Immigrant Zine
Intro
The “Race Traitor” zine is a fine idea, but a bit too obvious these days.
Also, I’ve read it a couple times, but I’m not sure I ever saw anything in it about the ‘joys’ of having family on different continents and how much it pleases the relatives and culture which are so blessed to be split off from the person who marries cross-culturally.
I think we need some different takes on multiculturalism. The usual view is easy to get in any newspaper. We need panculturalism—that is, multiculturalism and all other cultures, too. Multicult emphasizes approximately 4 cultures, after all—feminist, gay, segregated minority, and ‘international,’ with only the PC aspects of each noticed—and actively excludes a few, if you haven’t noticed. Pancult would include them all.
We need to put the lens ON multicult, not just follow what it says. Expose its cons as well as pros. How many cons have you seen candidly discussed (outside of party views) in print these days? Oh, NONE? Say, doesn’t that sound like a ripe zine topic?
The main benefit of questioning and printing the whole truth of any view is that it frees up that view and gives it the most possible respect. The more bad one can see about something the greater room they have to be aware of its possible goodness as well. They’re its best fans because they’re not afraid to look at it from all sides.
So, for instance, a person who is in agony over seeing their town reduced to minimalls and chainstores and who wails and complains about that may well be someone who best understands what polebarns and minimalls are good for and who most appreciates the benefits of a real town and so knows what they’ve lost. Someone might say that they’re just negative grouches, but really they’re the most positive, and have the most love and hope for humanity and so are most grieved to see it collapsing in *certain* ways. They don’t lump it all together. They know particulars, such as shifting from trades-built buildings to slapped-up polebarns is a bad sign for the culture.
Also, with such limited views of culture available today, it’s most helpful to see the flipsides of views which you feel most strongly about, which you’re most sure about and which are even closest to home. The sooner we see the truth the better.
For instance, if I’m a sportsman, I’d do well to study the motivational realities of sport even though it hurts.
Or, say I enjoyed my teenage years and have fond memories of listening to lots of music, watching early MTV videos with rapt attention, going to concerts, watching movies and Monty Python. I’d tend to say that all those things were good. But were they? How was it all different from, say, 2000 hours of watching the worst sitcoms? Hey, maybe I *was* exploited. Maybe there was a lot of tragic wasted time in there for me and my pals. What is Fun all about anyway? Is it benign? What do kids get from it and what do those who sell it to them get from it? Who comes out ahead? Is there a loser? Now, I might be willing to question something as close as what I did while growing up, but it’s amazing how many people aren’t. Or they think you’re against being a silly teenager if you question them. No, I think I have the most respect for teens. That’s why I’m thinking about them. Or maybe they say I think too much. They hate to hear what I have to say about such things. Or hate to read about it. No problem. But I’m not sure the problem is too much thought. There’s a lot of emotion mixed in there, too. A heartfelt desire to try to avoid tragedy. Which runs up against people’s feelings about the subject. But let’s look at those feelings, too. What are they? I think they’re more like reflexes. I’m not sure they’re emotions. People prize them, but they’re more like nerves recoiling from a stimulus they would like to forget. They seem primitive. Neither emotion nor thought minds expression. So who’s the one who’s all bottled up?
Immigration!
For our new look at MC, let’s first take a look at Immigration. What a great and wondrous thing which we are all so familiar with. However, it appears that only two sides of one coin are in view these days: the left and right views of politics. Where each side thinks the story is done. Let’s see if there isn’t more to the subject. Some truths that no one can state publicly. It’s a hot button. There’s a split between what people say in private about it and what is allowed in public. The folk culture side of it is what I suspect is mainly neglected. Simple, candid talk. Which makes it perfect for zining.
Again, I’m not questioning Immigration because I’m against it. That would be silly. Some of my best friends are immigrants, as they say. We’re all immigrants, etc. But people who reflex against my questioning would seem to have hotspots. Some usually smart people just can’t openly discuss such things. I think that just shows how much human capacity we’ve lost in our culture. Now, it’s fine to have a discussion based on this. But first think about what aspect you might be complaining about: do you beg to differ with me because I say “immigrants” rather than “some immigrants”? That is, try to find a real angle to bring up rather than just get mad and get picky. I’ve had fellow zinesters start railing at me for just mentioning this topic. But they have nothing against zines satirizing baby mutilation or worshiping the fad of murder memorabilia. They’ve got the modern power thing going on, which is happy to give each group its power and approves of the main 4 agitating for more. Where, if I question you, it’s because you think I don’t like you.
People might say that you see articles against immigration mainly in rightwing publications. But rightwing people don’t dislike immigration. Just *some* immigration. Questioning something can’t put you into any particular camp. That’s what the modern powermonger would have you think. Those who believe that every act is political. Well, actually, maybe every act is political: but you can’t say what kind of politics is represented by questioning. It doesn’t bring any type of loyalty up as an issue. Various groups might SAY that to question is to be disloyal, but they’re wrong.
No, I question things because it’s the only way to see what kind of goodness they really have. If one immigrant can be good for a country, it’s only because another immigrant can be bad. All immigrants can’t be the same if some can be good. If they’re equal, they have no effect. Questioning lets one be able to finally truly appreciate the heroism and tragedy and benefits of immigration. By questioning it, I say that I like immigrants MORE than those who would stifle discussion of the subject.
And by saying that they have varying amounts of merit let’s me give them more respect than otherwise. Those who say that immigrant status is a factor that doesn’t matter remind me of those who say that a book isn’t to blame for a crime because it’s “just a book,” it’s just entertainment, harmless. If something is harmless, then it can also have no benefit. If books can be a strong influence for good, they can likewises do great harm. Those who say books aren’t at fault in cases of cultural depravity take away all potentially beneficial power from books. (And all other media and art.)
Now, we all know what the benefits of immigration are. These people are sweetness and light. They represent diversity to us. They’re so talented. They’re in danger. We help and they need help. It’s in the papers every day.
Some Questions about Immigration
So here’s a few starter notions of the sort I haven’t seen in print:
**To be able to have a ‘brain drain’ benefit the country that people are fleeing to, it has to hurt the country they’re leaving. And since those who are leaving are members of that nationality, they are hurting themselves. Our gain is part of both a personal and foreign tragedy which will have side effects for generations.
**America is supposedly about the most open country, the most willing to accept immigrants. Does this mean we’re better than other countries? That other countries are meaner or more stupid? For saying No? We take the huddled masses and build with them. They find opportunity here. Is that all positive? They find something to do here. But also someone finds something to do with them. Everyone benefits. Some more than others? Also, maybe some part of the cultural makeup benefits more than other parts? People come here to get ahead. How? To be free. To do what? What does it mean? Is it a one-sided equation? The flip sides of the equation are that to a large extent America is about greed, power, careers and exploitation and we use immigrants for those purposes. And immigrants who have those values find us very attractive. Such an awareness helps us appreciate all the more an immigrant who comes here, not to get a position at a university, but to work for justice and economic reform, for equal access and things like that. Oh, but oops, would such a person be let in?
**An old longtime globewandering pal says that many of those who are
immigrants to the US are the oddballs of those other countries. They didn’t
fit into the culture back home. Those they leave behind often say “Oh, So-and-so?
Greedy bastard, he took off. Good riddance. He was driving people nuts around here.
Too bad about his kids, though.” Misfitting isn’t always a good thing.
Sure, we have immigrants who would’ve been killed if they’d
stayed, killed for going to church, or for trying to nurse babies, I presume.
But what if the desire to get ahead and make money is what’s not appreciated
where you came from? What if the desire to have a career, to be like the people
you see beamed in on TV, just doesn’t make sense in the context of your ethnicity and
heritage? What other culture in the world does it make sense to? Most cultures would
seem to push “appreciate where you are” as a value. And encourage one to most highly
prize one’s mother tongue and the culture that surrounds it. Wouldn’t they?
I heard a radio interview
about a Chinese lady who brought her baby daughter her so she could have a
JOB later in life. Some kind of ‘better’ job. This wasn’t the topic of the interview,
as freakish as it is. It was assumed to be an OK reason for coming here, or an
understandable one. She wouldn’t have enough of a FUTURE in China, with the
Chinese, with her family. Her father? Her grandparents? What, are all those
other billions stupid to think that the food and work are good enough?
It seemed to me like that little girl’s sick mommy put WAY too much
value on the worth of a job. What if her daughter didn’t CARE about a
career? Wished more that she had a HOME and a CULTURE? Well, she’ll
probably never know, thanks to Mommy Dearest.
What kind of a person leaves? Think of it especially
in terms of the person’s ancestral culture, not our own. We’re used to moving, yet
even to us, leaving somewhere for forever still seems very weird. (To a few of
us anyway. I suppose that ever more Americans are also willing to jump ship
for a buck.) In most places, people stay in
single areas for generations, building on the shoulders of those who
came before, working through tough spots, defending against enemies.
If any threat comes along how many would
rather die than betray what their little homeland stood for.
Most, apparently. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO STAY? We like to say that
people are forced to stay, are suckers for staying. Those poor things. What disrespect.
If immigration is a rosey wonder, what about those who stay? Sure, it takes all kinds.
But that’s what we’re doing here. Investigating the kinds. What does it mean to be
footloose and fancy free? To not care about leaving? What about those who stay to
deal with their culture come what may? Maybe you can’t blame someone who flees, but is it
to their credit that they do so? It’s a tragedy is what it is. It’s not “Some people have no need
for family and roots, so more power to em! Look at em wander, the cute things.”
**I tie our acceptance of immigration to our cheerfulness in giving up our own roots, our own eagerness to move every few years. Many of us seem to have no qualms about ’emigrating’ within our own country a long ways away from our families, friends and roots. Many of us also see no problem with moving out of country for whatever type of opportunity. We don’t see it as lost time for where we were, but only as a chance to do something new. Maybe we do weigh it out a bit, but usually “out with the old” is an easy move for us. Do we know what “the old” means? How our past functions to control our present and future? If we ditch our past, we lose control. If people move, it forces others to move. If you move to go where the good jobs are, soon enough there won’t be good jobs anywhere. You make yourself a victim, a refugee. If people stayed in one place, not as many bad things would happen. You would know what’s going on. Your neighbors might not be great, but you would know them. If everyone stayed, they would be much harder to screw over. If people wouldn’t allow a job to suck here and now, rather than quitting and moving at the first chance for something better, then fewer jobs would suck. You would be less likely to do bad things of your own, to mess your own bed, if you knew you were going to stay somewhere. Mobility increases crime: it increases criminals and it lets them more freely do their thing. People become disconnected. As it is, I stay where I was raised. I try to see ways of rescuing this blighted area. But everyone else moves, so that it might as well be me who’s moving, too. I see some of the same weaknesses coming in from moving residence as I do in changing nationality.
Immigration includes those who flee problems
rather than confront them. They are willing to give up ever
seeing their homeland again, to leave their hometown, their
heritage, language, culture. Why? How often is
MONEY involved? Think of what kind of a nut would live for money?
Remember, these people aren’t always DYING. It’s not starvation we’re
talking about. —That’s what refugee camps and the Red Cross are for. To get
people over a bad spell so they can go home.
When people say they were FORCED to immigrate, we should look twice at what they mean. There are different types of force and different issues behind the force.
People might say they were forced to go because there were no jobs. So you put work over your HOME and FAMILY? And really no one who stays has anything to do? Or do you mean work that pays well enough to meet your desire?
In time of war, it’s one thing if women and children flee, leaving the men to defend their
heritage of human values as best they can. Who flees first when trouble comes anyway?
Who CAN flee? Those who have honor and virtue? Those who have money.
Who are often involved with causing the trouble in the first place?
The rich. Do they stay and use their riches to uplift their nation in a time of need?
Some do. What about them?
I’ve had Iranian friends who escaped their war because they were rich, members of the elite. Sure, you sympathize with their plight. Who in their right mind would stay to be killed? Still, is being a member of the elite a neutral situation? What about their young elite peers who stayed home for whatever reason? I’d call that brave or something. I don’t know if I would do it. You only k now when the time of ‘make a choice’ arrives. War always tests what you do when you have ever fewer options (usually NONE), when your hand is forced. That’s why it’s fascinating, and tragic.
Now, I knew another Iranian in exile (I don’t know if he got US citizenship) who was a Christian and when politics shifted in Iran apparently if he stayed he would’ve been sent to the front lines or maybe killed in some other way. Maybe his situation was extenuating. He was a wealthy elite as well. I knew him at face value, but I couldn’t really know what he left behind or why. What his tragedy was. I’m not sure as I would’ve completely trusted him due to that foreign mystery.
I thought it was amazing to hear an interview with a US quicky-mart owner who was flying
back to the Balkans to help the cause. He seemed noble. Leaving safety and
opportunity. For what? For his people back home. He wasn’t a trained soldier. Many times
those with educations, careers and money DO stay where it’s hot, very hot. They put it all on
the line. We don’t hear much
about them. But we know what kind of merit is involved. And, true, it takes all kinds. Someone
isn’t stupid to flee a war based on their student status. But what about their peers who risk it all
by staying? Are they stupid? No, they’re brave. Are those who flee brave? Well, maybe, in a
different way. At any rate, it’s a tragedy. To see the mixed nature of the motives
involved let’s us appreciate the full scope of the issue.
**How often do we get someone willing to ditch it all for just a CHANCE at money?
Again: they don’t give up their heritage and ancestors forever for
money but just for a chance. For a lottery ticket. That’s who
we’re getting. Their values. Would it be a surprise that
they would trade anything HERE if they ever got the chance to in exchange for a
chance at some money?
**Another angle is the greatly increased leadership presence
in the US, especially in academia, of foreign nationals. Now the
kneejerk reaction is to say “Isn’t that special and openminded!”
Silly. How are they getting ahead? Merit? Is that all?
Teamwork? What does that mean? Does the fact that many other cultures
emphasize obsequiousness to those in authority and to elders mean anything here?
Brown-nosing it’s called. A perfected discipline in those parts.
Don’t rock the boat, etc. Wait your turn with the patience of Job.
—They have junior committee member
virtues in spades. But the hilarious joke punchline is on us. Now that leadership
is filling with these people who have paid their dues, well, we now
get their cultural leadership style! Which is what? Oh, this has
me holding my sides. Macho autocrat! Oh, it’s rich.
These are ancient stubborn patriarchal/matriarchal societies these
folks came from in order to make money. Whoa, nelly! There’s a boss
for ya! Do you know some of the choice cultural aspects of Persia,
say? “Lie as much as you can get away with. If you get taken it’s
your own fault. Exaggerating is just a way to save face.”
Just ask. If you’re a traveller to such areas, you’ll be
told that it’s nothing personal but to be careful for those reasons. It
seems to be readily admitted on all occasions, but when applying for
leadership positions here in the States it seems like we have to pretend to
be naive! You can’t say a word about it.
The values of ruthlessness and “buyer beware” and “kill yourself to make a
good impression” all compete very well against “your handshake is good enough
for me” and “aren’t we doing this for the students?” Of course, it’s not to say that one
value is better than the other. Persia has been around a long time, same with Asia.
They ‘ve got a thing that works. Anthropology simply looks at how the factors mix.
It doesn’t have to judge them. They judge themselves. Let the chips fall where they may.
Just don’t be blind about it. Don’t accept the blinders that others try to put on you for
their own gain.
I hear from academic pals that as soon as foreigners get tenure you never see them
again at volunteer committees. Their machine for self-aggrandizement
kicks into overdrive. In one univ dept I heard of, it’s now 3/4’s
foreign national faculty, with the Arab/Asian faction holding strongest.
The old guard left over are left with their
eyes bugging out. Talk about the salt mine for grad students! Get out the whips!
Overdrive! Also, univ depts mainly function due to volunteer committee
work on the side, with every faculty member chipping in—a little-known great
feature of our previous culture.
But in one dept I heard about *the way that a university works* is
going out the window, as the new *culture* of faculty hole up and
attack for research funding. One possible early indication: video courses for
the undergrads. Also, the weakest profs being forced into lecturing to undergrads,
resenting it. An increased trend to specialty, less respect for general ed and general
skills. This is what we sown, I wonder what we’ll reap.
And I wonder how much reporting we’ll see on this change and why
it’s happening.
Also, as we get more foreign nationals in charge, won’t our institutions become
more like those where the immigrants came from? Won’t our universitities
start resembling 3rd World universities more and more? The same cultural values
that created them over there are changing ours over here. For the better?
**Note that I’m against any other culture per se. I’m not against immigration. I know the
benefits to all involved in many cases. They’re obvious. I feel free
to question because of my education. I’ve been to a dozen countries and have friends in
many more than I have visited. I’ve lived with friends who were foreign students,
Communists, Royalists, Iranians and Iraqis—DURING their war—-and have come to see
that their being here is not an unmixed situation. I freely question because of the broadness
of my experience and views. I’m simply noting some features and aspects
of how cultures interact. It’s called anthropology. Use it! You’ll be surprised!
It’s sad that I have to apologize for such questioning, but the truth is that we live in ever
less free times. Those who are the custodians of anthropology do not like to
have it used on them. We have ever more groups dedicated to stopping scholarship and
free thought. In the modern world, groups value only power. Either side of any ‘issue’ would
happily restrict access to the truth from their ‘enemies.’ For the most part. The fights are not
all equal. Some groups accidently for a time are on the side of truth. As they professionalize
they give up the inefficient aspects of such dedication in favor of expediency. They start
fighting to preserve themselves in addition to their cause.
