Hope

Ok, again I know I said I would write about my travels, but this is part of the experience too. So, the story begins with my EU politics and culture class, where we were doing a simulation on immigration and neighbor’s policy focusing specifically on North Africa and the events going on there. I was the EU’s representative for Algeria you could say, and I initially chose Algeria because I thought I was actually going to represent Algeria and its interests, plus I would get to catch up on news and also learn about Algeria’s situation. But instead I was a person working for the EU and my job was to find a balance between the EU's interests and Algeria. So we talked about a lot of things, like security, asylum, flow of migrants, unemployment, etc. But something that really started to bug me was that the rhetoric of some of the leaders in the EU (specifically France and Italy) was the same or very similar to the rhetoric being used in the USA: Increase border security, more funding for FRONTEX and EUROPOL (which is like La Migra (ICE) in the US). Also in my class the way the students were talking about the migrants bothered me. It was basically a perpetuation of the "increase security" and the equating migrants, and especially undocumented migrants, with criminals. They were spoken of as a threat more than as people fleeing in some cases war torn countries, poverty, etc. This really bothered me and in my head I was thinking “Criminalization of Immigrants.” I don’t know if the students were playing their parts very well, or if they actually see it this way, but it was incredibly frustrating to hear and also the fact that I couldn’t say anything made it frustrating, since we were in a time crunch because of class and everyone had to present their parts, so there wasn’t always room for discussion. Sometimes my professor did talk too much, but he does that a lot and I do learn when he explains things further (especially when I don't understand things, since this class is taught in German), but I felt that took away from the discussion. I think I was also afraid to speak up at some point too, which just put more fuel in the fire of my frustration. I think the thing that really drove me over the edge though was an article that my professor gave us to read about the Schengen agreement, so like visas and immigration stuff, because those articles contained the words “illegal immigrant.” Literally my blood boiled over and honestly I discovered I don’t tolerate that word, before I didn’t use the word, didn’t like it, and didn’t like when other people used it (This all applies to the present as well). I guess what surprised me was to find out how deep my dislike, maybe even hate I would venture out to say, for the words “illegal immigrant” ran. I crossed out, underlined, and/or circled every time I saw the word illegal, within the context of describing people as illegal, and I replaced it with undocumented.

That was when I also realized that I needed to learn how to say undocumented in German, because I don’t want to say illegal. I said it once in a conversation to get my point across in German, but I switched to my grammatically incorrect construction of “People without a visa.” My thoughts were, “I don’t use that word in that way in Spanish or in English. Why I am I going to do that in German, for the sake of getting my point across? No, I don’t care if “People without a visa” is grammatically incorrect. I will say that until I find a different way.” So then I asked my professor and he suggested “People without a visa” (Grammatically correct this time, but still the meaning is not quite the same as undocumented, but it’s better than the alternative). He also suggested “People without a right to be here.” That one made me go numb and my blood go cold. I really don’t think my professor knows to this day how much hearing that affected me. My question for my self was “Could I say that?” “Should I say that?” “Would I say that?” The answer to all was no. Part of me was like “Could you turn around and tell your mother that?” How could I call these people that, when I come from the same background? I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, and it’s not right. I know the situations are different, but still the situations are as different as they are the same. My parents and a lot of my family left for the same reasons, or for a lot of the same reasons they did too. I guess the main difference comes in, speaking specifically about mestizo/a Mexicans, the fact that we see ourselves as indigenous to the continent of the Americas. We do have an indigenous past, whether we acknowledge it or not is a different story and how indigenous people are treated in Mexico points to one of the many contradictions that exist with this view, but that can be a whole other blog post/ paper/panel/etc. Anyway back to this. For me it doesn’t matter because the immigrants in Europe left for the same or similar reasons that my parents left Mexico. Essentially, it is to get a better life and also the fact that a lot of the push pull factors of immigration aren’t in our control. Examples are NAFTA in Mexico and the fact that some EU leaders were buddies with some of the dictators in North Africa.

The end point of that entire rant is I will not use “People without a right to be here.” At that point I felt a the barrier go up between me and my professor, and don’t get me wrong he is a really nice guy and smart, it’s just him saying that has given me the impression, that he may not really understand this or me. My professor has helped us a lot here and he really pushes us to learn, but honestly this I don't know. Maybe I also need to get to know him better and he needs to get to know me better too. Through another conversation with Thaddeus on facebook, I told him that I also realized that I wouldn't I live here. It’s a nice place but I don't want to live here. The reasons are if it’s going to be the same thing here as in the USA, by this I mean the rhetoric, criminalization of immigrants, pervasiveness of the term “illegal immigrant,” then why stay here? Why live here? Thaddeus was the one who pointed out to me that those things are the same in the USA. He made me look at that more. Thank you Thaddeus! The reason I would choose the USA over Austria is because my family is in the USA, its closer to Mexico, I have more access to Mexican food and other things, and I know the system better in the USA. I would love to come back and visit, but if given the choice I would not settle here. Another aspect of this entire thing we discussed was the fact that I am used to being around people who understand what being a minority is, living in an immigrant community, and/or feeling like a target is like. At the very least people who will take the time to learn and to try to understand our situations and where we are coming from. We agreed that college is a bubble sometimes and so is Global Crossroads. So being here was a nice little wake up call that said, "Not all people know this stuff!!! Not all people care!!!! Not all people are willing to take the time to listen!!!!" Lovely wake up call, no? (Note the sarcasm there).

When I spoke to Thaddeus, or chatted with him to be more precise, I was over the worst of the frustration, but when I spoke to my friend Mary it was still full on. I was frustrated with the world, frustrated with the fact that the same things are happening here as in the USA and the fact that they weren’t comparing notes to figure out a better solution. I honestly thought things would be different here. I mean there are differences, but not so big I would say. I was frustrated with people, with myself. I was also frustrated with German, because I got a paper back and it wasn't really the grade I wanted, which indicated that I need to work harder. I was really in a people suck, the world sucks, and humanity as a whole sucks mood. I really wanted to cry out of anger, sadness, and frustration. This lasted for about a week and the only thing that pulled me out was a quote from a book I was reading in my literature class.

So in my class we were reading “Die Dreigroschenoper” or “The Threepenny Opera” by Bertolt Brecht. It’s a play in which he criticizes the hypocrisy and the opportunism in society. The people in the story are either opportunistic, hypocrites, or both. I guess he brings out some of our worst qualities as people to make a point. But there was this line in one of the songs from this play, which goes like this “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral” Brecht 69. It translates as first comes food then comes morality, but Fressen means food for animals which points to our animalistic qualities (Yes, I know that biologically we do belong to the animal kingdom and that we are animals). So then I applied my own situation to this line and to other situations I am familiar with. Immigration for example people leave to find a better life and in the USA’s case civil law is broken sometimes in order to get there. Also, once in the country the lack of papers makes it hard to do anything, so then in order to get a job one is forced to seek out fake papers. Even within family, those who have papers sometimes lend them to those who don’t have papers. I mean no offense to anyone but this is survival. You need a job to get money in order to pay rent/mortgage and for food. In the song the character also says how institutions are telling us to be good and how to go about doing that, but that first they should give people food then they can talk about morality. So what happens when one is in utter economic misery? It’s like yeah I want to be good but I also need to eat. What happens when it’s these very institutions that have created some of these situations? What then?

Then I thought about how even though Brecht portrayed the characters in his story so badly and portrayed society in a not so good light, I realized he had hope or else he would not have written this. His purpose behind developing the Epic Theater and writing in that style was to get people to think critically about his play, what he was trying to say, society, and things in general. He had hope that things would change for the better. After realizing this I realized that I have hope too. If I didn’t have any hope, I wouldn’t get frustrated, sad, angry, or any of the other emotions that go along with being an activist, seeing the wrongs in society, wanting things to change etc. That realization gave me a breath of fresh air. Anyway, then I remembered Dante’s “Inferno” and the first level of hell, where Socrates and Aristotle were sent for being pagans but not bad really. I read this part in high school in my humanities class and I remembered thinking the first level of hell is not so bad. The way it was in the book that nothing changes everything stays the same and there is no hope of improvement (or the situation worsening, but I guess that’s a good thing). I didn’t really understand that in high school, but now if someone came here and told me “This is the way the world is going to be. It won’t change. It’s fixed. No room for improvement no matter what you do.” So basically if someone told me this is the first level of Dante’s “Inferno” I think I would walk in front of a car and die. Now I understand that hell. “All hope abandon ye who enter here” the inscription to hell in Dante’s “Inferno” Now I understand this more I should say. Then I thought about Voltaire and his book “Candide, ”where he criticizes the optimism of his time; the saying/ thought that “This is the best of all possible worlds.” “Candide” is basically a satire of the world in which Voltaire says, “This is the best of all possible worlds, really?” He wasn’t accepting the world as it was and I realized neither will I, well I hadn’t been accepting it as it was for a while, but I guess it became clearer at this moment. I will not accept this world as it is. I simply refuse. So, this is how I got out of my people (I do include me in people) suck/the world sucks mood. So again I really appreciate constructive criticism and I really want to hear everyone’s thoughts and again no burning at the stake, but comments are appreciated.