Week 11 Newsletter

I am an immigrant. I came to this country in 1986 from the Netherlands. I lived here “illegally” for almost two years until I was granted a green card. A green card is like a working permit. In 1999, I became a citizen of the US; I had to give up my Dutch citizenship as Holland does not recognize dual citizenship. But in many ways I still consider myself to be a Dutchman. Sunday, as Holland was playing the USA in the Olympic Games I admit I was rooting for the Dutch to win. (It was a tie after all as the US team played very well). I am proud of my Dutch heritage and I am proud to be American and this has never presented any conflicts. I understand the feeling of nationalism; the feeling of belonging to a country. Everybody has a primary need to belong to family, community and country. Our family, our community, and our country protect us and we need to feel that they are capable of doing so. The occupation by the Germans of Holland during the Second World War has had a devastating effect on the confidence Dutch people have in their country. The Dutch consider the US to be their big brother to provide the protection they themselves had lost confidence in. Their shadow of insecurity was transformed into some of the best social programs in the world. The Dutch government provides every citizen with full care from cradle to grave.
While I have always been critical of the US foreign policies and of its treatment of minorities, I moved here because this feeling of visiting my big brother tempted my curiosity. I decided to stay and everything they said about the States proved to be true. While the US has a strong dark side it is also a country of hope and new beginnings. Despite the lack of good social programs there is something solid about it; it is home to some of the most beautiful wilderness areas and its vastness makes a deep impression. But I have also never visited a country where the contrast between its dark and light sides is so strongly pronounced. Here our shadow is our fear of competition. While many people believe in intelligent design on Sunday, they adopt the survival of the fittest during the rest of the week.
Since I moved here it has become increasingly difficult for someone outside the US to work here. We built a solid wall preventing people from crossing our borders. I listen to the rhetoric around immigration and I am horrified to even see left-leaning politicians take hardened positions against immigration reform. As most people are simply not that interested in politics or history anyway, the US has always based their public support for new policies on fear of the alternative.
People in the US are interested in issues that affect their personal life like taxes and who lives in their neighborhood. I remember being delighted with the interest most people took to hear I was from Holland. What has happened to that curiosity? As the immigration debate is heating up we need to remember that this discussion includes the fate of people who have lived here for thousands of years. It has only been a few hundred years since political leaders drew borders in the sand that were never there before. To ease the flow of capital between US, Canada, and Mexico we created NAFTA that was supposed to ease those sharp lines. But despite these free trade agreements -unlike the EU- the borders remained closed for the people.
A lot of the fear around immigration is really about the people from Mexico and Central America. But most of the people who come to work in the US from the countries south of our border are actually indigenous. These people were here long before England, Spain, and Holland claimed their turf in the new country. Ever since the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans have been seen as a threat. As a result many have perished as we simply could not foresee a possible harmonious co-existence. The largest group of Native Americans was the Mayans. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world. Today, most Mayans are predominantly Roman Catholic and many have integrated into our Western Culture. But one thing has never changed; they have always worked to create wealth for their white oppressors ever since Europeans set foot on this continent. I suggest the writings of B.Traven to gain greater insight into the suffering of many indigenous people in Mexico at the hands of their white oppressors. Suffering and slavery have been a constant in the history of the indigenous people of Central America.
The latest development of free trade has, to say it mildly, not been very helpful to the already poor and often landless Mayan population. Out of desperation whole communities have left their hometowns to work in the US, hoping for a better future for their children. While the US policies take away their feeling of protection by a country, they lean on the protection by their family and community. Here in Valatie most immigrants that originated from Mexico are all from the same community and are close-knit. They provide each other with a sense of safety that both Mexico and the US fail to provide them with.
I am bothered by the rhetoric on immigration from the media and politicians. It is almost as if we are not talking about people but objects. People come to the US for a variety of reasons and I am not suggesting we open up our borders for whoever wants to be here. But why can’t we consider exempting the indigenous people from our immigration policies and borders? The Europeans took their land, their culture, and their sense of belonging away from them. The policies of the US continue to do so. When people walk for three days through the desert to earn food for their children you can hardly consider this a choice; it is sheer desperation. Where is our humanity in all this? What are we so afraid of? Why can’t we transform our fear of competition into better social programs, just as the Dutch were able to do with their fear of vulnerability? ~Jean-Paul