littleflute
commented
4 years ago 00:12 We often hear these days that the immigration system is broken. 00:16 I want to make the case today that our immigration conversation is broken 00:21 and to suggest some ways that, together, we might build a better one. 00:26 In order to do that, I'm going to propose some new questions 00:29 about immigration, 00:31 the United States 00:32 and the world, 00:33 questions that might move the borders of the immigration debate. 00:39 I'm not going to begin with the feverish argument that we're currently having, 00:43 even as the lives and well-being of immigrants are being put at risk 00:48 at the US border and far beyond it. 00:51 Instead, I'm going to begin with me in graduate school 00:54 in New Jersey in the mid-1990s, earnestly studying US history, 00:57 which is what I currently teach as a professor at Vanderbilt University 01:01 in Nashville, Tennessee. 01:03 And when I wasn't studying, 01:05 sometimes to avoid writing my dissertation, 01:07 my friends and I would go into town 01:10 to hand out neon-colored flyers, protesting legislation 01:15 that was threatening to take away immigrants' rights. 01:19 Our flyers were sincere, they were well-meaning, 01:22 they were factually accurate ... 01:24 But I realize now, they were also kind of a problem. 01:27 Here's what they said: 01:28 "Don't take away immigrant rights to public education, 01:33 to medical services, to the social safety net. 01:36 They work hard. 01:37 They pay taxes. 01:39 They're law-abiding. 01:41 They use social services less than Americans do. 01:45 They're eager to learn English, 01:47 and their children serve in the US military all over the world." 01:52 Now, these are, of course, arguments that we hear every day. 01:55 Immigrants and their advocates use them 01:59 as they confront those who would deny immigrants their rights 02:03 or even exclude them from society. 02:06 And up to a certain point, it makes perfect sense 02:09 that these would be the kinds of claims that immigrants' defenders would turn to. 02:14 But in the long term, and maybe even in the short term, 02:18 I think these arguments can be counterproductive. 02:21 Why? 02:23 Because it's always an uphill battle 02:25 to defend yourself on your opponent's terrain. 02:29 And, unwittingly, the handouts my friends and I were handing out 02:33 and the versions of these arguments that we hear today 02:37 were actually playing the anti-immigrants game. 02:40 We were playing that game in part by envisioning 02:43 that immigrants were outsiders, 02:45 rather than, as I'm hoping to suggest in a few minutes, 02:48 people that are already, in important ways, on the inside. 02:54 It's those who are hostile to immigrants, the nativists, 02:57 who have succeeded in framing the immigration debate 03:00 around three main questions. 03:03 First, there's the question of whether immigrants can be useful tools. 03:09 How can we use immigrants? 03:12 Will they make us richer and stronger? 03:17 The nativist answer to this question is no, 03:20 immigrants have little or nothing to offer. 03:24 The second question is whether immigrants are others. 03:30 Can immigrants become more like us? 03:34 Are they capable of becoming more like us? 03:37 Are they capable of assimilating? 03:39 Are they willing to assimilate? 03:41 Here, again, the nativist answer is no, 03:43 immigrants are permanently different from us and inferior to us. 03:49 And the third question is whether immigrants are parasites. 03:54 Are they dangerous to us? And will they drain our resources? 03:59 Here, the nativist answer is yes and yes, 04:02 immigrants pose a threat and they sap our wealth. 04:07 I would suggest that these three questions and the nativist animus behind them 04:11 have succeeded in framing the larger contours of the immigration debate. 04:15 These questions are anti-immigrant and nativist at their core, 04:20 built around a kind of hierarchical division of insiders and outsiders, 04:26 us and them, 04:28 in which only we matter, 04:31 and they don't. 04:33 And what gives these questions traction and power 04:36 beyond the circle of committed nativists 04:38 is the way they tap into an everyday, seemingly harmless sense 04:43 of national belonging 04:45 and activate it, heighten it 04:47 and inflame it. 04:50 Nativists commit themselves to making stark distinctions 04:55 between insiders and outsiders. 04:57 But the distinction itself is at the heart of the way nations define themselves. 05:02 The fissures between inside and outside, 05:06 which often run deepest along lines of race and religion, 05:11 are always there to be deepened and exploited. 05:15 And that potentially gives nativist approaches resonance 05:19 far beyond those who consider themselves anti-immigrant, 05:23 and remarkably, even among some who consider themselves pro-immigrant. 05:28 So, for example, when Immigrants Act allies 05:32 answer these questions the nativists are posing, 05:35 they take them seriously. 05:37 They legitimate those questions and, to some extent, 05:40 the anti-immigrant assumptions that are behind them. 05:44 When we take these questions seriously without even knowing it, 05:48 we're reinforcing the closed, exclusionary borders 05:51 of the immigration conversation. 05:55 So how did we get here? 05:56 How did these become the leading ways that we talk about immigration? 06:01 Here, we need some backstory, 06:02 which is where my history training comes in. 06:05 During the first century of the US's status as an independent nation, 06:11 it did very little to restrict immigration at the national level. 06:15 In fact, many policymakers and employers worked hard 06:17 to recruit immigrants 06:20 to build up industry 06:22 and to serve as settlers, to seize the continent. 06:26 But after the Civil War, 06:29 nativist voices rose in volume and in power. 06:35 The Asian, Latin American, Caribbean and European immigrants 06:40 who dug Americans' canals, 06:43 cooked their dinners, 06:44 fought their wars 06:46 and put their children to bed at night 06:48 were met with a new and intense xenophobia, 06:52 which cast immigrants as permanent outsiders 06:56 who should never be allowed to become insiders. 07:00 By the mid-1920s, the nativists had won, 07:02 erecting racist laws 07:04 that closed out untold numbers of vulnerable immigrants and refugees. 07:11 Immigrants and their allies did their best to fight back, 07:14 but they found themselves on the defensive, 07:16 caught in some ways in the nativists' frames. 07:20 When nativists said that immigrants weren't useful, 07:25 their allies said yes, they are. 07:28 When nativists accused immigrants of being others, 07:33 their allies promised that they would assimilate. 07:37 When nativists charged that immigrants were dangerous parasites, 07:43 their allies emphasized their loyalty, their obedience, 07:46 their hard work and their thrift. 07:50 Even as advocates welcomed immigrants, 07:53 many still regarded immigrants as outsiders to be pitied, to be rescued, 08:00 to be uplifted 08:02 and to be tolerated, 08:04 but never fully brought inside as equals in rights and respect. 08:11 After World War II, and especially from the mid-1960s until really recently, 08:17 immigrants and their allies turned the tide, 08:20 overthrowing mid-20th century restriction 08:23 and winning instead a new system that prioritized family reunification, 08:28 the admission of refugees 08:29 and the admission of those with special skills. 08:33 But even then, 08:34 they didn't succeed in fundamentally changing the terms of the debate, 08:39 and so that framework endured, 08:41 ready to be taken up again in our own convulsive moment. 08:47 That conversation is broken. 08:50 The old questions are harmful and divisive. 08:55 So how do we get from that conversation 08:58 to one that's more likely to get us closer to a world that is fairer, 09:02 that is more just, 09:04 that's more secure? 09:07 I want to suggest that what we have to do 09:09 is one of the hardest things that any society can do: 09:13 to redraw the boundaries of who counts, 09:17 of whose life, whose rights 09:20 and whose thriving matters. 09:23 We need to redraw the boundaries. 09:26 We need to redraw the borders of us. 09:31 In order to do that, we need to first take on a worldview that's widely held 09:36 but also seriously flawed. 09:39 According to that worldview, 09:41 there's the inside of the national boundaries, inside the nation, 09:45 which is where we live, work and mind our own business. 09:49 And then there's the outside; there's everywhere else. 09:53 According to this worldview, when immigrants cross into the nation, 09:57 they're moving from the outside to the inside, 10:00 but they remain outsiders. 10:03 Any power or resources they receive 10:07 are gifts from us rather than rights. 10:11 Now, it's not hard to see why this is such a commonly held worldview. 10:16 It's reinforced in everyday ways that we talk and act and behave, 10:20 down to the bordered maps that we hang up in our schoolrooms. 10:23 The problem with this worldview is that it just doesn't correspond 10:27 to the way the world actually works, 10:29 and the way it has worked in the past. 10:33 Of course, American workers have built up wealth in society. 10:38 But so have immigrants, 10:39 particularly in parts of the American economy that are indispensable 10:43 and where few Americans work, like agriculture. 10:46 Since the nation's founding, 10:48 Americans have been inside the American workforce. 10:53 Of course, Americans have built up institutions in society 10:59 that guarantee rights. 11:01 But so have immigrants. 11:02 They've been there during every major social movement, 11:06 like civil rights and organized labor, 11:08 that have fought to expand rights in society for everyone. 11:12 So immigrants are already inside the struggle 11:15 for rights, democracy and freedom. 11:19 And finally, Americans and other citizens of the Global North 11:24 haven't minded their own business, 11:26 and they haven't stayed within their own borders. 11:28 They haven't respected other nations' borders. 11:31 They've gone out into the world with their armies, 11:33 they've taken over territories and resources, 11:35 and they've extracted enormous profits from many of the countries 11:39 that immigrants are from. 11:42 In this sense, many immigrants are actually already inside American power. 11:49 With this different map of inside and outside in mind, 11:54 the question isn't whether receiving countries 11:57 are going to let immigrants in. 11:59 They're already in. 12:02 The question is whether the United States and other countries 12:04 are going to give immigrants access to the rights and resources 12:09 that their work, their activism and their home countries 12:13 have already played a fundamental role in creating. 12:18 With this new map in mind, 12:20 we can turn to a set of tough, new, urgently needed questions, 12:25 radically different from the ones we've asked before -- 12:29 questions that might change the borders of the immigration debate. 12:34 Our three questions are about workers' rights, 12:38 about responsibility 12:40 and about equality. 12:44 First, we need to be asking about workers' rights. 12:48 How do existing policies make it harder for immigrants to defend themselves 12:52 and easier for them to be exploited, 12:54 driving down wages, rights and protections for everyone? 12:58 When immigrants are threatened with roundups, detention and deportations, 13:02 their employers know that they can be abused, 13:04 that they can be told that if they fight back, 13:06 they'll be turned over to ICE. 13:09 When employers know 13:11 that they can terrorize an immigrant with his lack of papers, 13:16 it makes that worker hyper-exploitable, 13:18 and that has impacts not only for immigrant workers 13:21 but for all workers. 13:24 Second, we need to ask questions about responsibility. 13:28 What role have rich, powerful countries like the United States 13:31 played in making it hard or impossible 13:34 for immigrants to stay in their home countries? 13:38 Picking up and moving from your country is difficult and dangerous, 13:41 but many immigrants simply do not have the option of staying home 13:45 if they want to survive. 13:47 Wars, trade agreements 13:49 and consumer habits rooted in the Global North 13:51 play a major and devastating role here. 13:57 What responsibilities do the United States, 14:00 the European Union and China -- 14:02 the world's leading carbon emitters -- 14:04 have to the millions of people already uprooted by global warming? 14:11 And third, we need to ask questions about equality. 14:15 Global inequality is a wrenching, intensifying problem. 14:20 Income and wealth gaps are widening around the world. 14:23 Increasingly, what determines whether you're rich or poor, 14:26 more than anything else, 14:28 is what country you're born in, 14:30 which might seem great if you're from a prosperous country. 14:33 But it actually means a profoundly unjust distribution 14:37 of the chances for a long, healthy, fulfilling life. 14:43 When immigrants send money or goods home to their family, 14:46 it plays a significant role in narrowing these gaps, 14:49 if a very incomplete one. 14:51 It does more than all of the foreign aid programs 14:54 in the world combined. 14:58 We began with the nativist questions, 15:01 about immigrants as tools, 15:04 as others 15:05 and as parasites. 15:07 Where might these new questions about worker rights, 15:11 about responsibility 15:12 and about equality 15:14 take us? 15:16 These questions reject pity, and they embrace justice. 15:21 These questions reject the nativist and nationalist division 15:25 of us versus them. 15:27 They're going to help prepare us for problems that are coming 15:30 and problems like global warming that are already upon us. 15:35 It's not going to be easy to turn away from the questions that we've been asking 15:39 towards this new set of questions. 15:42 It's no small challenge 15:43 to take on and broaden the borders of us. 15:48 It will take wit, inventiveness and courage. 15:53 The old questions have been with us for a long time, 15:55 and they're not going to give way on their own, 15:58 and they're not going to give way overnight. 16:01 And even if we manage to change the questions, 16:04 the answers are going to be complicated, 16:06 and they're going to require sacrifices and tradeoffs. 16:10 And in an unequal world, we're always going to have to pay attention 16:13 to the question of who has the power to join the conversation 16:17 and who doesn't. 16:18 But the borders of the immigration debate 16:21 can be moved. 16:23 It's up to all of us to move them. 16:26 Thank you. 16:27 (Applause)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf3adAPotrM