Attitudes Towards Immigrants

I have a cool party trick. I can guess how people vote based on the way they relate to me. Right now, Ukraine is constantly on the news, and there are two kinds of reactions I get when people hear I’m from Ukraine.

1. “Ah, you are from Ukraine! Can you tell me what is going on there?” (This person always turn out to be a Republican).
2. “Ah, you are from Ukraine! Of course, what’s crucial to remember is that. . . [a long lecture ensues.]” (And this is usually a Democrat. If the lecture is especially long, loud, and obnoxious, it’s a Libertarian).

This started back in grad school. People who treated me like a regular human being all voted for Bush. And people who either ignored me or condescended to me all didn’t vote for Bush. This was a complicated situation for me since I detest Bush.

In general, Republicans are more comfortable with me as an immigrant. I can’t think of a single insult I got from them as an immigrant. But there have been many insults – and I mean, many – I got from Liberals. Strangely, the more Liberal they are, the more aggressive their insults get (“You are trash,” “immigrants like you are infecting the water supply in this country,” “you are a mail order bride,” “go back to your country,” “we didn’t ask you to come here,” “you are a tool of capitalist overlords,” “you don’t understand anything,” “it’s because of people like you,” “try to read something to get educated about our history,” “people in your country keep breeding without any concern for the environment*,” and my absolute favorite “you have no idea what things were like in the USSR” from somebody who obviously never visited the USSR or even the continent where the USSR was located).

There is this common misconception that Liberals support immigrants. The thing is, though, that many of them only support those immigrants whom they see on TV weeping at the border crossing. They don’t like us if we can’t be pitied or lectured to. And if we are confident, mouthy, successful, and unlikely to work for them as maids or gardeners, then they don’t really like us. And this is precisely why the cause of giving work visas to graduates of Master’s and PhD programs is championed in the Congress by Republicans.

I’m a citizen of Canada, so I don’t vote in the US. But if I did, I would obviously vote Democrat. What is sad, though, is that many among the people I’d vote for and with have a visceral rejection of me and my way of being as an immigrant.

* Birth rates in Ukraine are lower than in the US.

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44 responses to “Attitudes Towards Immigrants”

J. Otto Pohl

December 31, 2014

I find this funny, because in my experience it is true. I have the germs of a theory on it. But, basically having no knowledge is a lot better than having wrong knowledge. You can do a lot with a tabula raza faster than having to tear down preconceived falsehoods. This is also the reason I am much more optimistic about the future of Ghana than the future of Kyrgyzstan. In the first place the British left almost nothing. In the second place the Soviets left a lot of stuff that needs to be discarded before they can even start moving towards the 21st century.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014
“This is also the reason I am much more optimistic about the future of Ghana than the future of Kyrgyzstan. In the first place the British left almost nothing. In the second place the Soviets left a lot of stuff that needs to be discarded before they can even start moving towards the 21st century.”
- Very interesting!
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aglaonika

December 31, 2014

““You are trash,” “immigrants like you are infecting the water supply in this country,” “you are a mail order bride,” “go back to your country,” “we didn’t ask you to come here,” “you are a tool of capitalist overlords,” “you don’t understand anything,” “it’s because of people like you,” “try to read something to get educated about our history,” “people in your country keep breeding without any concern for the environment*,””

How fucking liberal… Are these online or offline conversations? Because the Liberals I know would never dare do this face to face.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014

Both. But to be fair, most of these in person conversations were not taking place amid extreme sobriety. 🙂

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aglaonika

December 31, 2014

I read a few months ago in the British news that the police arrested a fascist internet troll who threatened many immigrants, foreigners and minorities online. Everybody was quite surprised when they found out that he was an older university professor with Liberal values.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014

I’m among those who wouldn’t be surprised. 😦

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Stringer Bell

December 31, 2014

Most of my interactions with americans are uneventful. I live in southern california, and in an university setting, so people around me are used to being social with people who don’t look like them.

The interactions that I find weird come in the following flavors:

‘Oh, you’re from India? Namaste. I was there once on a short trip. I love your food. Have you checked out the latest Amir Khan film? OMG I love Bollywood. Hollywood is so shitty.’ Now, it’s all very innocuous but this not somebody who’s trying to connect with me as a person. This person has no interest in me and is just using me as an opportunity to broadcast to the rest of the room that they’re cool, urbane, well-traveled, culturally aware, etc. I stay away from these narcissists.
‘Oh, you’re from India? Could you teach me about Hinduism? You guys have it all figured out. See, I have a tattoo that says ‘Om Shanti’ in Sanskrit, isn’t that cool? It’s so nice to have an exotic friend (actual words spoken to me by someone who identifies as a hardcore Obama-devotee)’. These are narcissists, but also very very dumb.
‘You’re unlike most Indians I know’. This is not a compliment. This person’s idea of Indian people comes mostly from watching TV and movies.

All the weird interactions I’ve described above happen with liberals. I think Republicans are terrified of saying the wrong thing and being called racist, so they end up being more interesting to talk to, as they drive the conversation to neutral topics. Which is great! Whereas, liberals are so fucking confident about their knowledge of the world that all they can talk about is your country, your food, your culture. ‘You should really try out ‘Delhi Palace’, they make the most authentic saag paneer that I’ve ever tasted’. Jesus christ, just shut the fuck up.

Liberals are world champions at exoticizing and fetishizing other cultures.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014

For me it’s a Ukrainian girlfriend. Everybody, and I mean everybody, seems to have had a Ukrainian girlfriend. Seeing as the Ukrainian community in the US is not that huge, I’ve started to suspect that it’s the same woman who travels a lot around the country.

Seriously, though, what can I possibly respond to the cheerful, “Ah, you are from Ukraine! I had (my brother / my neighbor / my roommate, etc.) a Ukrainian girlfriend!” Especially since it is almost invariably followed with “Or was she Serbian?”

You’d think Ukrainians would be confused with Russians or Poles but no, it is always the Serbs. Why that is mystifies me completely.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014
“See, I have a tattoo that says ‘Om Shanti’ in Sanskrit, isn’t that cool? It’s so nice to have an exotic friend”
- This happened to me, too. 🙂 People do think that calling me exotic is a compliment. This was especially frequent when I was still on the dating market. It was also frequently followed by the question, “Is it true that European women don’t shave their armpits?”
“‘You’re unlike most Indians I know’. This is not a compliment.”
- With over a billion people living in India, the idea that there is a single image of what an Indian is like is quite bizarre.
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1. Clarissa
  
  December 31, 2014
  “Liberals are world champions at exoticizing and fetishizing other cultures.”
  
  There is also this extremely obnoxious way of showing off one’s cultural sophistication which consists of people sharing their recipe of borscht (that their Ukrainian girlfriend taught them, obviously) with me and trying to have a discussion about it. I mean, I love borscht, but I’m a fairly well-read, interesting person. I can talk about a wide variety of things. I don’t want to be reduced to borscht.
  
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2. aglaonika
  
  January 1, 2015
  
  “You’re unlike most Indians I know’. This is not a compliment.”
  
  I also frequently get “You’re unlike other immigrants”. Then the idiots begin to scold other immigrants to me with the same cliches they most likely scold me behind my back. What’s the difference, really? Maybe next time I will try out “You are not like the other Brits who are dumb, fat, arrogant, and stole all of their money during the colonization. But you are so different, you’re not like them at all”. We will see if it’s really a compliment or not.
  
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  1. J. Otto Pohl
    
    January 1, 2015
    
    I am so glad I have never been an immigrant. 😎
    
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    1. aglaonika
      
      January 1, 2015
      
      How did you do that smiley with the sunglasses? I can only do 🙂 and 😀 and 😦 and 😛
      
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      1. J. Otto Pohl
        
        January 1, 2015
        
        The sunglasses are the number eight followed by a dash and paranthesis for the smile. 😎
        
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        aglaonika
        
        January 1, 2015
        
        😎 Thanks. This is the most important thing I’ve learned in 2015 until today. 😎
        
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  2. Clarissa
    
    January 1, 2015
    
    It’s the old “You are not like other women” strategy. Annoying as hell.
    
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Crystallizing Chaos

December 31, 2014

This was very interesting for me. I haven’t had such experiences at all! But I think I can attribute it to mostly hanging out with other immigrants.

I once had a liberal be surprised that I knew something from the Ecclesiastes. And then I had a conservative be surprised that I knew the story of Jesus.

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leahladygrey

December 31, 2014

The last time I interacted with conservatives when they were around immigrants was in Montana. The two dominant immigrant groups at my school were Saudi men and Japanese women. The conservatives would always talk about business in the respective countries with them both. Liberals would talk at them about women’s rights in each country.
Then of course, there’s my conservative stepfather, who nicknamed the Ukrainian tenant in our house “KGB” after hearing her speak Russian on the phone to her mother, but I like to think he’s an outlier of awful behavior.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014

You can be a representative of a new generation of liberals who do things differently. Especially since you are also an immigrant. 🙂

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1. leahladygrey
  
  December 31, 2014
  
  I think being an immigrant myself definitely helped me, because I know that immigrants are human beings who generally believe in risk and self-improvement, not pity objects being buffeted by the winds of American political decisions. 😉
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    December 31, 2014
    
    One of the weirder things that happened to me was that my agenda of what I saw as adapting to the modern, new situation, was ideologically attacked so heavily. I was just trying to please and appease, but people saw in this something very sinister. They accused me of playing games with them and trying to be what I am not and of not knowing who I am and of deserving punishment. And this is the weird thing, that by going out of my way to do what I imagined was expected, I invited these attacks.
    
    I saw on a YouTube video recently the principle that if people feel they have a moral obligation to you but they do not have a legal obligation, they will resent you heavily and punish you to vent their feelings. I suspect, once again, that people feel they need to have this nefarious “other” colonial identity to measure themselves against, and when I do not present myself to them as evil, they become outraged.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      December 31, 2014
      
      ” I suspect, once again, that people feel they need to have this nefarious “other” colonial identity to measure themselves against, and when I do not present myself to them as evil, they become outraged.”
      
      You are denying people the right to articulate an identity, which they are only capable of doing in opposition to your imagined evilness. Thai is just cruel on your part. 🙂
      
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      1. musteryou
        
        December 31, 2014
        
        I think it is more like they need to shit and I am denying them a toilet. They need to go and find a nice forest somewhere.
        
        Seriously, just about the whole of Western leftism is maintained on this false construct, which is why it is so terribly inept;.
        
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2. Jones
  
  December 31, 2014
  
  [cough] Red Tories [cough]
  
  🙂
  
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musteryou

December 31, 2014

No wonder I also developed a fear of those on the liberal-left. Which is weird because I am very, very liberal. I think had I been more conservative and only associated with those who were so, I would have had a much easier time in my life.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014

Same here! I cherish my liberal beliefs but real-life progressives are tricky for me.

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1. musteryou
  
  December 31, 2014
  
  I know that I used to come across weirdly to some people because the left-liberals themselves have a self-image that they are fluffy and very harmless, but it is much more complicated than this. A lot of them have a strong feeling that they are trying to get rid of the fascist without and the fascist within. And they are very confused about fascism. Even professors and other types who should know more, do not really understand fascism. I know there was a common misunderstanding in the industrialized West that the war in Rhodesia was fought over racism and that nazi types would be welcome there as mercenaries. But the conservatism of Rhodesia, although far right, was more akin to Leave it to Beaver than German or Italiam fascism. The image formed by people in the industrialized West was, for the most part, very, very wrong indeed. It is as if they had aggregated all their evil in one spot and said, “We hate our colonial selves and we consider it to be fascism.” As a result of this confusion about identities (and as I have implied there was also a hell of a lot of projection) I had to cope with a very confusing psychological and social terrain. It was so intense and in a way just so ongoing that I really lost sight of who I really was, or had been, growing up in Africa. I started to take on the idea that I must be an evil “fascist”. In fact I found a lot of defensive ability in embracing this extreme and false image that was projected onto me. It was like if a lot of mice appeared together and kept asserting, “You must be a very vicious cat with very fine hunting capabilities!” Realy it was quite laughable the way people kept giving me power, although initially, before I had figured out what was going on, I did get pretty much pulverised. Because if a lot of mice have decided that you are a very vicious cat with proficient capabilities for hunting them, you had better turn out to be that way, or else they are going to make you suffer — I mean to the extent that you are vulnerable.
  
  In any case, progressives, up to this point, seem to desire and demand and require ‘fascism’ and they have often required it from me — not real fascism, but hunting prowess. They are alarming stupid and lacking in psychological self-awareness, which is why I keep insisting that they need to come to terms with their colonial roots — their shadow side. Up until now, they haven’t done so, I assure you.
  
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  1. Z
    
    December 31, 2014
    
    See my comment below — the immigrants who get on my case are always liberals or leftists. They are needing, I suppose, to destroy a fascist? Feeling ambivalent because they have wanted to move to the belly of the beast, for the sake of certain pleasures and other advantages to be had, but not sure it was the right move (or pose) ethically?
    
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  2. J. Otto Pohl
    
    January 1, 2015
    
    Granted Rhodesia became Zimbabwe under Mugabe when I was only about ten. But, I don’t ever recall hearing or reading except in a few hyperbolic communist publications that Ian Smith was a Fascist comparable to Hitler or even Mussolini during the 1980s when I started taking an interest in international affairs. Rather the standard line I recall in the literature was that it was a White minority government that denied equal political rights to most of the Black majority. In so far as it was compared to other political systems the comparisons was to South Africa under apartheid which for all its flaws wasn’t Fascist either. Then again I grew up around pretty staunch conservative Republicans.
    
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    1. musteryou
      
      January 1, 2015
      
      People these days are so ignorant of history. Anybody in Africa has a much more nuanced understanding of Ian Smith than those in the industrialized West, whose views have tended to be very abstract — very “good versus evil”.
      
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NancyP

December 31, 2014

There’s a good reason that business-minded Republicans, and for that matter, non-business-minded liberal academicians, want to grant more visas to highly educated immigrants. One can hire appropriately qualified immigrants for lower salaries in the initial stages of employment (Republicans) or can hire better (immigrant) people for so-so salaries (academic). Science and engineering careers tend not to pay as much as finance careers, and the highly skilled Americans will tend to take their math skills to brokerage houses rather than engineering firms, their biology skills to medical schools and then practices rather than the perpetual post-doc careers available in academic biomedical sciences.

I am pretty insular. I ask university-associated immigrants about home-town, province/state, schools/postgraduate studies/training, and how the immigrant is dealing with the lousy weather in STL. From that point on – shop talk, except for the occasional “favorite food/recipe” conversation at pot-lucks. I don’t consider this liberal or conservative behavior – just the usual “doctors all stand in one corner and talk shop at parties” behavior. To the rest of the world, we are crashing bores.

Your snowflake theme background has an interesting behavior – snowflakes change direction if you move the mouse.

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Clarissa

December 31, 2014
“Your snowflake theme background has an interesting behavior – snowflakes change direction if you move the mouse.”
- I know! On this blog, you can control the snow! 🙂
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1. Jones
  
  December 31, 2014
  
  I still want to be able to control the snow in the manner of playing the video game “Asteroids” on your blog. 🙂
  
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xykademiqz

January 1, 2015

about home-town, province/state, schools/postgraduate studies/training, and how the immigrant is dealing with the lousy weather in STL.

I hate being asked about my origins. Most people don’t even know what to do with that information (they don’t actually know where I am from, they think it’s some other country, or they remember something nasty about it). I wish we could just talk about the city we live in, kids, weather, or my favorite — job! I wish more people would talk shop honestly. I love talking about what people do. Stupid questions about my origin never lead to anything good, just elevated blood pressure for me.

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1. aglaonika
  
  January 1, 2015
  
  “I hate being asked about my origins.”
  
  Same here. I only want to talk about that with those who I’m in a deeper relationship with. I also don’t ask them about their background or other private things. However I can understand if someone who was never an immigrant can’t find this out on his or her own, so I’m not pissed of when someone does this, just try to change the topic as soon as possible. Not always that easy though.
  
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Jones

December 31, 2014

“Strangely, the more Liberal they are, the more aggressive their insults get …”

I have a similar thing that happens that’s like what you describe.

If I’m told that something I’m working on is a “cautionary tale” in the vein of Hilaire Belloc, I know I’m dealing with a Conservative.

If I’m told that something I’m working on is a kind of “imminent threat” and that I’m mapping out someone’s future without consent, I know I’m dealing with a Liberal.

Conservatives seem to understand that I don’t need permission to show them how bad things could be — they seem to be grateful for understanding the risks in advance.

Then there are those other people who think that by creating something fictional, I’ve caused it to come into existence in the real world.

The Conservatives usually support my work with the knowledge that I’m mapping out something they need to defend against, while the Liberals usually attempt to block my work on the basis that I’m not People Like Us and therefore provide a path toward contagion.

I can tell you why this is, but I think it would be considerably more instructive for your writing if you sort this out on your own.

But will you be appreciative of the cautionary tale or fearful of the imminent threat? 🙂

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December 31, 2014

It is also liberal or left immigrants who get on my case.

Leftist: you are an American, so you will want to make up for that by doing whatever I say.
Liberal: you are an American, so you need to learn that “America” is not perfect.

I am the one who tells people to read history of all kinds, but I mostly say it to Americans.

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musteryou

January 1, 2015

Like I said elsewhere above — and I was being more literal than facetious — people need to excavate their bowels. They need to shit. This is something I think Melanie Klein recognises implicitly. And of course Nietzsche notices it once or twice. The Kleinian notion of projection is in the recognition that the infant has to get rid of its feces and so projects those outwards. The “other” becomes the dirt, the excrement, which the infant is not capable of dealing with on its own.

I think for many people this urge to shit is very urgent and extreme. The more they have unconscious fears that they may be evil or dirty, the more they require an aqueduct to take their dirt away from them. Intellectual left-liberalism has built a very efficient one in the intellectual abstraction of “evil colonialism”. Much of contemporary critical theory is forms a system that allows left-liberals to use this toilet to get rid of their ever-present sense of guilt and shame.

If you take away this conduit, or imply that they ought not to use it, they really do lash out at you in the same way as someone who has an extreme bodily urge would do. They would not understand the source of their own rage, but if I tell them that I am not an evil person because I have been colonial, they seem to find this very distressing. I have deprived them of their current means to empty their bowels. This may cause them actual bodily pain.

I’m sorry to have to do this, but they need to find some other way and means to shit apart from on ME.

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1. Z
  
  January 1, 2015
  
  I suppose this is true. I notice people doing it, including me, although mostly I see them finding other “aqueducts.” (I have developed a phobia of dentists since my mother died which I am convinced is material for psychoanalysis. Dentists are these torturing forces who must be obeyed and whom I resent. I have traumatized two dentists so far with this.)
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    January 1, 2015
    
    The need for aqueducts is a universal one, however the structures may be very different from one place to another. It is convenient to make 19th/mid 20th Century colonialism a means to transport one’s refuse away from one as this doesn’t intefere with one’s late 20th century or early 21st century ambitions. But still I find that somebody like ME is deeply inconvenienced by it, because I have had numerous people performing what is effectively a shitting act on my head. Needless to say this inconveniences my mental health and my ability to get ahead. Very violent and urgent projections are quite painful when one is on the receiving end.
    
    Anyway, some aqueducts are socially systematised and some are more individual or personal. The systematised ones are perhaps harder to see because they are so expected that we mistake their existence for common sense. It’s only when someone like me protests against being used in this way (as a sewerage system for left-liberal guilt sensations) that there is a danger the structures in place might come to be noticed. Of course everybody fights against bringing their projective actions to full consciousness, as it means they can’t keep using the same conveniences, at least not with the same facility of ease.
    
    It’s good if we can recognise what we are doing, though, as it causes us to gain much more self-awareness. And awareness of self is also awareness of the world, since the two types of knowledge can only proceed in tandem.
    
    Conduits will always be developed, but I would like to think that the more mature among us could take into account the impact of their reflexes on others and develop other means to release their sense of dirt. Some people get rid of their dirt by praying. Some can do it by performing actual good deeds. Some do it by refracting the sense of guilt over time. But projecting it onto others, unaware that one is doing so, seems to me the actions of very immature and unselfaware people. If my sense of goodness comes too cheaply, it is worth very little. If I project and excavate my bowels through a prefabricated system, I may never know the suffering I am causing others who have to wear my pieces of shit on their heads.
    
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    1. aglaonika
      
      January 1, 2015
      
      “The need for aqueducts is a universal one, however the structures may be very different from one place to another.”
      
      What can be the aqueducts for the powerless?
      
      “Needless to say this inconveniences my mental health and my ability to get ahead. Very violent and urgent projections are quite painful when one is on the receiving end.”
      
      The dwellers of the Western-European social welfare state also do this to the Eastern-European immigrants who were precisely called in by them, as they were unable to maintain their unmaintainable ineptitude-worshipping welfare systems. Feed us and also process our shit for us that’s what they do. Problem is they lure you in with their lofty liberal values which most people actually give credit to. Lofty liberal values take as long until you shut up and work with the visible signs of shame on your face.
      
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      1. musteryou
        
        January 1, 2015
        
        Yes. It sounds cynical to condemn the lofty liberal values as fundamentally fake, because perhaps they were not always so, but in this day and age that is what they have become.
        
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2. aglaonika
  
  January 1, 2015
  
  Kundera also wrote about this in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He defined kitsch therefore intellectual worthlessness as the denial of shit or the inability to process one’s own shit.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    January 1, 2015
    
    perfect!
    
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