Immigrant Scapegoating is Nonsense

I’ve spent nearly my entire life living among and working with immigrants and foreign nationals. Even though we lived in a black neighborhood, my pre-school and early elementary years through 3rd grade were spent at a primarily Latino school near my mother’s work. There were five black kids at the school: me, my two older brothers, and Tommy and Sheila. I loved being there. I loved the food, the language, the culture, the teachers, and my many friends. School was easy and fun for me. We moved and I spent 4th – 6th grade among the children of Asian immigrants, primarily Japanese and Korean. There too, I had a great time, and it was there that I developed an appreciation for academic rigor and Asian foods. I saw how differently Asian households were run and developed an appreciation for the emphasis placed on organization and learning. Once again, there were only a few black kids at the school, but it didn’t matter; I was having a great time with my new Asian friends.

I spent my first year of middle school with those Asian friends among huge numbers of Jewish students. The academic rigor remained high along with high expectations and I liked it. And then we moved again. I spent the rest of middle school with kids who looked like me, black. That was by choice. For once, I wanted to know what it was like to not be the minority in a school setting. What I learned was that black school culture was fun-loving, creative, athletic, often disorderly, but also not very academically inclined. I could sense the low expectations. Consequently, I was so far ahead academically that they placed me in honors courses with the only white students in the school and several other highly motivated black students.

I excelled among my peers, and it was at that school that I was tested and accepted into the “gifted” program along with two of my black classmates. That official designation actually helped shape my high school career at a school where I was once again one of only a few blacks, but this time among a sea of white students. I was only allowed to enroll in honors and AP courses because I was a state identified “gifted” student, a fact my mother had to point out to them. None of my black friends were in any of my classes. Still, I had a great time at the school and excelled socially, athletically, and academically. Upon graduation I was voted “Best Personality” and “Most Outgoing” along with being the valedictorian. I often say that I am an introvert, but I am not shy. I easily welcome people from a variety of cultural backgrounds because I grew up in such diverse settings. I’ve learned that “people” are “people”, some worthy of friendship and some not. But my assessment of friendship status is never dependent on skin color nor nationality. Character matters most. The proximity to immigrant communities helped me view all people as human beings deserving of dignity and respect, not threats nor enemies unless their individual character proved otherwise. This grace has never been extended to black people.

I know the U.S. has given black skin a bad reputation and I have had to overcome that reputation many times. I’m still doing it. I like to think that my presence among immigrants and people from other ethnic groups forces them to question their prejudice against black people. During my academic education, I would learn about Allport’s Intergroup Contact Theory as an effective way to reduce prejudice. And I ran with it!

My curiosity about other people and cultures only grew throughout the years. I studied abroad twice. I traveled extensively to other countries. I was determined to break down prejudices by promoting cross-cultural interactions among people, particularly students who would one day run the world. I earned a master’s degree and then a doctorate in education because I loved bringing domestic students together with students from all over the world for learning, collaborations, leadership training, and mutual understanding. I worked in International Admissions, Study Abroad, Multicultural Programs, as an adjunct professor, as Chief Diversity Officer and director of International Student Services for the final years of my career. It was purposeful and fulfilling work.

It was through my career working with U.S. immigration and foreign nationals (both documented and undocumented) that I learned first-hand how broken and contradictory our immigration system really is. For many years, the system has been rigged to provide employers with cheap, exploitable labor to keep consumer prices low. By design, our country has allowed many more than the inadequate number of legal migrants to enter the country undocumented to fill the unskilled, labor-intense jobs that employers need filled. I’ve found it ridiculous how U.S. Consulars issue visas only to students whom they believe will return to their home country after graduation, but then our government offers ways to keep them here to take advantage of their family wealth or the knowledge and expertise they gained in our universities, forging a predictable path from degree to citizenship. I’ve had rich students pay their way to citizenship while others take the post-graduation work visa path. Many of my former international students are now U.S. citizens raising their own families here in the U.S. Every now and then, I’ve felt pangs of guilt for the wealth and brain drain we’ve inflicted on developing nations by keeping them here. Some of the richest, smartest and most talented students could have contributed much to the development of their home countries if we didn’t entice them to remain here.

Of course, the U.S. would not be the economic and innovative powerhouse it has become had it not been for the wealth, brains, innovation, work ethic, and contributions of immigrants. Generally speaking, they work hard, certainly harder than U.S. workers and immigrant students are more likely to major in the STEM fields that U.S. students shy away from. They pay taxes. They commit fewer crimes than Americans. And they are profoundly motivated to get ahead. They are eager to expand our cultural appreciation of different foods, traditions, and mindsets. This country was built by and is enriched by immigrants. So, I refuse to scapegoat them as responsible for people being unemployed, homeless, or high community crime rates. It was a lie that Haitians were eating the cats and dogs. It was a lie that countries were sending rapists and murderers and releasing insane folks into our communities. It was a lie that immigrants are taking away our jobs. Anyone who buys into Trump’s scapegoating of immigrants hasn’t spent much time with them.

The agenda of this current administration is to make America whiter and to promote white male dominance in all aspects of society even if they lack the competence, compassion, and the common sense to improve things. We are literally watching the destruction of science, history, social norms, and the Constitution itself. The dumbing down of America is here.

To accomplish the white “Christian” nationalist agenda, they are reversing the brain drain, encouraging smart, innovative and hard-working immigrants of color to leave the country or be deported. They are pushing our leading-edge scientists and scholars into the arms of other nations. They have made it excessively difficult, if not impossible for foreign students and scholars from India, China, Japan, Latin and Africa countries to come here. There is basically an immigration sign at our border that reads: Whites only. It’s no surprise that nearly 70,000 white South Africans have applied to enter the U.S. as “refugees” based on Trump’s invitation to alleviate a non-existent persecution problem. However, the whites they hope to attract in large numbers from European countries aren’t coming, even as tourists. They see the absurdity of white supremacy, female oppression, LGBTQ persecution, and anti-science platforms plaguing the U.S. and want no part of it. The U.S. is becoming the laughingstock of the developed world. Anyone who doubts this is in denial.

To be clear, without the positive energy, brain power, and work ethic immigrants provide, I predict a swift and certain decline in the position of the U.S. in the world. It’s already happening. We will be viewed as no different from North Korea because of our mad leader and possession of nukes, and no different from Afghanistan because of our repressive religious laws and oppression of women and LGBTQ people. And we will be just as isolated and considered just as backward and undeserving of respect as both of those countries.