Fears Republicans Live With
Thu Feb 09, 2006 at 05:15:31 PM PDT
For most of my adult life I've been an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. Now I'm a professor, training other ESL teachers. Every winter my advanced students and I organize and conduct adult ESL classes for immigrants in our city. The classes are free for English language learners, and give my students a chance to get some serious hands-on experience. I encourage my students to invite immigrants that they know or meet, and usually mention restaurants as a place where they may find people interested in the classes.
One of my grad students (let's call her Anastasia) came to me last night and told me she thought she'd made a Terrible Mistake. She and her husband had gone out to dinner Saturday night, and she'd told their waiter about the class. He'd been their waiter once before, she stressed.
I waited to hear what the Terrible Mistake was.
He'd said he might bring his wife or his sister to the classes, Anastasia said. They both wanted to learn English.
His English was pretty good. Anastasia said she didn't really think about what she'd done until they left the restaurant, when her husband turned around and said "Do you realize you just told him where you'll be every Wednesday night? What if he's some kind of stalker or something?"
Anastasia looked at me anxiously.
"I really doubt that your waiter is some kind of stalker or something, Anastasia," I said.
"You think not?" she said. "I was so frightened after talking to my husband that I actually thought about dropping your class. I've been worrying about it all week."
I said many reassuring things, including that I have taught hundreds of people English and none of them has ever stalked me. As she walked away looking mollified I couldn't resist adding "Your husband will just have to get used to your hanging around with foreigners, I'm afraid."
"Oh, no, no, he loves foreigners," she assured me.
I used to teach an adult class in a bad neighborhood in Anchorage, and leave work around 9:30 p.m. It never occurred to me to be afraid of my own students, even though they all knew I was a single woman who lived alone. And even though many of them were waiters. Walking out to my car at night I'd scan the parking lot and look in the back seat, but more with the sense that that's what one does in a bad neighborhood than with any real fear.
This talk with Anastasia really set me thinking. She and her husband belong to a megachurch and undoubtedly voted for Bush. If they're subject to so many fears that they can't talk to their waiter without freaking out, what must they hear when they listen to the political discourse? Bugbears and boogeymen everywhere! I'm surprised they're not scared of me.
But which came first, I wonder, the Republicanism or the fear?
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