truth at risk to himself, and calling on those in power to discover even a slice of the courage his subjects have displayed. When he wrote about two months ago about the demonstrations planned for this past Sunday in Washington, D.C., my idealism was stirred. I felt like I had my chance to make a footprint on my time, and on the path to doing something right, even though it wasn't easy. However, the realities of funding the trip, getting the time off of work, etc. made attending this rally impossible. As I realized that the spark extinguished itself, having consumed the fuel that fired it, which finally brings us to the point today. [Without an editor, I'm really good at burying the lead, eh?]
Today was the giant "Day without an immigrant" rally in Los Angeles, which was actually part of a network of demonstrations nationwide. A friend of mine, who teaches in a local school district composed of thousands of immigrants and greatly affected by the immigration debate, was among the 500,000 who attended the demonstration in downtown Los Angeles in late March, and has said it was an ineffably empowering experience. Many of my students have expressed extremely passionate viewpoints on this issue, since their family members are living through this, and were there that Saturday and I'm sure participated today. Yet, I did not. I skipped a a chance to witness history and fuck that, to participate in history. This is a history-textbook moment that I bypassed. This was my chance to say I did stand up when one of the issues of my generation called. But I stayed on the sidelines. And oddly, I don't regret not going. I think the thing that I wish were different is that I wish I felt worse about not going, instead of just feeling bad about not feeling bad enough.
I'm not exactly sure why I didn't go, to be honest. For one reason, this is not one of the issues that has stirred me. I'm not saying that I don't care about immigration; many of my students and people I've met in Los Angeles are affected by this and I would never wish anything bad on any of them.
And I myself am an immigrant, though classified differently perhaps as an adopted Korean, who came to this country as a baby. But living in Los Angeles I've grown more aware that I am not the white part of the American tapestry and I'm happy not being so, even though I know that means certain opportunities aren't exactly the same for me as if I were white. Watching television and seeing who's in the cast and who's the hero in the movies and television, shows me that Asians and other minorities are still on the outside looking in.
But immigration is very tricky. I want immigrants to have rights. and I want people who work hard and simply want to do better by their children in my country as citizens and I want them to be protected from human predators. But I do want secure borders that prevent terrorists from getting into the country. And I don't think it's fair if people who came here illegally are somehow rewarded by getting to the front of the line while people who have gone through the formal application process are forced to wait even longer to get here.
While I think it's great that someone like Steve Lopez and other columnists write amazing columns about people who are here illegally in many cases working extremely hard to make a better life for themselves and their families, sometimes the story is glossed over. It's analgous to when reporters write Horatio Alger stories about students from poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods going off to Harvard on scholarships. These are awesome stories and they deserve to be told. But I get worried that the general public will think all kids can do that.
In this case, I might say something Lou Dobbsish (which fucking terrifies me), but not all immigrants (legal or otherwise) are here trying to make their own Horatio Alger story. They may say that they're here to make better lives (which they most likely are) and they may be working hard at it, but they aren't all doing the working three jobs with perfect kids who get straight A's thing. I say that simply from the reality that no one group is all good or saintly. And I think that when people paint with these broadbrushes we're actually moving away from coming up with any logical solution to these problems. Bringing in more people (of any race) be it legally or illegally would lead to a need for more services: medical, fire, police, educational, infrastructural, social. And that costs money.
But despite my quasi-Dobbsian idea there, I'd still much rather have news orgs skew in that direction of illuminating these saints in the shadowns than to include the immigration status of every person charged with a crime in the newspaper. My guess is that the reason I expressed that Dobbsian idea, is that I don't assume people here illegally are up to no good, joining gangs or dealing drugs. So what I think some people need to see to complete the picture is a wart. But with so many other people who are anti-immigrant, it's important to give a voice to the silent saints in the shadows. Hopefully that will help change some minds, because they've been ignoring the best part of the picture.
In the end though, I had a chance to get a better look at that picture and I didn't. Instead, I emailed, read newspapers online, watched some television, cleaned, did laundry, planned my retirement a tiny bit and chilled a tiny bit, too. The daily minutiae just required too much of me, or at least I felt like it did. In respect of the demonstrations Monday, though, I didn't transact anything. No groceries, no nothing, all becuase of Sylvana. Thanks, kid!
So this entry has been really sprawling and perhaps contradictory. And I think mainly it was me thinking on paper.
Good night.
Go Sabres!
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