America, What ARE You Doing?

In Colombia, people expect me to provide insight into American current events and offer an explaination for our doings. They ask me how Americans like a game as boring as baseball Baseball. I explain that we agree that it's boring but it is a good excuse to drink beer. They get it. I am able to give them some cohesive understanding for the world.

But sometimes I am at a loss. For example, the immigration bill. Apparently, since I left you have decided that English was the 'National' language as well as the 'Common and unifying language' and then decided to build a big wall along the Mexican border and in fact deployed troops to the border. People here ask me if Americans are really that scared or angry and if there are really that many immigrants. I don't know what to say. I don't remember anyone giving a damn when I left. I am truly unable to imagine what things are like at home. It seems like you're all crazed, making much ado about nothing. (Link thanks to Dan Miller)
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/19/senate.english.ap/index.html

I was pleased to see that Senator Domenici of my home state, New Mexico, was the only Republican to vote against having a national language on the grounds that, as the article says, "his state's constitution prohibits discrimination based on inability to speak, read or write English or Spanish." It does not mention that the state's constitution was written in Spanish (As was California's).

Part of me thinks there is a legitimate point to be made on the behalf of the 'common and unifying' crowd in congress, which is that nations have a right to an identity and boarders. I said in a previous post I would think about argument about cultural differences we determining who should be a citizen of a certain nation. I have thought about it, and I believe that is fair.

Cultural differences are good, and should be protected, but I don't know how you protect a culture with a law. The absence of laws does quite well. I have been looking out the window for fifteen minutes trying to think of an example of a cultural practice codified into law that I wouldn't like to see repealed. I don't believe women anywhere should be legally required to wear headscarves, nor that they should be banned from it (as they are in French schools) and I think the US would be a better place if the drinking age was lower. The only example I can think of is polygamy, which should be illegal as it is in almost all nations. I don't think of this so much as a cultural practice that our laws need to protect us from as much as a crime that hurts people. (There is a very good book that really convinced me that polygamy is not just 'different' but really abusive and terrible. it's called 'under the banner of heaven' and is about the Fundamentalist Chruch of Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's not about normal mormans, they don't practice polygamy either). But I concede that Immigration law protects culture in a very different way.

One one hand, this is a problem that a law can solve. There are a lot of Americans in Costa Rica. When Americans move to Costa Rica they internalize the cost of buying land and building a house in Costa Rica etc, but whether or not Costaricans want them there does not affect their decision to go. There are a lot of Costaricans who want fewer Americans in the country--or fewer english speakers or fewer retired people etc. For one reason or another, they would be happier if Americans left. If you believe Costaricans have a right to want Costarica more Costarican fewer Americans, or English speakers. perhaps it should be harder to move to Costa Rica to account for upsetting all those Costa Ricans. Is that a good argument?

Here is a similar arguemnt that was popular fifty years ago: there are too many black people in northern cities like Chicago, it displeases white people when they come to their neighborhoods because it makes them feel unsafe and uncomfortable, thus white people should have the right to make it more difficult for blacks to enter their community. Regardless of whether or not blacks were actually more dangerous than whites, they certainly made white people more uncomfortable. To be sure, few people agree with the legitimacy with this line of reasoning, and I have trouble diferentiating the two.

Sometimes something upsets people and they don't have a right to be upset. In a case like that, no one has an obligation to placate them. Congress, however, is well on its way.

In practice, there is no good way to apply laws to protect culture. I live in New Mexico. There are a lot of Texans in New Mexico and there are plenty of people who don't want them there: (at the risk of offending my Texas family, I'll continue) They speak bad spanish, they drive big, dangerous cars, they don't eat the same food, they take jobs away from the native population, and I won't even mention the way they ski. The cultural differences between Texas and New Mexico (or Kansas and New Mexico) are far greater than those between Mexicans and New Mexicans. But there will never be a law preventing Texans from entering New Mexico and changing our culture. Such a law would be unconstituitonal.

There is a more important point, about what constitutes a culture and why 'our' culture is our culture, how it became our culture, and the difficulty of arguing that it can be 'ruined' and not changed. I had an frustrating conversation with an American about his fear that immigrants would come and try to destroy American culture. He said that these immigrants were not willing to adopt american customs. I am confused as to how a culture can be 'ruined'.

I have never heard any story of any group of immigrants being particularly willing or able to adopt 'American culture'. Early Irish immigrants in America were persecuted for being Catholic in a Protestant nation but they didn't convert, the nation became one without denomination. I want to say that the nation is the better for it. I don't invest in normative judgements of cultures, but that I think open cultures are better than closed cultures. When I read that the US is building a big wall with another country, I get scared.

I am not scared because I think the wall will make American a white, english-speaking, protestant, fully-employed country. It won't. I am scared because of what it means. Things like this wall, political things, are not about the consequences: it can't possibly be worth anyone's time or effort to build a wall, no one will materially benefit from it and there are no doubt better uses for the troops along the border. Likewise, no one will be very negatively effected: I have full faith that a wall that spans 4,000 miles will not matter when there is the amount of traffic between the two countries that there is.

Maybe illegal immigration will reduce slightly, is it worth the cost of building a big wall? That isn't the real question; the point is that no one has ASKED that question. The material consequences of the wall don't matter to anyone for the reason all the things that politicians argue about don't matter and for the reason people's political opinion's don't matter: it's not woth anyone's time to care what the actual results are. The wall is a symbol that will provide angry people with comfort, not security.

Yesterday, there was a big concert close to where I live on la Plazuela de Los Periodistas. A presidential Candidate spoke and rallied a large group of students in front of a big sign that said NO TLC (a free trade agreement with Latin America and the US that this candidate opposes). He didn't give reasons for his opposition but to say that Colombia is for everyone, that the youth were with him, and that hunger is a problem--not trade. Then the band played and the students cheared, waved flags, and danced.

I don't know what this candidate will do if elected, and I am confident that they do not either. But they don't care. There is no reason for them to take their vote seriously: the probability of a single vote changing the outcome of an election is approximately zero. So if you weigh the unlikely probability of your vote inacting good economic policies against the certainty of enjoying a concernt with a lot of other students, it's an obvious choice: go shout with everyone else about voting for the NO TLC guy becuase he's more fun, who cares what would happen if he were elected: you can't affect that.

And it IS a lot more fun to say 'hunger is bad' and dance. For this reason political identity is a lot less like thinking and a lot more like chearing for the Yankees. It's more about an image than an opinion, becuase your opinions don't matter.

And that's why I don't like the wall. It's not becuase of the consequences, but the causes. It doesn't matter if you build it, immigrants will come. But it is a symbol that you are upset about them coming. You're at the rally dancing and screaming NO MEXICANS, but you don't care what the outcome is. And it might be fun to say it 'enhances national security' or 'will create jobs' or will 'make everyone speak english', but this isn't the reason you shout. You don't have to believe it to shout it, and it certainly doesn't matter whether it is true. No one cares about the material consequences of the wall. They care about immigrants and they care about dancing, and that wall is one great big dance and immigrants are not invited.

So I'm against the wall.





But I can't wait to be home. The best part of coming home on an international flight after a long stay abroad is when the customs officer says 'welcome home'. It happens Saturday night.

Also, I like Texas