Saturday, September 2, 2017

Trump and immigration (why I cannot agree to kick everyone out)

On Tuesday, the greatest American patriot ever, President Donald "He is Jesus--and he is going to save us from the wrath of God!" Trump is probably going to do his best to turn the United States of America back into the all-white 1950s version of America that his supporters voted for.

Yes, he is going to look at the Dreamers, those immigrants who were brought to this country as kids by their illegal immigrant parents, and say, "Yes, I realize that you have been raised in this country, and that you consider yourselves Americans, but my voters want a completely white America, so you are going to be deported. But don't worry, my supporters are also going to demand that blacks be sent back to Africa, and Asians sent back to China, and I bigly support the idea that they should be because none of them voted for me, and I must make America more white if I want to ensure that I am President-for-Life."

Or something like that.

(By the way, there are actually Trump supporters who want to deport all black people back to Africa, even though some of their families [black families, that is] have been living here since before the American Revolution....because you can't be a real American if you are not one hundred percent white. Exactly where in Africa, Trump supporters want to deport blacks to, is a little fuzzy.)

The idea held by Trump supporters, or at least this particular sub-set, is that illegal immigrants (and legal ones for that matter) are taking good paying jobs from honest white Americans.

Having worked alongside those in the Dreamer category, I have a bit of bad news for these white Americans---you didn't want the jobs when we offered them to you.

Yes, I said that white Americans will not accept the jobs that immigrants are doing. Or at least, not the type of jobs that I was trying to fill.

For the one person who does not know, I used to manage a restaurant of the fast food variety ("not fast food--good food fast" as one of the owners used to say).

I started out working in food service after failing high school (because my mom insisted that babysitting my siblings was more important than my homework), after being discharged from the military (because my father died in a truck accident, and I was supposed to go back home and take care of my siblings), and having no other option.

It was a horrible job. The hours were bad. You reeked of grease and smoke (and possibly onions). The pay was low as minimum wage law allowed. Your schedule could change at a moment's notice. ("Punch out--labor is too high, but don't leave--you will need to punch back in once the dinner rush starts.") And no white person with decent chances at better employment would ever take the job.

I worked alongside of people whose parents were illegal: some of which who were born in this country, others not. Many of them couldn't speak a word of Spanish. And they consider themselves Americans, not Mexicans.

Often I was the "token white guy," the only white guy working in a crew of forty or so. The other occasional white person often fell into a category that your typical stereotype Trump supporter would like to outlaw: poor college students, art school graduates, gays and lesbians--you know the type. 

And when I became a manager, quite honestly, I filled the jobs with who I could. Given the restrictions on pay and benefits, and the delightful working conditions, it was seldom that a white person would apply for a position that I was trying to fill.

(And I was trying to find employers for fast food--don't get me started about lettuce and fruit picking jobs that no white person is ever going to be willing to do.)

Plus, a good percentage of my customers were immigrants or children of immigrants--the non-white type.

(One of the reasons that I do not hold 9/11 against all Muslims is that I was managing a Greek restaurant at the time--and my Middle Eastern customers were more horrified by the terrorism than my white customers.)

So that is reason one about why I am automatically against kicking all the nasty immigrants out.

(By the way, one of the reasons that people insist that we must get rid of all the immigrants is that their neighborhoods are crime filled cesspools. I somehow missed all the crime--the worst danger I faced was that a girlfriend might insist that I become a Catholic. Oh wait, some "real" Americans consider being Catholic a crime, much like being a Muslim or a Jew, or for that matter, being a witch and pagan.)

Second reason is that I grew up in mixed race neighborhoods. Outside of visits to my parent's hometown in Nebraska, a brief stay in a trailer park (before I was seven), and five years in a northeast Colorado town (the whitest place I have ever been), I have always lived in mixed neighborhoods.

(The northeast Colorado town is why I was confident in my prediction that Trump would win the election--I lived with those people who embraced Trump--it was only a matter of time before they tried to stone me to death for my odd beliefs in diversity and religious choice.)  

For instance, when my father brought a place in the Five Points, there was two Hispanic families, two black families, a Polish family, a Chinese family, and us (German-Jew)--all within an one block radius. It is hard to embrace a pure white America when one spent most of one's afternoons at the black neighbors house (who I knew better than my own biological grandparents) watching reruns of Star Trek.

(Yes, Star Trek...one can assume that did not help any when it came to my adult views on immigration.)

And that level of racial diversity was also seen when my father took me to construction job sites.

Essentially, my life experience says that neighborhoods are supposed to be mixed race and culture. Yes, I know that I am committing a great sin not viewing all non-whites are the enemy, but what the heck, it is not like me being a German-Jew is a mark in my favor on the real white American scorecard.

Third and the most important reason that I am against kicking out all the immigrants (legal, illegal, Dreamers) and closing the borders to further immigration is: My wife is an ESL teacher. 

(ESL: English as a Second Language)

My household's bread and butter comes from the existence of immigrants in our society. My wife is working a second Master degree in this field. And she makes far more money than I ever will (because I chose to be a writer in a time where writing is no longer a viable career choice--if it ever was).

You kick out all the immigrants, and close the borders, to save American jobs--and my wife, a white American, loses her job. And that is just the tip of the iceberg of the effect that removing immigrants from the economy will have. (I could go into horrific detail....but if you are a Trump supporter who believes that your job went away because of an immigrant, nothing I can say will change your mind.)

And that reason alone, all by itself, is reason enough for me to be opposed to Trump's vision of a pure white America without immigrants in it. After all, all politics are local--and my own local household economy depends upon the existence of immigrants.

But my wife losing her livelihood is probably ok if you are a Trump supporter who hates and fears immigrants....because I imagine that if you desire an all-white immigrant-free America, then I also imagine that you want to burn me at the stake for not being the all-white church going Christian that all Americans should be--something about me being a pagan witch and the grandson of German-Jew immigrants that needs to be arrested and deported back to Germany, despite the fact that I have never lived in Germany--all because America is about white America, and not about the dreams of non-white immigrants seeking a better life. 

This is what America is supposed to look like according to Trump.

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