My great-grandmother, Maria, came to the United States from Hungary in 1910. That is not that long ago. I know it seems like a long time, but it's not. It was only 70 years before I was born. Now I am halfway to 70 years old myself.
I don't know much about my great-grandmother, except that she lived in the apartment above my mom's family's in New York City, and she made lunch for my mom every day during school. She spoke Slovak and taught some to my mom, including (I think) the Lord's Prayer but (I don't think) any of the swear words.
(Maria is second from the left, sometime in the 1920s.)
She married an immigrant, John, who came to the US in 1898. Her daughter would marry the son of immigrants, Robert and Rose*, who came to the US in 1908 and 1906, respectively. Her granddaughter would marry into another family of immigrants, my dad's, from which I have relatives who came from Germany as long ago as 1845 and as recently as 1882.
Maria was 20 years old when she came to America. In some ways I cannot comprehend this**. She stepped on a boat and left everything she knew on the shore behind her. Her family, her friends, her entire culture. She gave all of that up, and for what?
Even though we never met, I know that it was, at least in small part, for me.
My life is unquestionably better for having been born in the US. I am lucky and privileged and objectively believe I have it easier than 99% of people on the planet. I've always known I can do and be anything I want. I have a TV that beams college football into my living room like 5 days a week, I live close enough to a Target that I will never want for lack of M&Ms, and in all honesty, the worst thing I have to worry about in my life right now are the two weddings coming up next year for which I do not have a date***. So I know I have it pretty good. And I owe that to people like my great-grandmother, who didn't have it easy, who instead spent her life surrounded by others who didn't wear the same clothes, or celebrate the same holidays, or even worship the same god.
I am my great-grandmother's American dream. And I am not the only one. We all came from people who came from somewhere, which is why I find myself today pondering the question: How did we become this self-loathing nation of immigrants?
There were so many factors to this election, and I'm not all that political so I'm certainly not an expert on any of them. But our forthcoming response to Syrian refugees, a call for a ban on Muslims entering the country, and the generalization of Mexicans as rapists and drug users...those were issues that spoke to me. I feel like they're representative of the bigger picture, of how we treat other people. Especially those less fortunate than us. Especially those who just want the same opportunities we were, in many ways undeservedly, already given.
I understand that in order to win an election, a candidate must appeal to a wide variety of citizens. So no matter how reprehensible I find it, I understand the president-elect's strategy. He cast a wide net, and in doing so, gave voice to bigots and homophobes and extremists. In motivating his citizens to go to the polls, he told these deplorable people what they wanted to hear. He said appalling things, and normalized behavior that was vile and demeaning. He proved his character to be so unfit to lead our nation, that nearly every newspaper in the country endorsed Clinton, including several who'd never before endorsed a Democrat or endorsed any candidate at all.
In retrospect, what all this insane rhetoric overshadowed was the fact that he also tapped into the very real, very legitimate insecurities of a number of disenfranchised citizens. People who are underemployed, or have lost their jobs completely (to foreign workers, no less), started listening to him. He gave them reason to believe he could make their lives great again, and in turn, could improve the lives of their children, and their children's children. And if he had offered actual, real solutions to these economic woes, maybe it would have been acceptable! But the thing is, he didn't offer any real solutions, just hate and indiscriminate blame.
Maybe I am idealistic, or maybe I have just watched The American President too many times:
"And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumpson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only- making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."
I don't believe that everyone who voted for the president-elect yesterday is a racist or a misogynist, though many of them clearly are and that is disgusting. But what breaks my heart is this- how bad must things be to be able to look past all of these glaring character flaws, and vote for the guy anyway? How hopeless do you have to feel to be able to reconcile such repulsive statements with your own values? I truly believe most of the people who cast those votes this week knew they were voting for a reprehensible person, a person whose character does not reflect their own, but who felt they needed to ignore that in order to bring about the change they are so desperately seeking in their own life.
I hate that it's led now to such divisiveness. The prevailing phrase now seems to be that America "was more divided than we thought". But I'm not sure it's so simple. I don't think this election shined a spotlight on millions of xenophobic people who'd previously been in the shadows. I think this election gave a bullhorn to a couple of hundred zealots, and that bullhorn legitimized their beliefs.
It made it okay to hate other people.
I thought I lived in a country that valued individuality, tolerance, and respect, and although on the whole I think I still do, I am acutely aware now that the whole is not necessarily the total sum of its parts. For those who want someone to hate, the easiest targets are naturally the people who they were told are to blame for their problems. The people who took the job they could have taken, to make a better life for their great-grandchildren. The people who don't wear the same clothes, or celebrate the same holidays, or worship the same god. The ones people have given up their entire culture to make a better life for their great-grandchildren.
Our American experience is so universal.
This song came up on my iTunes yesterday, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. It is originally by Paul Simon, and is performed here by Eva Cassidy. The video is a little cheesy, so just close your eyes while you're listening.
I don't know a soul who's not been battered
Don't have a friend who feels at ease
Don't know a dream that's not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
oh but it's alright
It's alright
You've lived so well so long
When I think of the road we've traveled on
So far away from home
So far away from home
****
This week was sad and shocking, I think partially because idealistically, we don't want to believe that we as a nation were capable of this, but also realistically because no one expected it. Clinton was up by double digits in most polls, and had more than a 60% chance of winning. The explanation we've been given for this mass miscalculation is the failure to account for "silent voters". Those people who, when asked by pollsters, wouldn't admit who they were voting for.
I have to believe that on some level, they knew that the act they were committing within the anonymity of the voting booth was wrong.
And this may sound incongruous, but that actually gives me a small measure of hope. It means that if they knew that what they were doing was wrong, maybe at some point in the future they will be open to changing their mind and doing what is right.
Indeed, the best thing I saw all week was this tweet:
Maybe this is too simplistic. Like I said, I'm not that political. I don't know what the future holds. I sincerely hope that things get better, now that people's voices have been heard, but do I think the president-elect can make that happen? Not really. That makes me even more nervous because where do these people turn next?Here are the election results if only millennials voted... Progress is the longterm future of this country for both parties. pic.twitter.com/8TxWcD7tg5— Jon Cozart (@JonCozart) November 9, 2016
Or, even more terrifying, do they get that opportunity? Am I over-dramatizing the situation by asking if this is the last open and fair election of my life?
I hope not. I hope we evolve. That we become better, more empathetic people. I hope four years from now we elect someone who can spur economic prosperity and who reflects our values- I know those people are out there. And I hope that when all is said and done, the United States will be a place that immigrants will be welcomed into, to start their American dream alongside those of us fortunate enough to have had a great-grandmother Maria do it for them those not-so-many years ago.
*Okay, so this is one of my favorite stories. In college one of my good friends studied abroad in Ireland, and I went to visit her. While I was planning the trip and telling my mom about what we were going to do, she casually asked "Are you going to go visit your relatives?" I asked her what on earth she was talking about, because, to my knowledge, we were not Irish. "Sure we are!" she said. "Your great-grandma Rose was from Ireland!" I was 20 years old and had literally never heard the words 'great-grandma Rose' in my life. So she explained that Rose McCabe (yes! that is actually her real name!) was from Ireland and therefore we still had relatives there and I was one eighth Irish, a fact which has since greatly increased my appreciation for and participation in St. Patrick's Day festivities, well, mostly just the wearing green but also I guess the drinking. Anyway. I asked Mom why we'd never heard of this great-grandma Rose from Ireland, and as it turns out, it was a little scandalous! Rose was Irish, which meant Catholic, and she'd married an Englishman, which meant Protestant. They had to run off to the Caribbean to get married!!!
**I mean, what was I doing at 20 years old? (That is sort of rhetorical but if you want to get specific, see above-referenced trip to Ireland and imagine zero responsibilities and quite a bit of Bulmer's Irish Cider.)
***I am open to suggestions on the date front, so if you or someone you know enjoys eating champagne chicken, wearing a suit and making small talk with strangers, please don't hesitate to get in touch! I promise I won't talk politics at all and will instead spend most of the night just dancing really, really poorly.
****Immediately after this song played, Crazy by Britney Spears popped up, and both of these songs, back-to-back and available at my fingertips anytime I want, reminds me that although we do have problems, America is already so great.
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