I myself am an immigrant, an American who has moved to Romania, and I know what it's like to queue in line for official papers, be far from my home and culture, to speak a minority language and be overwhelmed sometimes by a feeling of alienation.
However what I want to write about is not my story, but the story of the many documented and undocumented people I've known in the United States.
Through the quirks of my own life, and my own innate skills, it came about that I now speak a few "foreign" (other than English) languages, including Spanish. I'm told don't
look like someone who would, so it is usually a surprise to people to hear me speak the language.
Throughout my life and travels in the United States, whenever I come across people who speak English with an accent, I would ask them where they are from, what their cultural heritage is. Although mostly the people I'm referring to are from Mexico and Latin America, I have also met many people from Eastern Europe and elsewhere whom I could speak to in their native tongue. If I had been that kind of person, I guess I should have filmed everything and made a documentary out of it.
The first thing I've always noted, whether the people were documented or undocumented, in a sense of loneliness and longing for their homeland. Even if they have good jobs, even if they have a good place to live, they miss their homes. The ones who are completely satisifed by their choice to come to America still know their primary reason in doing so is to make money. And while we all need money, you cannot fathom what it is like to know what a terrible choice it is to either obey Mammon or follow your heart.
In their home countries, family and social networks are (usually) so much stronger than in America. For every foreign worker in the United States, there are dozens of cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and dearly loved neighbors back at home. In many cases, the money earned in America is going back to the home country, either directly through remittances (money wired) or when the worker returns him/herself. I've met many people who were working as many hours per week as possible, 40, 60, even 80, for years on end to save up. And when they return, they will buy a home for that extended family or open a business that will benefit this entire extended network.
In America, where citizens regularly owe thousands of dollars in debt on credit cards and to other lending instruments, you cannot imagine what it is to not have access to credit. How can a villager in Mexico or Romania get a loan? How would they secure it? Working in America and saving cash becomes their only way to accrue the capital necessary to open a business or buy a home. There's simply no other option.
The pressure on the ones who are in America is enormous. They are here because the grandmother is too old, the aunt is needed to raise the small children, or because the cousin couldn't make it across the border. That means that the ones in America cannot fail, cannot lose their job, cannot quit their job, cannot be arrested or to go jail and cannot slack off - there are simply too many people counting on them. In all my years, I've never met a single non-resident alien in America who did not have family or loved ones counting on them back at home. Not once.
And so long as you are healthy and your rented apartment or house is without problems and your boss is not abusive, perhaps this pressure can be withstood. But imagine if it is otherwise, imagine if the boss abuses you physically or mentally, if you break your leg or become ill, if your spouse or even roommate becomes drunk and/or abusive, then what do you do? Do you go to the doctor, to spend money you don't have? Do you miss work to recover and not get paid? Do you call the police and enter the legal system, which may end up with one of you arrested and/or deported?
The pressure is unbelievable and many people do lose it. You might be lonely, and have trouble making any friends, people you can speak to in your own language to ease your daily burdens, someone to joke with and laugh with and cry with. You might be given rude and hostile looks by the natives, who fear you or are suspicious of you or even loathe you for being different, for not speaking English perfectly, for looking different. Imagine trying to figure out what bus to take, finding an apartment at a good price, all in a foreign city where people sometimes speak too fast to be understood, who have no patience. The pressure is on.
To save money you might be living with two, three, five, even ten other people in the same apartment or house. These might be close friends or relatives but more often than not they are just people from your same country and that doesn't mean you will get along with them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Whenever living space is cramped it is hard, and harder still knowing you have little choice. Saving 100 dollars a month makes a world's worth of difference to the life you are trying to make for yourself, to the people who are counting on you back home.
You miss your songs, you miss your food, you have to search high and low for the right ingredients to a dish that comforts you. On days that are big holidays at home, there is no celebration in the streets in America. Indeed, you have to work and so most of the celebration is gone, just something you have to remember in your mind, knowing that those back at home and merry and festive. Imagine a Christmas in India, or a Fourth of July in China, where at most the local paper will mention that today is a holiday somewhere else. And you've got phone calls to make back home, which can be expensive, and with the time difference and your work shifts, it can be difficult to get through.
If you are Catholic or a member of the major Protestant churches, you probably can find a house of worship to attend, even if you don't understand all of the sermon. But what if you are Hindu? Buddhist? Muslim? Or even one of the eastern Christian churches, such as Russian Orthodox? If religion is important to you, not having a house of worship can be one of the most enduring hardships you go through. A priest of your order to say the rites on the holy days, to bless your marriage, to forgive you your sins, a place where you feel comfortable communicating with your deity.
Perhaps the worst part of all is the invisibility. People see you on the street but they don't really see you. When you do have a conversation in your less than perfect English with a native, they usually know so little about your country or your culture or your heritage, often getting basic information completely wrong. They tell you that you eat beans for breakfast, that your homeland is north of America's borders, and that you wear a comically large hat when you "work in the fields", none of which is true and is hurtful even when spoken in naive misperception.
Even worse, you do the kind of jobs "Americans won't do", and not just the ones which require backbreaking physical work. All those millions of "service" jobs you do. You clean Americans' hotel rooms, office buildings and homes. You harvest, pack, load, wash, prepare and serve Americans' food. You cut up their animals for meat. You drive it to their stores and restaurants, you take their orders and cook their food and serve it to them. You build homes for them you cannot afford, serve them drinks at a bar too expensive for you to buy, and you mop up their spills, bus their dishes and haul away their trash. Americans leave a mess in their wake wherever they go, and it is your job to tidy it up.
Wherever American tourists go, whether the big "fun parks" or the seaside towns, there are thousands of foreigners there to do all the jobs. While the natives are out sunning themselves on the beach you're sweating in a back room washing dishes or cleaning motel rooms. On a cruise ship, a floating hotel and resort combination, nearly every member of the work force is foreign, from the liveried waiters you do see to the people in the bowel of the ship in the engine room, whom you don't see. And it's seven days a week work, and you can't take a dip in the pool, gamble in the casino or take a stroll on deck.
And god forbid you have your children with you. If you're very lucky, they're in a good school and have learned English and have friends. You still worry about them losing their culture, losing the values you're trying valiantly to instill but which are ridiculed or minimized in America. You worry they will be hurt or become involved in a gang or dangerous activity, tempted by drugs, or teased for being foreign. Back at home you'd have a pair of friendly eyes on your child at all times but here you are alone. If you're at work until 7pm, who will watch your son or daughter? Who will report to you when they've misbehaved, heading down the slippery slope to delinquency or even jail?
I have met untold numbers of people in these situations and many more. I meet them because I speak their language and often I am one of the first Americans they've met who does so. I can't tell you how many times I've helped people open bank accounts, figure out which bus to take, given directions to schools or hospitals, helped people find an apartment or job, resource center, daycare, health clinic, inter-city bus, international calling card or even a lawyer who speaks their own language. I've walked into municipal court with people to do minor translating, gone to jail to help facilitate a visit, made appointments at the Social Security office and helped fill out tax forms.
The United States has far, far more immigrants than people realize sometimes. I'm not talking just about ones from Mexico or Pakistan, who might be observed because of their physical characteristics, but others from Iran, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Russia as well, to name a few. And they all have one thing in common, brown or black, white or any other "color" - they've come to America to make a better life for themselves, and in doing so, make America a better country.
Of course we know in our rational hearts that everyone in the United States, with the exception of the native peoples (and hey even they migrated here once upon a time!) is descended from an immigrant. But those times may be far in the past, hard to remember. The grandfather who spoke only German, the great grandmother who was shunned for being Irish, they are gone now and their stories are fading into the sands of time. Just as they too once found a helping hand, a friendly neighbor, so we must all too reach out to those who have come here, who really do make all of our lives better.
It isn't about having pity on those who struggle without documentation, it's about recognizing the valuable contribution every immigrant, from your own grandparents to your neighbor next door, has made to America. Perhaps most poignantly, there are now thousands of foreigners, non-citizens, serving in the American military, including in Iraq, both out of patriotism for their new country as well as the ability to earn citizenship. At a time when foreigners would sacrifice so much, including their lives, to help make America a better place, we owe it to them to show our support.
Cross-posted from the doubleplusungood crimethink website Flogging the Simian
Peace