Accidental American: September 2009 Archives

Today and tomorrow, leaders of the Group of 20 Nations, or G-20, are meeting in Pittsburgh for the latest in a series of meetings intended to address the global economic crisis. The global recession has shifted the nature of these conversations; neoliberal policies, though not entirely discredited by global policymakers, are at least in retreat. On the agenda are items previously considered “anti-globalization”: supporting economic stimulus packages, repealing national subsidies on fossil fuels, restraining executive pay, increasing oversight on hedge funds, and boosting the voting power of key global South economies at the International Monetary Fund.

But these global leaders still don’t get it. A few tweaks to their unjust global economic order may end the recession for some, but it will not bring about recovery for the rest of us.

Numerous people-centered proposals do exist that would provide better economic opportunities both here in the United States and abroad.

Some good ideas were detailed in The Accidental American, coauthored by ColorLines publisher Rinku Sen.

Much of what passes for globalization in today’s public discourse is actually neoliberalism, or corporate deregulation writ large. Agreements like NAFTA repeat patterns of corporate movement that created similar hardships for working people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, only this time across the entire world. Proponents of neoliberal economics have berated Americans and others for being small-minded when they resist such corporate freedom.

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The holistic answer is to create a different kind of globalization. Here, too, there are many ideas and experiments from which we can learn. We can start by creating regional agreements, not just to benefit corporations and increase trade, but also to handle governance and public welfare. The key is to ease the movement of workers while equalizing social and political conditions.

Moroccan-born waiter Fekkak Mamdouh’s life was thrown into turmoil after September 11th, when Windows on the World, the restaurant he worked at in the World Trade Center, was destroyed. The book about his immigrant experience in the aftermath of September 11th provided the foundation for The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization by Rinku Sen and Fekkak Mamdouh (Berrett-Koehler 2008).

“Since September 11th, immigrants have been wrongly criminalized and scapegoated for allegedly posing a threat to national security and undermining economic opportunities of native-born Americans,” says Rinku Sen, executive director of Applied Research Center and publisher of ColorLines. “9/11 marked a shift in the politics of race and immigration that has prevented us from adopting a plan for legalization, much less overhauling our very broken system to allow immigration to benefit either the United States or immigrants themselves.”

Looking for a powerful reflection on immigration this September 11th? Check out The Accidental American website and read the discussion guide.

For more on reclaiming the immigration debate, both in language and on policy, see Rinku and Mamdouh's piece today on TheGrio.com, "Post-9/11 immigration debate needs shift in focus":

Immigrants do more than work. They raise families; they organize to improve life for the poor; they learn new skills and build communities. Yet, they are typically treated as expendably "illegal" even if they aren't.

Comprehensive immigration reform would leave the enforcement approach in place, while changing the status of millions of undocumented people. But a little bit of legalization won't cancel out the negative effects of enforcement. Twenty years from now, the undocumented population will grow again, and we will again debate how much legalization to offer.

The traditional pro-immigrant response to restrictionists has been to characterize immigrants as hard workers simply looking for a decent living. Though more benevolent, this narrative suggests that immigrants offer nothing more than a pair of hands available for picking, cleaning and writing computer code.

The economic argument is not the only reason we need an entirely new system. The one we have is terribly broken, especially for the vast majority of poor immigrants and immigrants of color. We need a system that eases people's movement rather than restricts it (thereby equalizing the power of immigrants in relation to their employers), one that isn't fixated on preserving some outdated notion of America as simply a white, Christian country.

Perhaps the most talked-about moment of President Obama's address to Congress last night followed the dismissal of rumors that the new health care plan would cover 'illegal immigrants.' Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was so outraged that he yelled, from the floor, "You lie!" In an instant, Wilson was willing to breach protocol, embarrass himself, and undermine his party — because he was so infuriated by the idea that Obama's plan might provide care to a certain group of people.

Why is our conversation around immigration so often driven to extremes, both of language and of policy? In this video, Rinku Sen takes the term 'illegal' to task, showing how it's been used to make us comfortable with the suffering and exploitation of millions of undocumented immigrants.

More in the Word! video series:

"Reverse Racism": Word Distracts from the Big WHite Elephant of Systemic Racism
"Colorblind": Word Twists Good Intentions
"Merit": Word Hijacks the Conversation Around Race