We the People have experienced periodic waves of identity crisis ever since the early Nineteenth Century. With only a little effort that starting date can be pushed back to the time of the War of Independence or at least its immediate aftermath. The divisive subject then was that of national language: English or German. Both were spoken by a large percentage of the American public and it was believed that our American identity required reinforcement by the establishment of an official language.
While the issue finally faded, it left behind an unanswered question.
The question?
Simple, basic, and not yet fully answered. How can a new nation-state founded on an abstract set of ideas only ambiguously set forth in the Constitution--rather than a long shared history, culture, and geographic sense of place--fully develop a national sense of self?
The United States then and now is unique among the nation-states of the world by its having been founded in an instant of time on the flimsy basis of mere ideas rather than having evolved organically within a single people bound together by language, culture, shared space, and a common history. Exacerbating the uniqueness and its concomitant problems has been our status as a "nation of immigrants."
The predictable consequences of these features of uniqueness have been the bouts of national identity crisis and their companion, suspicion and hostility directed against the most recent arrivals. From the Order of the Star Spangled Banner nearly two hundred years ago to the assorted border vigilance groups today, our history has been marked by apprehension and loathing directed against those immigrant groups presumed to present a threat to a coherent, consensual understanding of national identity.
We the People have a fine historical record of assuming that Catholics, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Jews, Asians, and Hispanics would never "assimilate," embrace shared values, adopt community norms, speak English, and generally be-like-the-rest-of-us. From this We the People concluded repeatedly that immigration, particularly unchecked immigration, would rip our collective identity to shreds. With equal regularity We the People and those who (purportedly) represent us acted upon the assumptions and conclusion in order to control immigration so that national identity would not be put in peril.
The mythology of the threat presented by immigration overpowered other considerations regarding the roles played by immigrants in our collective life. At the same time the astigmatic focus on the immigrant-as-threat prevented effective consideration of the nature of our national identity and the relation between it and those who were newly come to our borders and shores.
Rather than deal with the basics of who-are-we?, debates over immigration reform have always been based upon matters of employment, social costs, community cohesiveness, and, quite openly before World War II, race. Proponents of restrictive immigration laws have focused on the need to assure jobs for the native-born, or the social disruption caused by clumps of non-English speaking peoples with habits, cultural expressions, and political values of foreign provenance. Those favoring liberalization have celebrated cultural, linguistic, and social diversity and have lauded the contributions made by immigrants to the collective wealth of our country.
Both sides have invoked justice, mercy, compassion, religious values, and moral considerations in the passionate pursuit of their cause. For more than a century the same arguments--even the same insults--have been deployed with only minor changes in wording. During the same period both major political parties have sought electoral advantage by either supporting or opposing restriction (or liberalization, as the position of the parties has reversed as dictated by the partisan reading of the contemporary zeitgeist.)
During all the many major fights over immigration the issue has not only possessed a foreign policy dimension, foreign governments have involved themselves both directly and indirectly in the domestic political battle. Over the generations the governments of China, Japan, Italy, and, more recently, Mexico and assorted Central and South American countries have invested diplomatic capital in the issue.
Nothing is different today as Senators Schumer and Graham outlined their bipartisan proposal for immigration reform to the approval of President Obama and legions prepare to demonstrate in Washington to demand immediate action. The proponents of reform including a form of earned amnesty for the eleven million or so illegal immigrants currently resident in the US have hauled out all the usual arguments adding only the long out of style issue of "race." Opponents are already loading the big guns with old ammunition of jobs-for-Americans and fear of social disruption.
In the not-so-distant background loiter the high-minded idealists of unlimited migration as a basic human right and the not-so-high-minded governments and elites of Latin American countries seeking to assure that the US remains the always available safety valve for their unemployed populations. Also standing in the near shadows are those of We the People who harbor a deep fear of change for whom the immigrant is the fiend, the "other" who embodies all the many causes of their fears.
If, as it generally is, the past is but prologue, the upcoming fight over immigration will be nasty, filled with vituperative attacks, appeals to both high morality and base self-interest. It will end in a result which is guaranteed to be completely unsatisfactory to the hard core on each side.
Most importantly, the fight will prove inconclusive as have been all similar immigration reform contests in the past. The reason for this conclusion is simply that any discussion of immigration which does not focus on the nature of the American identity and its recurrent crises misses the centrality of the matter.
Defining national identity is every bit as important as defining and maintaining territorial borders. Perhaps more so. Borders mark our periphery. National identity constitutes our very center, our heart and soul as a nation.
We had all best get a grip on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment