Undocumented College Students and the American Dream

A few days ago, this article appeared in the New York Times. Rigoberto Padilla, a Chicago area college student and undocumented immigrant, generated publicity after being arrested for DUI and driving without a license–a charge that led to an deportation order. He came to the United States as a 6-year-old. It’s not a unique case: a few years ago, a classmate passed around a petition in my Spanish class to prevent deportation for an undocumented college student, arrested at the bus station when he couldn’t prove his citizenship.

Many people, even those who favor strict immigration policies, find these deportation orders senseless. The kids didn’t choose to come to the United States without papers–their parents did. They were raised in U.S. culture and speak English with an American accent. Deportation seems illogical, even cruel. According to the article, “Roy Beck, the executive director of NumbersUSA, a group that has staunchly opposed a legal path for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, said in an interview that he could support legal status for some young immigrant students.”

I think this tells us a lot about how we define “being American,” and also about how undocumented/illegal migration is philosophically ambiguous. “If you spend your formative years in the United States, you have a right to stay” seems to be the premise that makes us balk at deporting these students. “If you’re a child, it’s not your fault to have migrated illegally” is the other assumption.

But are we ready to place blame on those who chose to immigrate without papers? Indeed, crossing the border without papers is breaking a law. But most illegal activities correspond with some ethical wrongdoing. People who murder or steal are condemned not so much for doing something illegal, as for doing something that we consider morally wrong. The laws are in place to enforce that ethical belief. For many of us, crossing the border just doesn’t evoke the same moral reprehension.

Undocumented college students are, in a way, the success stories of undocumented immigration: they made it past obstacles of poverty, language difference, legal status, etc. into the respectability of higher education. With their degrees, we imagine them becoming professionals, fluent in both their native and adopted cultural norms. It’s easy to sympathize with them because they fit so neatly into the grand narrative of the American Dream: economic ascent as validation of national belonging. “Making it” makes you American.

But for the undocumented students who didn’t make it through high school, or crossed the border as preteens to start work, who didn’t learn English, or who decided to come here as adults–the American Dream isn’t so neatly reaffirmed. For those who don’t thrive in the ways that mainstream America values–assimilating and advancing–no crowd rallies to stop deportations.  Are they criminals, or are they simply doing their jobs? Do we deport them because they call into question the legitimacy of our beloved American Dream?

I strongly support the right of these undocumented students to seek an education. I only hope that we are not constructing a tiny elite of “good illegal immigrants” only to dismiss, denigrate and deport those who do not fit our ideals of a “true” American.

Us versus the Instituto Nacional de Migración, or How do you say “Bah Humbug” in Spanish?

I am in California now. I left Guadalajara early yesterday morning, almost exactly six months after I arrived. I’ll be heading back in a few weeks, but I think I’m still qualified to blog in the meantime. Part of being a migrant is the occasional trip to the home country, seeing what feels the same and what feels different.

I almost didn’t get to return to the United States. Since my last blog, my visa adventures went from frustrating to heartbreaking. On Monday, I went to the office again, this time with Paco, to turn in the last set of paperwork and payments for the student visa, and with my application for permission to leave the country while everything was being processed. Paco and I waited to speak with a licenciado (person with a college degree) so that I could make sure all my complications would be resolved. We watched as an older American man, cursing in English about the bureaucracy, waited with his lawyer. The lawyer apparently knew one of the licenciados, and he made this clear by a sort of “don’t you know who I am?” routine. The trick worked: they were seen immediately. I seethed and shot these rank pullers dirty looks. I really wanted to say a little too loudly, “I guess I should hire a lawyer if I don’t want to wait!”

When it came to be my turn (an hour later), Paco and I went into the office and sat down at the licenciado’s desk. As I explained my situation, the licenciado informed me, “you can’t leave the country.” My voice started to waver as I inarticulately tried to ask another question. Then the licenciado eventually added, “you can only leave if you withdraw the entire visa application process.” So either I was not going to be able to go to the States and see my family, or I was going to lose all of the money, trips, frustration and time I’d dedicated to getting the student visa. Faced with this decision, I started to cry–not just a little. As I was sobbing and blubbering, Paco tried to jump in and rescue me. The licenciado was clearly unmoved. Another woman in the office offered her advice.

“The problem is that you foreigners think you can just come in here and apply for a visa without knowing anything. Then you think you can leave the country whenever you want without asking us. You have to inform yourself. I empathize with your situation,” she told me sternly. I didn’t believe her professed empathy.

Through my tears, I responded, “look, I’m not making these mistakes because of cultural arrogance. It’s because of ignorance. There’s no information on the website, and nobody told me about these restrictions when I started the process.”

“The law says that ignorance does not excuse you from punishment when you break the law,” she said, and I kept crying. Later, I wished that I had said, “Ok, but if you actually want people to follow your laws, you might want to tell us what they are.” I’m sure this wouldn’t have helped at all, so I guess it’s better than I was unable to form a coherent and snarky rejoinder.

“Some people hire lawyers to help them,” she began. I interrupted, “If I were rich, I’d hire a lawyer too!”, and Paco sent me a telepathic message to shut up before we got kicked out of the office.

I didn’t know what to do, but unable to face not seeing my family, and realizing that changing my flight would be more expensive that paying the fees again (though not by much), I agreed to cancel the process. This meant more paperwork to fill out, and there were more obstacles in the way to authorize my departure. When another unfriendly bureaucrat started telling us that it would be impossible to give me the document I needed to leave the country, I started crying again, this time in front of everyone in the waiting room. It was horribly embarrassing, and I would have been sunk if I hadn’t had Paco there as my advocate. He talked when I could only whimper, and he told everyone “thank you” when I was too angry to express gratitude.

It would have saved me time, money, and emotional well-being if I had never set foot in the office at all. I could have stayed on my tourist visa and started the process in January if I were accepted into the master’s program. I thought a lot about what the woman had said to me: was it arrogance that made me think I could do this without asking? She said that I should have consulted with one of the licenciados before even beginning the process. But I realized that when I first visited, I didn’t even know that there were such people or that you could ask for help. There are no pamphlets, no guidelines, and every person tells you something different, and often the next person you talk informs you that the previous one was wrong, but now it’s your problem.

It wasn’t a total failure, because I did leave the country. When I return, I’ll be issued the same tourist visa after filling a form out on the plane, and then I’ll try again for the student visa. I dread dragging myself back to that office, especially since I made such a scene. I cry easily, but not often in public. Now I’ll have to face all the bureaucrats again, watch the people with lawyers get the VIP treatment, and make the same photocopies and the same payments all over again.

Paco and I were talking about the difference between Mexican and U.S. bureaucracy. I likened it to the difference between torture and a quick death. When Paco applied for a visa, it was a brief, horrific and unfair “no, and don’t ask again.” It was expensive, and it was over in two hours. On the other hand, I made so many visits, talked to so many people, dealt with errors, organized papers, and jumped through multiple hoops only to also get a “no,” but unlike Paco, I can try again (Paco won’t be issued a visa until he has a “strong tie” to Mexico, which we think means “earns a big salary in Mexico”). I think both systems are stacked against people without a lot of money and without legal help.

When I think about couples that are from the same town, or even the same country, I feel like everything must be so easy for them: they have the same native language! They don’t need to visas or passports to meet each others’ families! The sting of these barriers flares up when we go against bureaucracy without success. Back in California, I sit in my childhood home, and I feel Paco’s absence acutely. He’s not here only because of an unfair system that doesn’t see us or our situation. Even though our families have given us our blessing to love someone from a different country, our governments have not.

I know that there were officials who did care and showed concern when they saw me crying: not everyone sees me as just another cow among endless cattle to be processed (turned into hamburgers?). I also know that Paco will someday be eligible for other, non-tourist visas that will likely be more successful. Getting what you need out of a bureaucracy requires persistence and patience (and money), and giving up is the only way to really fail.

I talked about California. “I really do want to see that bridge,” he said. “What bridge?” “You know, that famous one.” “El puente portón dorado?” I offered, “the Golden Gate Bridge?” “But the bridge isn’t golden, it’s red,” he protested. I’d never really thought about that. “I guess it’s kind of an orange-red,” I suggested. “You can call yellow things golden, but not red,” Paco told me. As a little girl, I’d thought the same thing about goldfish. “I’d like a picture of us on that bridge,” he said.

I know we’ll take that picture one day, but I wish it were sooner.

Conquistadores, Coffee and Student Visas

I find it comforting, strangely, to be bogged down with papers and reading in December–it feels normal to me. The cycle of newness, stress, projects, sudden ends–the semester way of life. Of course, it all happened so quickly in this pre-Master’s boot camp.

It’s not over yet, but I’m in the final stretch. I’ve been learning about things I wouldn’t seek out on my own, but the information will help me be a better researcher, I hope. The theory and philosophy behind “social science” isn’t riveting, but it also is something I’d never really pondered until now. I wrote an essay last week about a Spanish conquistador who wreaked havoc on Western Mexico in the 1530s, based on a colonial-era account of his adventures. Although it was hard to understand (imagine reading 16th century English…in Spanish!), it reminded me of why I love history so much: the detective aspect, and the idiosyncrasies that make you feel connected to people who died centuries ago. In the colonial text I mentioned–a letter to the King of Spain–the final sentence read, “Everything I say here is true, and to prove so, I sign my name here.” And the below, the editor comments “[There is no signature].” So we actually don’t know who wrote the letter! How mysterious, strange and wonderful! Of course, besides the geeky pleasure of history, there’s also the uncovering of horrors. The conquistador in question tended to torture and kill, both indigenous people and his fellow Spaniards.

I still have three more essays to write: a book review, to be crafted in perfect, succinct prose to prove that I listened in Advanced Writing; an interpretation of a document–I picked a speech given by an indigenous student at a ceremony a few years ago; and a comparison of various theories and approaches to social science (I plan to write this one hyped up on coffee, pretending that I care).

Besides academic endeavors and sitting around not accomplishing things, I’ve been in the process of getting a student visa. So far, I’ve been to the National Institute of Migration (the government office where these things happen) a total of four times. The first time, I got the information about what paperwork I needed to file–it wasn’t online. The second time, I turned in the paperwork. The third time, I returned to pick up the visa, but I was given a letter saying that the bank statements I’d provided weren’t in my name. Except they were. So I waited for two hours to speak with an official, who agreed with me that the statements were indeed in my name, and told me to come back the following day, Friday, to pick up my visa. I went on Monday instead to give them a little more time, but I was informed that the document still wasn’t ready. Since it’s about a 45 minute bus ride to reach the office, I was pretty unhappy about this, especially since the delay was in no way caused by an error of mine. I hope that the fifth visit will finally yield a visa. It seems particularly unfair that Paco and I, as a couple, have to wrangle with two different countries and their bureaucracies! But as Paco reminds me, they ARE going to give me the visa. That’s the difference.

The Migration office is an interesting place, though. I don’t see foreigners very often in my day-to-day wanderings, but there are plenty to be found at the Migration office. I saw a group of blond Mormons (telltale short sleeve dress shirts), and American businessmen. A young, pregnant woman, apparently East Asian, listened to her Mexican lawyer ramble. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I noticed his gold chain, white socks, brown loafers, pale blue jeans, and his mouth, chewing gum as if the pace of his jaw could expedite the bureaucracy.

One benefit of making the trek to downtown Guadalajara is the Café Estancia. It has Wifi and a place to plug in my laptop, so I can write in my favorite work environment: caffeine fueled, consuming something with sugar, not tempted by the distractions of home, the cat, or other people. It’s not quite the same as my favorite American coffee shops–no weird music or muffins (instead, they serve “brawnies”–brownies!).  There’s a poster on the wall that says “Una mujer es como una buena taza de café: la primera vez que se toma, no deja dormir.”  I think I preferred the bizarre local art that adorned my usual haunts in the States. Still, it helps me revive the glory days of college, the mornings and afternoons spent in coffee shops writing my senior essay.

Unfortunately for me, I can’t continue this blog post, since I actually have to write those essays I mentioned. Luckily for you, your reading ends here!

Acción de Gracias

This is my second Thanksgiving in Mexico. Last year, desperately missing Paco, I trekked to the Newark Airport in the wee, small hours of the morning, and while the whole wide world was fast asleep, I sat awake and thought about how excited I was. It was one of those trips you only make when you’re in love–rationally excessive, emotionally vital.

Last year, I made a small-scale Thanksgiving dinner for Paco, his brother and his sister-in-law. I roasted a chicken instead of a turkey. Actually, we prepared the chicken, stuffed rosemary between the skin and the meat (the smell made me think of the rosemary bushes back home in California), and took the chicken to the neighbor’s house, where there was an oven. A bag of dried cranberries turned into cranberry sauce through the magic of reconstitution and warm water. I attempted mashed potatoes for the first time, with somewhat gluey results. I sauteed green beans. We drank cheap wine, and there was no pumpkin pie–it’s hard to make without pumpkins (or their canned incarnations) around. Paco was wearing the new scarf my mom had knit for him, and his sister-in-law snapped pictures of me trying to carve a chicken. It was a quiet meal, the food palatable, but not great, and cranberries were the star of the evening (they aren’t well-known or widely available in Mexico).

It wasn’t right. For my Mexican family, it was an interesting glimpse into American traditions, executed in the haphazard form you’d expect from a cook in her early 20s, lacking in the ways you’d expect without the standard cornucopia of T-day ingredients. But they don’t know what it means, or how it feels, because it isn’t their holiday. In the United States, Thanksgiving is a national consensus: we all stop everything for it. It’s about panic in the kitchen, actually using the sugar bowl that ordinarily collects dust in the cupboard, and the annual re-remembering that I don’t really like roasted turkey.

This year, there won’t even be a surrogate chicken to stand in for the other fowl I don’t even like. I have class this afternoon because it’s a regular Thursday here. But it feels like Thanksgiving to me, because I’ve foolishly read all the newspaper articles online about the horrible relative holiday horror stories, the recipe collections, the sales of heritage turkeys, the travel crunch. It’s all irrelevant.

In my mind, I wake up to the winter California sunshine I love so much, and I walk across the cold floors and say “Happy Thanksgiving” to my parents like it means “good morning,” just because it’s funny when we’re semiconscious and the feast is still hours away. I would make a pumpkin pie with the great recipe I found a few years ago, and I would wonder which color sweater to pick to best evoke the fall. There would be so many stories to tell, the best ones always being Dad’s, which he sneakily saves up for gatherings with the largest and most eager audiences. We would try to remember who is vegetarian, who is lactose intolerant, who doesn’t like chocolate, who wants decaf. Failing, we explain that the vegan is now vegetarian, the dairyphobe brought her Lactaid pills, and everyone eats what they can, which is more than enough.

I knew this would happen when I chose to leave the United States–that certain universal understandings, like to set aside this unremarkable Thursday too close to Christmas as a national pause and feast, would not be universal in another country. No holiday is universal. But that doesn’t make it hurt less, that taste of pumpkin pie is a distant memory and my family and friends are walking those cold floors in that winter sunshine, ready to take their places at the table when late afternoon comes.

Thanksgiving, so hard to say in Spanish, translates to “Acción de gracias,” the action of thanks. Even without the food and the company, I am grateful. I am thankful to know that there will be room at the table when I come back for Thanksgiving, because there is always room, even if we sit so close together we could share napkins across our laps.

Learning to write good (in Spanish!) with my bootcamp “frendos”

Our recent addition to the Boot Camp schedule is Advanced Writing, an intensive workshop-style class. The teachers want us to write concisely, clearly, and concretely, in Spanish, of course. Spanish grammar, though much more reliable and more often logical than English grammar, so easily becomes a wordy, convoluted mess when trying to explain something complex. This grammar, paired with the over-reliance on jargon and pretentious stock phrases that taints academic texts in all languages, makes bad writing in Spanish just as incomprehensible as bad writing in English.

Of course, I’m at a serious disadvantage in any writing situation here because my native language is English, not Spanish. My vocabulary is smaller, my grammatical instincts less certain. Yesterday, the teachers told us to use verbs related to carpentry, listed on the board, in a short paragraph. I didn’t know the meaning of half of the verbs on the chart! We never had a “carpentry vocab unit” when I took Spanish in college–and as long as topic doesn’t come up often, it’s easy to never learn whole sets of words that are irrelevant to my daily life. As I attempted the exercise, I realized that all the words I did know, I had learned from Paco as we fixed up our apartment in August–sanding shelves, using the screwdriver, painting the walls. You do something, you learn the words for the tools you use. “Can you hand me that thing? You know, the stick thing with the rolly-thing on the end?” doesn’t get the point across nearly so well as asking for the paint roller (rodillo, for those of you keeping score).

On the other hand, I have an enormous advantage when trying to write in Spanish–I don’t have all those bad habits picked up over years of schooling in a language. The Spanish equivalents of phrases like “heretofore” or “as such” or “be that as it may,” phrases that slow down a sentence and add little meaning, don’t even occur to me when I’m writing. Their uselessness is precisely why they aren’t on my radar. Every phrase I use in Spanish is deliberate because I produce it consciously.

Grammatical topics are especially bizarre to encounter in this setting. Many of my classmates are extremely confused by passive voice, for example, and they can’t identify it or produce it accurately. But for me, it’s very easy–it was only a few years ago that I was in Spanish class explicitly being  taught how to form passive voice (bonus point if you caught the passive voice in this sentence!). Hearing the professors enjoin us not to use the passive voice, so soon after having learned it, is amusing. I got the grammatical foundations in Spanish before ever approximating anything like fluid speech. No Spanish grammar is innate to me: it’s all patterns, rules, and memorization that are sort of natural, but only enough to help me talk faster.

The entire course of a lifetime of learning how to write in English, starting simple (elementary school), learning complexity and structure (junior high and high school), then unlearning confusing flourishes and rigidity (college)–it’s all happening so fast in Spanish! The Spanish transitional phrases I so dutifully looked up and proudly added to my essays just a year ago, like “consequently” and “nevertheless” and “in conclusion,” are turning out to be only crutches, clichés and redundancies that I’m supposed to avoid. My classmates insert these phrases out  a habit they now have to break. I inserted them with pride!

But more than my classmates, I can question the necessity of phrases and constructions in Spanish because they aren’t natural to me. Familiar, perhaps, but nothing is sacred in a language that only occasionally appears in my dreams.  Of course, that lack of an “ear” leads me astray, too, when I write or edit. Though much of this class’s content reminds me of lessons in English grammar long since burned into my brain (thanks, Mom!), I incorrectly identified a “misplaced modifier” in last night’s class–turns out that in Spanish, you CAN put modifiers next to things they don’t modify. I felt stupid afterward for having prefaced my wrong comment with “well, in English it’s like this, so I wondered…” Or maybe I just don’t like being wrong (pretty sure I don’t like being wrong, actually).

My classmates tell me that their English class is hard, that English is hard, that I’m lucky not to have to take English. I have a hard time feeling sorry for them because they get to speak their native language all day long, unlike me! I know exactly what their struggle is, but I also know that if they’d had opportunities like I did for immersion, they’d be doing better and like it more. Of course, I also have the ultimate motivation: my fiancé speaks Spanish. Even with all that, it’s still difficult.

I have many hopes for this master’s program (#1: get accepted!). But the challenge of being intellectual, academic, theoretical and comprehensible in another language–that is something I’d like to achieve, and I think the rigor of a master’s program could guide me toward that goal.

Meanwhile, I’m going to write off my deficiencies as entertainment for the rest of the class. Today, the class elected me to read aloud a text in Spanish called “Anglicismos” (English-isms).  It phonetically tried to approximate English using pronunciation suggested by the Spanish spelling: a Spanish speaker’s rendering of the sound of English. Needless to say, it was extremely difficult to sound out English in Spanish, and the attempt about broke my brain. I also could not stop laughing after reading aloud the word “frendo” which no one else found particularly funny. This happened after I thought I’d successfully avoided the teacher’s pointing hand to make me read aloud–I should have gone for the actual Spanish selections while I had the chance. But I’m fine with humor at my own expense. It’s the only kind of humor I generate, so I’ll take what I can get.

The shape of a Saturday

Paco had to go to campus today to work on a programming project with his classmates, leaving me with the day to do other things. After I realized that I hadn’t picked up a copy of an article I needed for class, I decided to get the reading photocopied. The research institute is located in downtown Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara. I hopped on the bus, irritated to see a kid sitting with his legs up on the seat next to him while others were standing up. Bad manners. At the next stop, a young man with a guitar got on and began to strum–nothing unusual around here. As he strummed, he talked about this song that he had composed, and he philosophized about why we needed to smile, and appreciate other people, and other things I wasn’t really paying attention to. Once he finished talking, he played a few more chords and opened his mouth to sing.

I don’t have enough musical knowledge to say exactly how off-key he was, but this young troubadour’s voice was so dissonant with the perfectly reasonable chords he was playing, that it was almost unlistenable. Obviously, I didn’t know what the tune of his original song was SUPPOSED to be, but I’m sure that whatever he was singing was not what he imagined in his head. It took all my energy not to crack up–after all that build up and philosophy, he was off tune! I looked around to see if anyone else had a pained look or sympathetic upward head movement to psychically influence his pitch. I seemed to be the only one on the verge of hilarity.

When he finished the first song, he thankfully returned to speaking to explain his next number. “We’re going to do a survey,” he said, “what is the thing that is least important to you? Well, if you can think of it and name it, then it is important to you, isn’t it? So this is a song about when we try to forget things.” He launched into another cringe-eliciting vocal display, and I got off the bus before I could hear his pitch for the few coins in our pocket. I imagined that this might be a good scene in the novel I hope to write someday.

After I got my copies made, I decided to get a much-needed cup of coffee. There were a group of high school students eating and making noise in the café, in that way that high school students do, maybe trying to get the most satisfaction out of unsupervised moments, or maybe because freedom is still so new and thrilling that it has to be enjoyed at high volume. The waiter took my order for an Americano (you can’t get brewed coffee in Mexican coffee shops, so an Americano is the next best option).

When he returned with the coffee, he asked me, “you’re not from here, are you?” I affirmed that I was not, and I heard myself say very defensively, “why?” “No reason,” he assured me. “Where you from?” he asked. “California,” I answered. “So you’re a tourist,” he said. “No,” I said, not smiling. “You live here?” he continued. I nodded, surprised at how unfriendly I was being. Having awkwardly but effectively ended the conversation, he retreated to the safety of the bar, and I focused on my unusually bitter Americano (symbolic?) and the book I was reading.

I felt a little bad as I scowled into my book, still wearing my sunglasses. Nothing the waiter had said or asked was all that out of the ordinary, and certainly not offensive. It’s not strange to ask people with accents where they are from. I wished that I’d been a little more friendly. But it also reminded me why it’s hard not to be in my country, where I wouldn’t be of any particular interest at any given coffee shop, where I don’t have to walk around waiting to be asked to explain myself. In the places I’ve lived in the United States, there is so much diversity that you’d have to be an alien to seem really different. There is much more diversity in Mexico than people realize, but it’s not a place where you hear many foreign accents. The only other accent I’ve heard here, besides my own, belongs to the man who sells Chinese food in the market, which he announces in Spanish with a Chinese accent. I grew up EXPECTING to hear accents from my friends’ parents, from nurses and doctors, from cashiers and hair stylists. The first time I heard an American accent coming from the speaker at a fast food drive through, I was 18, and I was shocked.

Anyway, I told the cashier to keep the change when I paid, and I went home.

After one week in class

I’ve made it through my first week of Master’s degree Boot Camp, and I’ve enjoyed both of  the classes so far–Text Interpretation and Introduction to Social Sciences. I’ve been very hesitant to speak, though, because I know that I’m nervous, and nervous Rachel (no, not Ranchel…as I’m STILL listed on the attendance sheet) speaks pretty bad Spanish. Luckily, we’ve got a few of what my mom likes to call “red hots”–those folks who eagerly will volunteer any thought that comes into their head, for the benefit of the rest of us (if you missed the sarcasm, I actually find this behavior rather irritating). But I think that as I feel more comfortable with the program and my classmates, I’ll participate more. I know it’s hard to imagine that I could be shy, but as I’ve said before, speaking a language that’s not your own is a pretty quick way to lose your confidence.

There are some new things to get used to, of course, besides the language barrier. Basically, we are responsible for obtaining the readings–getting the copies made, that is. Since there’s no system in place, for every new reading, we either make a plan that someone will make copies for everyone, or we don’t make a plan, and then it’s every student for his or her respective self. So far, this has meant two extra trips (from home) to the campus library to get copies made. I find it to be a very inefficient system, but there is some benefit to shifting the burden from professor to student–we will take the effort to do it cheaply. The “course packets”  of photocopied articles that we had to buy in college were exorbitant–far more expensive than a book. And when the professor provided copies, I’m guessing that our sky-high tuition was paying for that in some way. So even though it’s annoying, spending a few dollars a week and some extra schlepping on copies is still saving a lot of money in the long run.

Another change is that the content that we’re learning is very structured. Because we are all in the same program (Regional Studies) and taking the same classes, it is actually possible to start everyone with the same foundation of the most basic basics! We are learning about the scientific method, the most mundane details of exactly how to conduct an investigation–it seems overly formal to me, but it’s also making me realize how different a U.S. education is. Since we had so much freedom in our selecting our classes, any given group of students came to the table with a huge range of previous experience. Very little time was spent on HOW to do things–you just had to figure it out as you went along. Even the academic books I was reading at the end of college, though they were organized, they were not rigidly structured. Being forced to adopt these structures is probably good for me, even if it doesn’t end up being the way I do things forever.

However, the structure we’re asked to maintain in our academic work does not correlate to a well-organized program. In general, we’ve been kept very much in the dark about what classes we will have, and when, and only one professor has provided a syllabus, which was instantly out of date when the administration made schedule changes. Not to mention that classes started almost a month late! This makes it really difficult to plan things in advance: there is no yearlong academic calendar, no indication of when final papers will be due, or when vacations will be. Paco’s experienced similar things in his program, so I know that it’s not unique to my (potential) school. I’m trying to go with the flow instead of being frustrated about something that’s totally out of my control. One week at a time!

And now some thoughts on immigration from…the Ayn Rand Institute?

Well, I don’t know too much about Ayn Rand. I’ve never read her books, and I am not sure that I want to. She sounds like an intriguing person, but from what I’ve read about her, I would expect the views coming from her Institute to be ones I wouldn’t agree with (their goals being “to promote the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism”). But I found my way to a video of the President of the Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, offering his views on immigration. (Video 1 and Video 2).

Arguing that the government’s role should be limited to protecting citizens from bodily harm, Brook advocates an open-border policy that allows anyone to enter legally except “terrorists,” “criminals” and “people with infectious diseases.” He reasons that Americans’ hiring decisions should not be regulated, and the government is not responsible for creating or protecting jobs. By opening border crossings broadly, only those who fall into the categories of terrorists, criminals, and people with infectious diseases, would attempt to cross illegally. This smaller group could be more easily kept out (Brook suggests shooting at them), thus maintaining national security. He adds that migrants with high levels of education could more easily enter the United States, a boon to U.S. industry. Brook also says:

I believe that people who are today struggling and fighting to go to the United States are acting heroically. My standard of heroism is a person trying to make the best life they can for themselves. And a pregnant woman in Mexico who wants a better life for her child, and therefore is willing to struggle and do what it takes today to cross the border illegally into the United States, is heroically trying to make her life and her child’s life better by coming to America. I don’t think that should be condemned. I think, indeed, that should be praised. She’s a hero…by coming to the best country on Earth to make the best life that you can in the world today.

I agree that legal immigration should be more inclusive. But I don’t agree with Brook’s argument, nor his specifications on how to prevent illegal immigration.

First, this speech sugarcoats–or actually, completely omits–the reality of what it means to be a migrant from a poor country in the United States. Under his plan, though migrants would have legal status, the same stance that gives Americans that right to hire whoever they want would also allow U.S. employers to pay their workers whatever they want, or treat them however they want. Undocumented workers labor without the benefit of protection from the government–the minimum wage does not apply, nor do fair labor practices. Employers can insist on twelve hour days, seven days a week. With a hands-off government, even legal migrants would have no leverage to demand reasonable work conditions.

Second, I find Brook’s solution to discriminate between safe and unsafe migrants at best facile. How would migrants prove their lack of a criminal background? I’d imagine it would have to be some government document–another opportunity for a barrier-building bureaucracy. I’m not very impressed with U.S. officials’ ability to identify terrorists thus far, and it would certainly be very difficult to develop a mechanism to identify people as non-terrorists on a broad scale. And “infectious diseases”? Does he mean people with a cold?  I could see this very easily be used as grounds to discriminate against HIV-positive individuals. That Brook could comment offhand that these people should be shot on sight–well, that plain disturbs me. He explains that these groups are not permitted entry for the danger they represent to American citizens. Yet in “weeding out” the undesired migrants, he proposes an impractical system easily manipulated to discriminate and exclude.

Despite these critiques, what Brook promotes something that is, in many ways, pretty close to what I believe in: straightforward and inclusive legal immigration. So why would I feel uncomfortable calling him an ally? I think the answer lies in the paragraph I quoted above. Ultimately, in this schema of “individual rights,” some individuals are more worthy than others. Brook justifies allowing migration by saying that it benefits American citizens: it’s good for the economy, improves national security, gives us freedom to hire whoever we want. The benefits of migration to the migrant are not relevant or convincing to his audience, who believe passionately in the pursuit of their own self-interest.

The potentially redeeming image of the pregnant Mexican woman is not an affirmation of the dignity of trying to provide for a family. Instead, it ennobles the migrant for aspiring to the superior reality that is the United States. He lauds the woman for realizing the merit of “the best country on Earth” and leaving behind the lesser land she came from. She is affirming the righteousness of Americans’ individual rights by seeking Americanness herself. The possibility that she imagines a good life for her child in Mexico–made secure by wages she earned in the United States–is not discussed, for it would confound Brook’s nationalist underpinnings.

And for this Mexican migrant, when individual rights come into conflict, hers will lose out. The American employer who underpays and overworks her is only exercising his individual rights, after all. And if she doesn’t stand for it, of course the employer has the right to hire someone who will. Because the employer has more power to start with, the employer’s individual rights always will have more clout.

What I do know about Ayn Rand is that her fervent belief in capitalism had much to do with early, unhappy years in the Soviet Union that turned her forever against Communism or anything that looked remotely like it. Ayn Rand was an immigrant of the “melting pot” type: she assimilated to the language, changed her name, economic system, and cultural traits of “mainstream” white Americans. Because in her worldview the pursuit of personal wealth is the noblest human activity, economically-motivated migration is ideologically impossible to oppose. But the logic of capitalism, for all the rags-to-riches stories it makes possible, is heartless. Though hard work can lead to wealth, billions of humans work very hard and earn very little. Capitalism isn’t the least bit fair. By refusing to acknowledge the injustice of an individual rights/capitalist system–however “well” it may work compared to other economic models–the Ayn Rand philosophy must also discriminate to make itself valid.

In the name of “Reason,” Brook invokes an open immigration policy not out of compassion for migrants, but as a confirmation of the goodness that is American capitalism. It is self-serving, which is just fine by Ayn Rand, who hopes that everyone will act selfishly. But without a level playing field, the idea of  “individual rights” condones and exacerbates gross injustice. Heroism is acting bravely on behalf of others, and not even Brook can deny this totally. After all, it is the unborn child in his heroine’s womb that makes her border crossing truly admirable–she acts not only for herself, but also, or mostly, for her baby’s sake.

I am very curious to read your reactions to this–criticism encouraged!

“Here come the new chickens”

As I walked into the small research institute where I’m beginning M.A. Boot Camp, someone called out to a professor entering ahead of me, “the new chickens are already here.” She was referring to the new students who, like me, had made it past the preliminary selection rounds and now had to make it through the pre-Master’s course to gain full admission. Fowl-like, we entered a classroom, avoided eye contact, and waited for something to happen. Then our first teacher walked into the door. The subject? English.

I was feeling extraordinarily nervous of how I would explain that I was actually a native English speaker and might not need English classes. I hadn’t said anything yet, so no one knew that I wasn’t Mexican. The teacher asked us to say what our undergrad degrees were in and what our level of English was. The teacher called out my middle name, and I said, “no, it’s Rachel.” “Oh,” she answered, “it says Ranchel here on the paper.” I said that I had a degree in Latin American Studies and I was from California, and my native language was English. “Oh,” said the teacher, “well, I’ll find out if you actually have to take this course.” But first, I had to take a section of the TOEFL, just to prove that I really didn’t need a brush up in English reading comprehension.

I finished the test a good half an hour before my classmates. It was pretty easy, but not that much easier than reading comprehension on the SAT or GRE. Later, the teacher told me that she had indeed gotten permission to excuse me from the class, and that she’d graded my exam. “Well, you did miss two,” she explained, “but I’ll write you a letter saying that you have English proficiency.” I nodded. This means that I am spared from 6 hours of class each week during boot camp, which is definitely a good thing.

But it was such an emotionally confusing series of events. I felt embarrassed to be a native speaker, and then I felt indignant that I had to take a test of English as a Foreign Language administered by someone who isn’t a native speaker herself. I certainly didn’t put up any fuss, but it seemed silly, and since the rest of the classes will be conducted in Spanish–not my native language–and I’ll always be at a disadvantage, it would be nice if people trusted that there was a language I actually do speak fluently and without a foreign accent. But it’s also not necessary to take it personally: I think that it’s more that there isn’t a bureaucratic protocol for dealing with foreign students, so the professors don’t really know what to do with me and my different background. Even knowing that, I still didn’t like feeling singled out and different on the first day of school.

After English class, we had a 3 hour long class on research methods. We spent about two hours talking about everyone’s projects, and then an hour talking about how to cite sources. I can’t sit in class for more than two hours without becoming absolutely desperate to escape, and I was starving, so the discussion on where to put hyphens, what to underline, how to list multiple authors, and other fascinating intricacies of the Bibliography, was pretty much lost on me. Fervently hoping that no one would ask me any questions or otherwise detain me as I left the classroom, I raced to the store, bought a pack of cookies, and introduced Almighty Sugar into my bloodstream as I rode the bus back home.

Before classes started, I had expressed my doubts about the program to Paco. In September, I went to another program’s boot camp for three days, and I hated it so much that I never went back. He said, “you expect things here to be the same as what you’re used to, but they aren’t going to be. If you want to learn about education in Mexico, doing a Master’s program here is a good way to learn.” I think this makes a great deal of sense. But if I miss the way things worked in college, is that because I can’t adjust to a different country’s way of doing things? Is it a sign of ra-ra pro-Americanism? If I can’t sit through five straight hours of class, is it because I’m too impatient, or because two hour lectures were the longest classes given in college?

Seeing my limitations laid bare, struggling to coax initiative or motivation out of myself, and grappling with uncertainty about what I want to be doing–according to Paco, “this is just what happens after college.”  I always thought that I wasn’t going to be one of those lost souls with a B.A.! Never say never.

I told Paco that the most fun part of the day had been the children’s puppet show I saw in the city’s main plaza while killing time before classes started. I talked about the laughing schoolkids, the colorful puppets, the funny skits. “Maybe you should watch puppet shows instead of getting a Master’s,” he teased me. “Or maybe I should sign up for elementary school instead of grad school,” I added.

If you understand Spanish, check out this little documentary on the puppet theater group I saw:

Halloween and Día de los Muertos Report

I thought I’d post an update on the holiday weekend from October 31 to November 2.

There were a few kids in Halloween costumes on the 31st, and in the evening, I heard a group of children chanting “queremos Halloween,” which means “we want Halloween!” but I think is meant to stand in for “trick or treat.” I really hoped that they wouldn’t go knocking on our door wanting some Halloween, since I had nothing sugary to give.

Paco explained to me that it was traditional to set up the Day of the Dead altar on the evening of the 31st. Being far from our families and their photo collections, we printed out whatever photos of deceased relatives we had on the computer. Interestingly, we both had pictures of our great-great-grandparents, and the two sets don’t look all that different–same serious expressions, stuffy wool suits, and weathered faces.

As I mentioned before, you are supposed to offer foods that your ancestors enjoyed. We didn’t really know enough about our great-great-grandparents’ tastes, so we set out a basket of fruit, a glass of water, and a small cup of pox (pronounced posh, with a long o), a homemade liquor made in the indigenous highland region where Paco was born and raised.  “Who doesn’t like fruit?” we reasoned.

I had a little more information to go on about my grandfather, who passed away when I was 10. It was family legend that he liked eating uncooked oatmeal, so I set out a little bowl of raw oats, laughing to myself that Paco might worry that I was descended from horses. I was thinking more about my grandfather,  realizing that things like his liking dry oats, or how he called me “Punky,” are really all I have to remember him by. All I have are the silly sorts of things that children notice because he died before I grew up. This only confirms why it is important to have a Day of the Dead–so that we can remember together, and remember more.

On Day of the Dead, I made pan de muertos, and it was quite successful. I used this recipe. It’s a slightly sweet, orange and anise flavored bread. I believe it’s traditional to put them on the altar, but we ate ours right away (ok, it was mostly me).

And, to be honest, that was pretty much how the Hallowed Weekend ended. Paco went back to studying, and I continued on my quest to watch as many movies as possible (the joys of unemployment!). It’s hard to celebrate such a family-oriented holiday in a city where we don’t have family. I could have ventured to the local cemetery, but I would have felt uncomfortable spying on people. It’s moments like that when the isolation of having moved to another country seems most profound. Although Paco has some friends here, he too is far from home. In many ways, Guadalajara is almost as different from his home town as it is from mine.

But I wouldn’t want to end on a lonely note! On the last day of a weekend celebrating the end of life, I found out about the possible start of something new. I’ll be starting classes on Monday as the final part of a selection process to be accepted into a Master’s program here. Perhaps my unhappy time as a non-student will be over! Of course, there will be plenty of blogging fodder as I begin this new adventure, so stay tuned.