All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

Where to even begin with this book? There is so much to say, and so many things in it which need to be better understood. 

Let me start with this: I was raised in Cultural Fundamentalism, which can probably best be understood as fighting to return to a mythical golden age. A key part of the myth and perhaps the biggest driving force in the Culture Wars™ is that of the supposedly ideal gender roles and hierarchies found in “traditional” marriages of the past. You know, where the man made all the money, the woman did the childcare and housekeeping, and everyone was happy...and if they weren’t they should be, damnit! 

Thus, a key sign of what they saw as cultural decline was the cultural shift away from women marrying young, having babies, and keeping the hell out of the halls of power. “Feminism” was seen as the great satan, the malevolent force which told girls that they could make their own choices, have their own lives, make their own money, and indeed exist without being owned by a male. 

Whatever I may have believed (or at least tried to believe) in my teens, I thoroughly rejected that paradigm when I left my parents’ home and established one of my own. When I fell in love with the woman who would become my wife, I knew that her decision to marry me was conditioned on our agreement that we would most certainly NOT have a “traditional” marriage. She was clear that she would have a career, and I knew that meant that both of us would have to make the adjustments necessary to make that happen. In practice, this has meant that she has worked nights and I have worked part time with a flexible schedule, so that our children have had a parent present. (We had some help from my mother-in-law when the kids were little, which we greatly appreciated.) 

Our marriage is, in a very real sense, non-traditional. She is more ambitious and driven, while I am more nurturing. It is just who we are, and traditional gender roles wouldn’t work for either of us. 

I tell this story because it really does fit in with the book. While primarily about singleness, it also discusses the way that singleness as a viable option for women has changed the entire landscape. It has, in fact, revolutionized marriage itself. Thus, the book isn’t “against” marriage (and the author is, in fact, married with kids) - but it does explore the implications and results of female independence.

The book can be divided into two main topics. The first is the history of single women, primarily in the United States. Pretty much every civil rights or social movement has drawn its force from single women. That includes causes from the abolition of slavery to voting rights to unionization to the civil rights movement. The second topic is the modern reality of increasing singleness. Marriage ages have risen dramatically (and are now higher than the average age of first birth), and a historically large portion of the female population is single. Traister looks at why this is, and also at what it means for society. Unlike the usual right-wing pearl clutching about cultural decay and such, she examines it as the natural result of women having - and making - choices about their own lives. 

There are so many outstanding passages and quotes that it is impossible to list them all. I did write down a bunch, though, and want to go through them a bit in this post. 

I also want to recommend a companion book to this one: The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz, which looks at the myth of the “stay-at-home mom,” and how it is a historical anomaly and strongly connected to racism. Coontz is cited frequently as a source in All the Single Ladies - primarily her research into marriage and women in American history. 

Nellie Bly: “What do you think the new woman will be?”

Susan B. Anthony: “She’ll be free.”

This quote opens the book. And I think it captures the ultimate goal of feminism: to make women every bit as free as men have been for millennia. So why is this so controversial? 

The introduction is fascinating too. Traister explains that she hated it when the heroines in her books got married. Because marriage was the end. As in, it was the end of the woman as an interesting person. All the life and motion and vivacity of her childhood ends, and she becomes, well, a wife and mother and ceases to be interesting. This is, of course, a shame - but it is something I myself have felt reading literature. Traister loved Anne of Green Gables - as did I (I had a huge crush on Anne in Jr. High), but I never could get into the books after the first four. Because Anne just wasn’t much fun after she got married and had kids. All those hopes and dreams and adventures and passions...well, they “had narrowed, and now seemed to lead only to the tending of dull husbands and the rearing of insipid children…” And, while I am sure that most of us real-life husbands aren’t quite as dull as the ones in books, this is very true about the literary sorts. Gilbert isn’t much fun after marriage either. But shouldn’t adulthood and even marriage with kids be full of all those hopes and dreams and adventures and passions? 

Susan B. Anthony, who never married, is quoted again at the end of the introduction.

As young women become educated in the industries of the world, thereby learning the sweetness of independent bread, it will be more and more impossible for them to accept the...marriage limitation that “husband and wife are one, and that one the husband…” Even when man’s intellectual convictions shall be sincerely and fully on the side of Freedom and equality to women, the force of long existing customs and laws will impel him to exert authority over her, which will be distasteful to the self-sustained, self-respectful woman… Not even amended constitutions and laws can revolutionize the practical relations of men and women, immediately, any more than did the Constitutional freedom and franchise of Black men transform white men into practical recognition of the civil and political rights of those who were but yesterday their legal slaves. 

Anthony then predicts that, logically, when women gain their economic, social, and political rights, they would usher in an “epoch of single women.” And lo, it has come to pass. 

(Side note here: the anti-abortion lobby loves to claim Anthony as one of their own. But the evidence strongly indicates that she would have had no use for their patriarchal crap.) 

The rise of single women as a significant demographic has had a number of effects. One that Traister mentions that I found intriguing was the connection between single women and LGBTQ rights. Here is something to consider:

The journey toward legal marriage for gays and lesbians may seem at odds with what looks like a flight from marriage by heterosexuals. But in fact, they are part of the same project: a dismantling of the institution as it once existed--as a rigidly patrolled means by which one sex could exert legal, economic, and sexual power over another--and a reimagining of it as a flexible union to be entered, ideally, on equal terms.

Later in the book, Traister looks in more detail at the way that same-sex marriage has changed expectations in heterosexual marriages. 

If there are broad distinctions to be made between the nature of same-sex female pairs versus heterosexual ones, it’s that the same-sex unions have not entailed one of their members being automatically accorded more power, status, or economic worth based entirely on gender.

And THIS is what I mean when I call my own marriage “non-traditional.” We entered our marriage on equal terms, with the aim of flexibility. And never, ever, ever, as an institution which would allow me to exert power over her. 

In the long run, I believe this will be one of the biggest legacies of same-sex marriage: it will lead a complete rethinking of the institution, changing it from one of power to one of mutuality and love. 

After this bit, Traister takes a look at the Culture Wars™, specifically, the preservation of the (mythical) past. She looks at a few of the old white dudes who predicted that the power of the single female voter was destined to fade, because they would die out. This, as Traister points out, makes two ludicrous assumptions.

[Joel] Kotkin’s error, of course, is both in assuming that unmarried people do not reproduce--in fact, they are doing so in ever greater numbers--but also in failing to consider whence the gravitation away from married norms derived. A move toward independent life did not simply emerge from a clamshell: It was born of generations of dissatisfaction with the inequities of religious, conservative, social practice. Why should we believe that children born to social conservatives will not tread a similar path, away from conservative values, as the one walked by generations of traditionally raised citizens before them? The impulse toward liberation isn’t inoculated against by strict conservative backgrounds; it’s often inculcated by them.

 And that is it in a nutshell. I was raised ultra-conservative, as was my wife. And we both found our background to be a strong motivation to live very different lives than we experienced. 

Traister also takes a hard look at history. As Coontz explores in detail, the idea of limiting women to the home is, in some ways, modern. It is a product of the industrial revolution. With fewer people working in agriculture, and children no longer vital to economic success, something had to change. Alas, what happened was the sequestering of women to a narrow (and rather powerless) sphere, removing them from the visible political and economic life of the nation, while relying on them to do the unpaid drudge work necessary for men to work outside the home. 

Traister points out an extremely interesting phenomenon in this regard. As machines made household tasks quicker and easier, women had less that they had to do. (Seriously, compare hand washing clothes with a washing machine, or building a fire to cook with turning on a burner, to name just two.) 

Everyday tasks were made more time-consuming and taxing, so as to better fill the days of women who might otherwise grow restive and attempt to leave the house.

Exactly. Homes have expanded dramatically in size. (So much more to keep clean and decorated!) Children that used to have lots of unstructured time now have hours of homework and extracurricular activities that they must be doing or you are a bad parent. (The whole helicopter parent phenomenon exists to fill the lives of unhappy mothers, in my opinion.) Entertainment must be lavish. (Hey there, Martha Stewart!) And, in the more Fundie households, homeschooling is mandatory - a full time (if uncompensated) job requiring a woman at home. This is the modern manifestation of the phenomenon, but it dates back to the early 1800s - Traister quotes a number of publications from the era.

Moving forward a bit in history, Traister mentions the intimate connection between feminism and abolitionism. You might think, perhaps, that the subjugation of women and the subjugation of non-whites could be related. And you would be right. And not just about the connection back then, but in our own times as well. Almost universally, you will find that misogyny and racism go hand in hand. 

In this section, Traister also mentions one abolitionist and feminist who did marry: Lucy Stone. I must say, she was amazing. She was the first woman in the United States to keep her name after marriage, and she forewent the usual vows (including a promise to obey her husband) in favor of reading a protest against marriage laws. Her husband, in case you wondered, was also an ardent feminist, and fully on board with this. You can read the whole thing online here, but how about this badass opening?

While we acknowledge our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. 

In addition to timelessly great causes like abolition, single women also ignited the Prohibition movement. While that turned out to be a disaster on many levels, it didn’t come out of nowhere. Traister makes an excellent point:

There may be no greater testament to the suffocating power of marital expectation than the fact that, for a time, the banning of booze seemed a more practical recourse against spousal abuse than the reform of marriage law or redress of inequities within the home. 

Another bit of history that was interesting was on the topic of abortion. For centuries, abortion was largely the province of women - herbal healers with the knowledge necessary. Abortion was legal in many cases, believe it or not. However, as part of the backlash against feminism, there was a legal crackdown on the means by which women could evade or exert control over the “benign offices of wife and mother,” which was considered their destiny. That’s why abortion restrictions have always gone hand in hand with attacks on birth control and accurate sex education. Again, you can see this exact same thing happening today. The anti-abortion industry is now openly opposed to birth control and fights against scientifically accurate education. Why? Well, women might take control of their own reproduction - cutting men out of the loop perhaps. 

In the 1920s, another major shift occurred, one which is not talked about in conservative circles. Prior to the 1920s, it was commonplace - nay, normal and expected - for a young man to have his first sexual experience with a prostitute. Well, if he didn’t have it by raping a slave girl, perhaps. The price of the preservation of [white] female “purity” was widespread prostitution and rape of human chattel. However, the abolition of slavery, while it didn’t eliminate the problem of rape (which very much continued - a white man might get fined for raping a black woman or child but that was it), did give black women the option of leaving the situation rather than submit to further assaults. In the 1920s, the second shift occurred. “[Y]oung middle-class men were more likely to lose their virginity with women of their own class than with prostitutes.” Think about the magnitude of that shift. With it came what conservatives keep lamenting: women were far less likely to be virgins on their wedding night. 

Here’s another interesting parallel between the past and present. When Margaret Sanger founded what would become Planned Parenthood, there was a backlash that had some really unsavory overtones. While I admire some things about Theodore Roosevelt (his advocacy for public lands, his trust-busting, his progressive-for-their-time ideas), he was, like most of his era, racist. He disliked Sanger and the idea of birth control because he believed it kept the white birth rate down, thus leading to what he called “race suicide.” Ouch. “A race is worthless if women cease to breed freely.” Double ouch. But you see this today, notably in Evangelical circles. They don’t use explicitly racial terms (like the more Fundie groups absolutely do), but they use some nice dog whistles. Hence Al Mohler’s Freudian slip when he condemned women for choosing to be childless (making them, as he said, not fully human) - he actually said that childless people don’t tend to vote for Trump. Hey, you know who else doesn’t vote for Trump? Non-white people. And no, I do not think that was an accident. It’s the same recycled rhetoric about brown people reproducing faster than white people, just with dog whistles. I grew up in that nonsense. 

(Another side note here: one of the reasons that I think the anti-abortion movement is evil is that they lie incessantly about everything from science to medicine to history. One of the biggest is the gross slander of Margaret Sanger, wherein they “quote” from one of her letters...leaving out the part that makes it clear that she intends the exact opposite of what the anti-abortion industry claims.)

Speaking of racism, I think one of the strongest chapters in the book is the one that looks at the decline in marriage in African American families. Those of us who grew up conservative were taught that black poverty rates were driven by black women spreading their legs before marriage. And that the cause of that was social programs. (Never mind that more whites are on welfare than blacks, of course.) Traister takes a look at the real history. In the 1950s - before the social programs in question - black marriage rates declined. She looks at how explicitly racist policies excluded blacks from the heavily subsidized programs for whites that gave rise to the suburban family phenomenon. From jobs to housing to education to even Social Security - blacks were excluded. 

Here’s something for consideration: what if African Americans are neither stupid nor more immoral than white people? What if they too respond to circumstances in as predictably human fashion as we white people do? It is this question that nudged me away from my conservative beliefs after I got out of the bubble of childhood. I think Traister’s writing is strong on this issue. She makes a solid case for why marriage is not an advantage for everyone. And in particular, why marriage makes things worse for people in grinding poverty or in communities decimated by mass incarceration. In her evisceration of “pro-marriage” government seminars, Traister cites evidence that addressing poverty itself raises marriage rates. 

It seems clear that a government address of poverty is likeliest to make marriage more accessible to those who want it, while programs designed to shove marriage down the throats of Americans least equipped to enter it stably have little impact. If politicians are concerned about dropping marriage rates, they should increase welfare benefits. It’s that simple.

This is backed up by substantial evidence, by the way. But, as the Trump era has proven, conservatives have zero interest in actually improving life for the poor, who they view as undeserving. It is, and always has been, about racism. I would recommend this book for that chapter alone. 

Another great chapter is on the advantages of singleness - and delayed marriage. Conservatives (and patriarchists in particular) tend to push for women to marry young. Before they get too “independent.” (Yep, I grew up in that shit.) Traister points out that women are faulted for being “selfish” when they insist on the same self-determination as men have always had. For example, women have been expected to pick up and move to follow the man’s job. A man who did the same would be mocked as “whipped.” A man is entitled to build his life around his interests, but a woman who does so is often denigrated. (And always denigrated in Fundie circles. Believe me on that one.) Citing one of the many screeds against single women, Traister notes that it was “pathologizing unmarried women as flawed, sneakily laying out [the] self-interested female subject in comparison to a set of deeply ingrained cultural expectations: that a woman who really wants love and who is worthy of being loved should be willing to put her priorities second to those of a mate.” 

In my own experience, there will always be a tension between the desire to be partnered, and the desire for independence. But for men, that tension didn’t really exist until recently. A wife was there to support her man’s dreams. I was literally taught that. But in my non-traditional, egalitarian marriage, we both support each other’s dreams. And we have to compromise, because we are two different people with different desires and areas of interest. Sure, our dreams overlap quite a bit - that’s why we are married rather than single - but both of us have had to give up a bit so the other can have what they need. It’s worth it for what we gain. 

I have long said that the single most effective way for a woman to change the dynamics of a marriage (particularly a future marriage) is for her to have her own income. It literally changes everything. While Fundies fuss and fume about this, I have found it to be a much improved dynamic. This is also why the younger generations believe in being financially “set” before marriage or kids. 

They [women] see their own economic stability, their jobs, as a “defense against patriarchal sex role expectations and a defense against bad behaviors” including substance abuse, cheating, and domestic violence, as well as “insurance in case of a breakup. “They’re worried,” said [researcher Kathryn] Edin, “that if they don’t earn money they won’t have the power to negotiate for equal say in the relationship.” 

Again, this is exactly what I see in the marriages of people I know. While it is certainly possible to have a good marriage with economic inequality, it is hard to have a truly equal one. 

How about this irony: egalitarians are much more likely to get married and stay married. 

The great irony is that, as much as conservatives rage against the dying of traditional gender roles, by many measures, it’s the people who are messing with the old marital expectations who might be credited with saving marriage as an institution.

Much has been written about the malaise in Japan. An aging population, plummeting birth rates, shrinking workforce, and a generation seemingly uninterested in relationships and marriage. There have been a number of theories floated, and some have some truth in them. As in many other countries, concern about the future makes marriage less likely. The last several decades of neo-liberal economic policies have made younger people less well off than their ancestors, and they are not as optimistic about what their future will look like. I think, though, that there is a significant piece missing as to why Japan in particular has issues. 

Traister ties the best of the theories together with an idea that seems startlingly obvious once you see it. Japanese culture is based around an extreme version of patriarchy. Work hours are brutally long, and do not allow the needed time to care for children or build a home life. Traditionally, this was done by women, but, as women have become educated and had their first taste of an alternative, they have rejected the idea of becoming a servant to a man. Women can now earn a living, but they find that they still face the same domestic expectations from men. 

Guess what this led to? The fact that 90% (!!!) of young Japanese women told surveyors that they would rather stay single than enter into “what they imagine marriage to be like.” That’s a problem. If gendered marriage expectations are so bad that 9 in 10 women run away, then you are going to have a “celibacy problem.” Traister notes as well that there is a strong correlation worldwide on this issue. Countries with strong patriarchal expectations of women end up with lower marriage rates. Young women forgo marriage, and young men live at home as adults so their mommies can do their laundry and cooking for them. Grow up already. Countries with egalitarian cultures actually do better. Traister is pretty optimistic about the United States on this score - she sees the US as more willing to change due to its culture, loud Fundies notwithstanding. 

I think there is some truth in this. There has indeed been a massive shift in the culture. (Which is what terrifies Fundies.) Even in the days of Susan B. Anthony and Nelly Bly, Anthony could say that while men used to be afraid of suffragists, they now sought them out. At one time, educated women were less likely to marry. Those days have been gone for a while. Now, educated women - and employed women - are more likely to marry. They have become desirable because male tastes have adapted to change. At least in the circles I run in, most men my age, honestly, prefer smart, educated, and employed women. It’s a turn on. The shift, Traister believes, came because of single women who pioneered the entry of women into the workforce and other formerly male-dominated areas. 

More than that, unmarried women alter assumptions about women by working alongside men who come to see them as colleagues and bosses; by drinking beer and arguing politics with men who come to regard them as friends; by having sex with men who (hopefully) come to understand that sex does not mean ownership. By existing on their own terms in the world, women force men to reckon with them as peers and as human beings, not simply as subordinate helpmates or sexual objects.

Preach it! As American Evangelicalism and conservatism continue their dance down the path of misogyny and patriarchy, they will continue to lose the younger generations, who have experienced women as peers. As colleagues and bosses, friends and companions. 

I’ll end, as Traister does, with a bit about how society and government need to change. Much ink has been spilled by conservatives about how single women “expect the state to do for them what should be done by a husband.” I admit I bought into that in my youth. But it didn’t stand up well to real life. As the example of Japan shows in its extreme form, society has for centuries been set up to subsidize traditional male dominance. I could write an entire post on the ways in which female-dominated professions are paid less and have worse benefits than male-dominated ones. Or how subsidies and tax breaks shift money to wealthy (white) men. The system is set up to maintain male independence with the expectation that women will meekly get in line and work their asses off to maintain that, at the expense of their own independence. A truly just society would ensure that women receive the same financial compensation - and control over that compensation - as men do. And culture would then have to adapt to men taking an equal share on those unpaid duties of care. Guess what? We men can adapt - and we will have to, or we will increasingly be viewed by women as a bad investment. 

This book has so much in it, I just covered a few highlights. The bottom line: when feminism freed women from their status as chattel, and brought them closer to economic, social, and political equality, it brought significant social changes. Among them was that, given actual choices, women increasingly have rejected the rather one-sided “traditional” marital and gender role expectations. Humans have, as they always have, adapted to changes. Many women chose to be and continue to choose to be single - which I believe is far superior to being in a bad marriage. But men too have adapted - I have. And ultimately, there is no point in trying to preserve an unjust social relationship wherein one party owns and dominates the other. Marriage can be a good thing. But so can singlehood. And women are entitled to be considered fully human, with the same right of self-determination as men. Period. 

***

I couldn’t figure out where in the flow to put it, but I should mention that astronomer and all-around badass Maria Mitchell is quoted in connection with the tension between independence and partnering. Her poem, “How Charming Is Divine Philosophy,” is quoted in part. I can’t find the whole thing online, alas. 

***

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but it meshes with this post: my wife believed she would never marry. She had seen patriarchy up close, and had absolutely zero interest in having that kind of a marriage. She would have been one of the Single Ladies of this book. As it happened, she met and fell in love with me - at a young age, no less - and we ended up together. But she would have ended it if I had shown the least inclination to dictate her future to her. I am honored that she chose to share her life with me, make children with me, and conspire against the world together. 

Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope

Source of book: I own this.

Regular readers of my blog know that my favorite Victorian author is Anthony Trollope. I try to read one of his books every year. Past reads since I started writing about them are:

Barsetshire Chronicles:

The Barchester Chronicles (BBC miniseries based on the first two books, The Warden and Barchester Towers)

Dr. Thorne

Framley Parsonage

The Small House at Allington

The Last Chronicle of Barset

Other books:

He Knew He Was Right

Cousin Henry

The Claverings

These are not, of course, the only Trollope novels I have read. These are the ones I have read since I started blogging in 2010. I should mention Castle Richmond and The Bertrams as particularly excellent books.

***

Orley Farm is one of Trollope’s stand-alone novels, and the last of the set of Dover paperbacks I was given in my teens by the husband of my violin teacher. Along with some Wodehouse and a few hardback Dickens, he gave me five Trollopes - I had never heard of him, but fell in love.

While Orley Farm had its moments, it was not my favorite of Trollope’s books. In large part, this stems from two factors. First, while Trollope is usually fairly gentle with his characters, writing few true villains, and making everyone human; in this case, he seemed more to dislike his characters than like them. For the most part, they are rather unlikeable, and it is difficult to really be in sympathy with them, the way one is in most of Trollope’s novels. It isn’t the presence of unpleasant characters so much as it is the lack of humanizing traits which are the problem. I found it uncharacteristically difficult to understand the motivations, and thus found many of the characters to be caricatures rather than the truly three dimensional inhabitants of the typical Trollopean world.

The second factor is somewhat related to the first. I feel that Trollope wrote this book more to complain about lawyers and the British legal system than to explore the psychology of his characters. Whatever Trollope is as an author, he isn’t Charles Dickens, and he isn’t particularly adept at the use of caricature in satire. Rather, Trollope’s strength as a satirical and social writer is his ability to humanize the victims of injustice - and especially injustice inflicted with good, reforming motivations. Thus, we can sympathize with Mr. Harding even as we may agree that he is the recipient of a sinecure that probably should be reformed. We can feel for Carrie Brattle, whose status as a “fallen woman” gives her no real chance at a decent life. We can even understand the loathsome Mrs. Proudie and her attempts to further her religious beliefs, even as we hate her methods - and even perhaps the substance of those beliefs. She is all the more real for being humanly understandable.

This was my biggest problem with Orley Farm. I had a hard time finding a character who was really fleshed out, particularly for the first half of the book.

A bit of background might help here. Trollope was the son of a failed barrister. His father never really made a good go of it in law, and was forever in debt. His mother, however, was a skilled writer. Her books aren’t much read today, and she wasn’t a world class author, but she was financially successful, and her books were indeed influential. Domestic Manners of the Americans was her most successful, and many of her observations about American arrogance and hypocrisy still ring true. She also wrote an anti-slavery novel which inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe, and an “industrial novel,” about class injustice in the age of the Industrial Revolution - another book which inspired more famous later authors. So, with her husband failing to make a living, it fell to Frances Trollope to support the family with writing.

Young Anthony eschewed the law, and went to work for the Postal Service, where he invented the pillar letter box, and found time to write. While he never studied law, he absorbed a large amount of knowledge about it, and his books generally get the legal details right. Although the British legal system of the Victorian Era is much different from the 21st Century American legal system. (I could write a whole post about all of the differences…)

What Anthony never seems to have understood about the law was the idea that the criminal law system is supposed to be biased in favor of the accused - in large part to counteract the power of the State. In theory (although not as often in practice), this should result in a very small number of false convictions - but should, by design, allow a number of guilty persons to go free. That this isn’t necessarily the case in practice is beside the point. Yes, money still tends to get one off, and impoverished people of color tend to be falsely convinced more often than wealthy whites. But the problem isn’t that we make it too easy for those horrid criminal defense lawyers to get people off.

But that is precisely the point Trollope wants to make. He honestly seems to believe that guilty people shouldn’t be defended, and that neutral witnesses shouldn’t ever have their credibility attacked. As a lawyer, this is an offensive idea. And in general, Trollope is so much more subtle than this, which is why I was disappointed.

The plot is basically this. (Spoiler alert!)

 

 My Dover paperback edition has the original J. E. Millais illustrations.

Sir Joseph Mason the elder was a wealthy man, with two major estates. After his first wife died, leaving a grown son, Sir Joseph remarried a young woman barely out of her teens - a woman who was beautiful but under challenging financial circumstances. She marries him out of need and pressure from her family, not love. They have a child together, and soon thereafter, Sir Joseph dies.

A last minute codicil to his will leaves Orley Farm - the lesser estate - to the infant. The previous will would have left everything, except for the small allowance to the widow required by law, to the older son. The question was, did young Lady Mason forge the codicil?

The first trial - the probate - takes place after the death, and is alluded to in the book. The real action occurs twenty-one years later, when the infant, Lucious, comes of age. He angers the son-in-law of the lawyer who worked for Sir Joseph. Said son-in-law, himself a lawyer, goes through the old documents and discovers evidence which may be in favor of a finding of forgery. He contacts Joseph Jr., the older son, and incites him to seek a prosecution of Lady Mason for perjury and forgery. That trial is the centerpiece of the story.

This being Trollope, the book is roughly 650 pages long, and pretty dense. It also has a number of subplots involving the periphery players. Lady Mason’s lawyer has domestic troubles because his neglected wife assumes he is having an affair with Lady Mason. Lady Mason’s neighbor and old friend, Sir Peregrine Orme, falls in love with her, while his son unsuccessfully pursues the daughter of a judge - she instead falls in love with an idealistic young barrister who ends up working on Lady Orme’s case. Even the witnesses have their own little dramas going. Everyone connected with the case is somehow involved in the story.

As usual with Trollope, the question isn’t really if Lady Mason is guilty. Rather, it is how each of the characters response to the situation. Including her. There is the legal question, of course: will a jury find her guilty? There is the moral case: what would real justice look like? And there is the social question: guilty or not, will she and her son lose their reputations?

So much about this is good. The book had some great moments in it. If only Trollope had allowed himself to actually understand how a lawyer could - and should - defend a guilty client. I think he was a bit blinded by his own upbringing. I wasn’t able to find out much of the circumstances of his father’s failure, but it is entirely possible that the idealistic Felix Graham is meant to be a stand-in for the elder Mr. Trollope. He is hopeless at the task of doing his best even when he doesn’t believe in his case. And he is advised that maybe he should pursue his writing instead. (Of course, in this particular world, he also is able to marry a wealthy woman.)

I think another factor here is that Trollope was by nature and inclination, a conservative. He preferred the High Church to the Low Church, was suspicious of reforms of all kinds, and staunchly supported the existing class system, even though he wasn’t a winner in that system. Thus, I think that he couldn’t - despite really making an effort - see the moral injustice inherent in giving property to one child while leaving the other destitute. Hey, Primogeniture has a long and storied history, even if it was brutal to younger children, and undoubtedly fed the unending wars of the last, well, millennia. After all, a bunch of younger sons without money, whose class meant they couldn’t make a living by working, with few prospects...hey, might as well go to war and try to win an award from the king, right? Trollope really does try. But he can’t quite go there. Rules is rules.

I think this is ultimately why I had a hard time feeling the characters. Lady Mason is a great character, for the most part. But Trollope’s conservatism can’t allow her to truly stick to her guns. In a later (or earlier) era, she could have been the hero of the book. Likewise, Lucious is a real prick, and it is impossible to like him. I suspect Trollope didn’t want him to be a sympathetic victim - he somehow had to deserve tragedy. Thus, of the main players in the central drama, the most believable are those I would call the true villains. Mr. Dockwrath, the lawyer who stirs everything up in retaliation for losing his lease, ignores the advice of his much wiser wife, grubs for as much as he can get, and ultimately loses everything. He thoroughly deserves it. But he is also believable: I know people like that, and they often end the same way. Likewise, I know people like Joseph Mason the younger, consumed with a thirst for revenge because he feels cheated out of what he “deserves,” namely everything. But again, he is believable. He is still, 25 years later, pissed off at his father for refusing to “act his age” and remain a widower. Instead, he fell for the charming young lady (who he blames entirely for his father’s actions), with the result being an unwanted younger brother who might get some of the inheritance.

Some of the minor characters are really good. I liked Judge Stavely and his family - of all the people, I would most like to meet them in person. Faced with the fact that his daughter has fallen in love with a poor, unattractive, but intelligent man, he supports her, remembering his own courtship. I also liked the lawyer, Mr. Furnival. He is very imperfect, clearly, but very human - and a rather conscientious lawyer. I’d want to hire someone like him: aware of his limitations, devoted to seeing his clients’ cases through, quietly competent, and in no need of self-aggrandizement.

As in any Trollope novel, there is much good writing, and a number of memorable lines. Here are a few that stood out to me.

From the first chapter, where Trollope introduces the book:

It is not true that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet. Were it true, I should call this story ‘The Great Orley Farm Case.’ But who would ask for the ninth number of a serial work burthened with so very uncouth an appellation? Thence, and therefore, - Orley Farm.

I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity of explaining that this book of mine will not be devoted in any special way to rural delights. The name might lead to the idea that new precepts were to be given, in the pleasant guise of a novel, as to cream-cheeses, pigs with small bones, wheat sown in drills, or artificial manure. No such aspirations are mine.

Or, Mr. Furnival, giving the common - and true - lament of us lawyers:

‘We lawyers are very much abused now-a-days,’ said Mr. Furnival… ‘but I hardly know how the world would get on without us.’

There is a great scene involving Sir Joseph the younger and his wife. While he is extravagantly rich, she is a penny-pinching shrew. Their food is almost inedible, and they really can’t entertain, because she refuses to have proper and sufficient provender for the spread. Trollope describes their attempt at a Christmas dinner, and what followed.

And then they all went to church. Mrs. Mason would not on any account have missed church on Christmas-day or a Sunday. It was a cheap duty, and therefore rigidly performed.

There is another extended musing which is quite fun. I am reading a book on the intentional “moulding” of a wife - I wonder if Trollope was familiar with the facts or not - so this quote seems apropos. It also is percipient on a few timeless questions: is trying to turn a spouse into what you wish they were ever a good idea? And what is the real reason creeps like Roy Moore want to find much younger girls? Anyway, here is the quote, which comes after we are introduced to Felix Graham, and the “engagement” he is in with his ward - at the insistence of her father, when she was a mere child. She was not, in any meaningful sense, consulted.

In speaking of the character and antecedents of Felix Graham I have said that he was moulding a wife for himself. The idea of a wife thus moulded to fit a man’s own grooves, and educated to suit matrimonial purposes according to the exact views of the future husband was by no means original with him. Other men have moulded their wives, but I do not know that as a rule the practice has been found to answer. It is open, in the first place, to this objection, - that the moulder does not generally conceive such idea very early in life, and the idea when conceived must necessarily be carried out on a young girl. Such a plan is the result of much deliberate thought, and has generally arisen from long observation, on the part of the thinker, of the unhappiness arising from marriages in which there has been no moulding. Such a frame of mind comes upon a bachelor, perhaps about his thirty-fifth year, and then he goes to work with a girl of fourteen. The operation takes some ten years, at the end of which the moulded bride regards her lord as an old man. On the whole I think that the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer. Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music - about affairs masculine and feminine - then take the leap in the dark. There is danger, no doubt; but the moulded wife is, I think, more dangerous.

Don’t get hung up on the Victorian nonsense - Trollope was a product of his time. Just enjoy the gentle snark.

My final quote is about Judge Stavely, after he has essentially opened the door to the possibility of Felix Graham marrying his daughter Madeleine.

But the judge was an odd man in many of the theories of his life. One of them, with reference to his children, was very odd, and altogether opposed to the usual practice of the world. It was this, - that they should be allowed, as far as was practicable, to do what they liked. Now the general opinion of the world is certainly quite the reverse - namely this, that children, as long as they are under the control of their parents, should be hindered and prevented in those things to which they are most inclined. Of course the world in general, in carrying out this practice, excuses it by an assertion, - made to themselves or others - that children customarily like those things which they ought not to like. But the judge had an idea quite opposed to this. Children, he said, if properly trained, would like those things which were good for them. Now it may be that he thought his daughter had been properly trained.

I am somewhat of this mindset. Coming from a religious tradition which is fundamentally authoritarian - and increasingly so - I have had my own bit of pressure (as an adult, by the way) to order my life, not according to what I want and believe is best for my family, but according to the preferences of others. Or, to be more accurate, I have been pressured to pressure my wife to conform to the expectations of others. Because in a patriarchal religious tradition, women face most of the expectations. I think Judge Staveley was ahead of his time in this idea that children are, when it comes to decisions about their future, entitled to choose their own lives.

I don’t want this review to sound too negative. While this isn’t my favorite Trollope book, it still is good, just flawed. If you haven’t discovered Trollope, I wouldn’t recommend this as a first book, because it lacks the best traits of his writing: psychological subtlety, sympathetic characters, and a wry distrust of convention even as he defends it. I’d go with the Barchester Chronicles, or perhaps with The Bertrams or Castle Richmond as starters.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Source of book: Audiobook from the library.

While our audiobook selections have primarily been fiction, there are exceptions. This book is one of them.

When most of us think of the Civil Rights Movement, two names are usually the first to come to mind: Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. And to be sure, both of them are deserving of honor. They played crucial roles in the struggle, and acquitted themselves well.

But throughout history, there are names that are unjustly forgotten, or even unjustly maligned, who are also important and inspiring. Fortunately, for some of them at least, history eventually recognizes their contributions.

One of those unjustly neglected heroes is Claudette Colvin. This book tells her story.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the key events of the Civil Rights Movement, and one that had long term repercussions. It formed a rallying point for the movement, brought Martin Luther King Jr. to leadership, and resulted in one of the most important court cases of the 1950s. Without the boycott, it is unlikely we would have seen the Civil Rights Act a decade later.

But this event is usually told in a way that misses much of the history. We all learn (okay, those of you who actually studied the Civil Rights Movement in school - A Beka pretended it didn’t happen…) that the boycott was sparked when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in deference to a white person.

That is a half-truth at best.

Again, no disrespect to Rosa Parks, who took her life in her hands by her actions and is justly remembered as a hero. But she was a carefully selected protester, and her act a carefully planned stunt. And it wasn’t even the first act of protest.

Rather, about nine months before Rosa Parks refused to move, a 15 year old girl named Claudette Colvin did the same thing - and was likewise arrested and prosecuted. It was her act - done spontaneously on her own initiative - that inspired the plan to have a boycott and a specific trigger - Rosa Parks.

Let that sink in a moment. A 15 year old girl - a mere child - decided on her own to take on the system. She refused to yield her seat (on a technicality which the court later recognized), and was dragged off the bus by policemen, jailed, and prosecuted. Think of the courage that took. She had no guarantee that anyone would support her. And, in fact, after some initial support, she was largely abandoned and forgotten. 

 Claudette Colvin, one year before she protested.

It isn’t that hard to understand why, given the times she lived in. She got pregnant about four months after the incident, by an older married (but separated) man, thus ruining her reputation. She was also young, and although intelligent and a good student, lacked the gravitas to be a good figurehead for a movement.

In contrast, Rosa Parks was thoroughly respectable, middle class, middle aged, and lighter skinned. I am sad to have to add the last, and, again, none of this was Rosa Parks’ fault. That she was an outstanding embodiment of the evil done by segregation is to her credit in every way, and her dignity and decency helped defuse the stereotypes that were wielded in an attempt to stop desegregation.

However, Colvin’s brave act gave the idea to the community leaders in Montgomery. Segregated buses would be the issue, and a suitable protester - a rallying point - would be chosen. Rosa Parks, already active in the NAACP and well known, was the obvious choice. And Colvin was pushed aside.

After Parks’ arrest, the boycott started. Simultaneously with this, the NAACP along with attorney Fred Gray - who defended both Colvin and Parks - filed a federal lawsuit challenging segregation. This case, Browder v. Gayle, is one of those cases that lawyers and law students know, but most laypersons do not. In fact, while the boycott drew national media attention, it was in fact the legal case which actually ended bus segregation throughout the United States. Claudette Colvin was a star witness in the case, and Gray would later say that she was crucial in convincing two of the three judge panel in favor of desegregation.

This book is interesting in part because the author spent considerable time talking with Colvin after her retirement from a career as a nurse’s aide. The book is full of direct quotes from Colvin about the events, about her feelings and experiences. Thus, it can be said to be truly her story, not just a story about her.

I will confess that much of the information in this book was new to me, even though I do care about history, and have read quite a bit about the era. I knew that Rosa Parks wasn’t the first, but I didn’t know much about the others. And yes, there was more than one - at least two teenage girls came first. I am glad my kids got to hear this one.

I had a few thoughts about this book and the history behind it.

First is this: I think it is vital to understand that the lie that the past was better is one of the most pernicious falsehoods in our political and religious discourse in this country. No, it was not better. It was, in fact, horrible for many people. That is why it is so obvious that “Make America Great Again” is nothing less than a call for a return to white supremacy. That is why it is appealing in the first place. We can go back to the past when “women and negroes knew their place.” That is the meaning of MAGA.

The second, related point is that this isn’t ancient history.

These events took place during my parents’ lifetime.

We as a nation are so not over the Civil Rights Movement. Rather, there are many - including an entire political party these days - who are actively fighting against the victories that non-whites have won over the last 65 years. It is certainly no excuse to say this, but it is key to remember that my parents’ generation - the Baby Boomers - grew up when it was normal to tell blacks that they had to be humiliated so that whites would maintain superiority. I hasten to add that my parents don’t think this way, and certainly didn’t raise me that way. But too many white Boomers seem to have this belief that things were so much better back before MLK. It is surreal to me - growing up in the 1980s in California - just how recently segregation was the literal law of the land.

Third observation is that the courts have always played a crucial role in human rights. I really understand these days why the Right in the US hates the court system for the most part. It has served as a bulwark against racist laws from the 1950s on. Some important names came into the story in a collateral way. Earl Warren was perhaps the most influential person to come out of Bakersfield, although conservative whites in our town aren’t all that proud, sad to say. Thurgood Marshall argued for the winning side in Brown v. Board of Education, and was later appointed to the Supreme Court as the first African American justice. These are big names, and justifiably so.

But I want to mention two others. I noted Fred Gray above. When he defended Colvin, he was fresh out of law school, and thrown into the fire. This story - and a bit of research on him - was enough to convince me that he belongs in the gallery of badass attorneys in history. The book quotes from the transcript of the oral arguments and witness examination, and Gray was fantastic.

I also need to mention Judge Frank Johnson. A young judge (younger than me!) at the time of the trial in Browder v. Gayle, he went on to preside over a number of major civil rights cases in the Alabama district of the Federal Court. As Bill Moyers put it much later, he “altered forever the face of the South.” One could argue that he was as important as Lincoln himself in establishing the human rights of African Americans.

Three things bear mentioning here. First, Johnson received numerous death threats, had a cross burned on his lawn, and had his mother’s house firebombed. Opposing the Ku Klux Klan had real consequences back then, and he did the right thing anyway. Second, in what has to be one of the most infuriating (to me), if entirely common, events, Johnson received a letter essentially telling him he had better repent for elevating blacks to the level of whites, or he would burn in hell. Which is, alas, pretty much the position of the Religious Right these days when you challenge their racism. Third, Johnson was a Republican. Seriously, back in the not-that-distant past, the GOP was actually the party of integration. By the time Jimmy Carter nominated him to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, that had been completely changed by Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the rise of the Religious Right. Sad and frustrating that things have changed.

On that note, something else really struck me. Here is the admonition of MLK during the boycott:

“If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them, please do not seek to get them. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with nonviolence. Remember the words of Jesus: "He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword". We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries: "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that despitefully use you". This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love. Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop, because God is with the movement. Go home with this glowing faith and this radiant assurance.”

In contrast to this, the White Citizens’ Council and the KKK committed numerous acts of violence against those involved. Even the mayor of Montgomery openly called for violence in response.

I cannot help but notice that The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named continues (as he has since the beginning of his campaign) to take plays out of the KKK playbook, and has essentially threatened violence if his party is voted out in the next election. This is pretty parallel to the “if we lose, the blacks will rule Montgomery,” so whites should take up arms. It is the same thing, in a new era...nearly 70 years later. In what is surely not a coincidence, he is also vilifying peaceful protest against injustice. Things haven’t really changed that much.

One final thought on this book. Today’s teens seem to understand that we live in an era in which they will need to take action, because their parents’ generation is too cowardly (or compromised) to do it. The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school get it. And they have paid for their courage with death threats from the white nationalists who fear that gun control will deprive them of their defense against the black “animals” they fear. Like the white librarian who spoke up against desegregation and received death threats for her trouble (she later committed suicide, alas), the warriors for justice and human decency these days will face consequences from the forces of evil - as they always have. But that doesn’t change the fact that even children can make a difference in the fight against evil. Claudette Colvin, inspired by an active sense that what she suffered was injustice, took action against it. While she didn’t receive recognition until just a few years ago, she deserves the credit for inspiring a revolution.

This book is thoroughly outstanding. My kids loved it - they have a strong sense of justice, and have been raised - as I was - to understand the ugly truth of our nation’s history. And ghastly present White Nationalist moment. Stories are powerful. This one humanizes the humiliation that African Americans suffered under Jim Crow. And, let us not forget - this isn’t ancient history. Many today are alive who participated in this event. Claudette Colvin is still with us. Fred Gray is still alive. Many of those who spit in the faces of the African Americans seeking equality still live. Perhaps some have changed, but many probably cling to their hate. Many of those who were forced to give way to whites on the bus still can tell their stories. Let us listen with empathy and with a renewed commitment to justice.

***

One more note that I couldn’t figure out where to put in the post. I am white. I married a white woman. (Hey, I fell madly in love with her...what can I say?) I have white kids. So, I kind of have this dilemma. On the one hand, our history is pretty awful. People of my color have done horrid things. My personal ancestors came over after the Civil War, and haven’t been rich, so I don’t have personal stuff to be ashamed of, but we have definitely benefited from racist systems in the United States.

But I don’t want my kids to just feel bad - that isn’t productive. What I want is for them to see examples of whites who did the right thing. The Quakers who sheltered those escaping from slavery. The abolitionists. The men and women who stood up against Jim Crow - and often paid the price. (That many of these were lawyers, judges, and Christian ministers makes me proud.) The men and women today who join in protesting police brutality, discrimination, and hate. Those who don’t just stay silent when others make racist jokes, or air their hate. Those who speak up, come along side the oppressed, and who fight for justice.

I want my children to see these good examples and to emulate them.

Books like this also remind us that doing right has consequences. While we haven’t suffered the firebombing and death threats of the past, we have lost friends over our commitment to speak out against racial hatred and the political parties and candidates that fan those evil flames. This is to be expected. Those who threatened Civil Rights leaders, black and white, were convinced god was on their side. A god that somehow believed segregation and white supremacy was good, and human rights were evil. That god is still widely worshipped today, in white Evangelical churches across our nation. We lost our connection to that community over our refusal to bow to that idol. Thus is the price of refusing to sell one’s soul. My prayer is that we see a better world as a result.

***

Some related reading that I highly recommend:

Remembering Jim Crow (oral history)

The Price for their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry

The Slaves’ War by Andrew Ward

The Other Slavery by Andres Resendez

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The Fire This Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward

Immigration Part 4: The Reality of Current Law

This post is part of my Immigration Series.

In the first part, I introduced the topic.

In the second part, I looked at the (lack of) regulation of Immigration from the founding of our country and the easy path to citizenship for white immigrants.

In the third part, I detailed the racist history of immigration restrictions dating from the Chinese Exclusion Act to the present.

***

For this post in particular, READ THE DISCLAIMER BELOW!

***

I am an attorney, but I do NOT practice in, nor am I an expert on Immigration Law. These posts are NOT intended as legal advice, and should not be viewed as such. While the broad sweep of the law is fairly easily understood from publicly available laws, documents, and history; individual circumstances vary, and the law AS APPLIED to your situation may be very different from your understanding of what a statute means.

Therefore, if YOU have an immigration problem, I urge you to contact an attorney who practices in that specific area. I repeat GO SEE AN IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY! If you live in the Southern California area, I know some guys. Send me an e-mail and I’ll pass along contact information. If you live elsewhere, use the Google to find someone who practices in this area.

RELYING ON AN AMATEUR BLOGGER FOR YOUR SERIOUS IMMIGRATION CASE IS REALLY STUPID! Don’t be stupid.

***

Okay, with that over, let me add a general disclaimer about the information. Immigration law, like every area of law, is complicated. There is a lot of nuance, arcane regulations, bewildering procedures, and so on. This post is not going to make all of that clear. That is not my point.

My discussion of the law will of necessity be a gross oversimplification. The goal is to provide an overview, not a detailed roadmap.

Also, I am NOT going to say much about how the law might apply to those who are physically present in the United States one way or another. This is the minefield of regulations I mentioned, and I have no interest in teasing out all the exceptions and pitfalls. As above, if you want to know more, go see an attorney if you have a case, or go buy an immigration law textbook if you are just curious.  

Rather, my point in this post is to address a specific issue: can someone who wants to immigrate legally to the United States do so? And how do they do it?

I ask this question for a specific reason:

Of all the falsehoods that are cherished by the Right, the most bald-faced lie of the bunch is that people can just come in legally if they want.:

In reality, for most potential immigrants, there is NO legal way to immigrate. Their only option is to come here illegally and live in the shadows, with the hope that their children will have a better life. 

It is this falsehood that poisons so much of our debate. It allows people to make the distinction of “legal” versus “illegal” without actually thinking through what that means to real people. It allows people to insist that undocumented immigrants are “criminals” and horrible people who just refuse to abide by our laws. It allows many conservatives to believe they are decent compassionate people while the politicians they vote for and the policies they support are the polar opposite of compassionate. So they do harm, based on a false view of reality.

This isn’t to say that everyone opposed to immigration is well meaning. Rather, I have found that a great many people (particularly those passionate about it) harbor deeply racist beliefs like the ones I talked about in Part 3.

***

So, let’s dive into the law. If you want to read the actual text of the applicable statutes and regulations, the US Immigration and Citizenship Services Department website has them publically available. However, if you are just getting started on immigration law, I have found that a great place is American Immigration Council, an immigration advocacy non-profit. Their resources are well written, accurate, and non-inflammatory. They believe that immigrants are an important part of our American heritage, that they make positive contributions to our nation, and that our debate should be based on actual facts and reason, not on fear mongering. These are all ideals I share. If you want fear mongering, well, Fox News and Breitbart have enough for you, I am sure.

To start with, the AIC fact sheet on how the US Immigration system works is a good primer. I’ll summarize in this post, but I recommend reading the entire thing.

Under our current law, there are essentially three ways to legally immigrate. I’ll look at each in turn.

1. Family Based Immigration

This is the the system which is current being denigrated as “chain migration.” However, there is nothing nefarious about it, and it has been the express US policy since the 1965 law was enacted. (See part 3 of this series.) The idea is that preference is given to relatives of US citizens (and to a lesser degree, relatives of Legal Permanent Residents (LPR) - what we colloquially call “green cards.”)

For someone who is a US citizen, it is reasonably easy to bring in a spouse, minor (but not adult) children, and parents. That makes sense, doesn’t it? A citizen marries and has children outside the US (say on military deployment) and brings her family back here.

Other relatives can get in, but they are further down the list, and thus often do have to “get in line.” and wait until a slot opens. As you can see from the fact sheet above, unmarried adult children of citizens come next, then spouses and minor children of LPRs, then unmarried adult children of LPRs, then married adult children of citizens, and finally siblings of citizens.

These are all pretty close relatives, and form part of an extended family unit. Speaking from my own experience, most of us are better off with extended family there to assist. It takes us through hard times, illness, job loss, and more - we help each other out and are stronger because of it. And also - and this is key - it prevents individuals from needing to rely on the government safety net as much as they would without family. It seems a win-win to me.

But here is how it is now spun as “chain migration.”

Immigrant A comes here legally, and five years later, becomes a citizen. He then brings his parents, who five years later become citizens, then bring in their other adult children, and so on. Before you know it, you have a whole extended family living and working here.

Now, some of us may be thinking “what exactly is the problem here?”

The problem, apparently, is that for many people on the Right, there are too damn many immigrants here now. At least, that is about all I can see that would be a problem. It’s pretty much how my ancestors came here - we came as whole village groups, actually. One of the reasons we formed solid communities where we settled was that we had support systems. Community. When the 1965 law was passed, many noted that immigrants with family here already find jobs and social support more easily - back then, this was considered a desirable thing. (And, as I note below, this was also a way to exclude “inferior races” - they were less likely to have family here than whites…)

Okay, I lied. There is another “problem.” See, when people bring family here, it means that the actually intend to stay here. If you let a single worker in, but make sure he can’t really put down roots, then maybe he goes back where he came from after a few years. And then you don’t have to have any dirty immigrants here, right?

I believe this is the real objection to family-based immigration. And also why we started hearing about “chain migration” when the Steve Bannons and Stephen Millers got into influential positions. Their view of immigration is the KKK view: stop the immigration of “inferior races.” They’re pretty open about it, actually. That’s why they also use the term “the browning of America.” It is an objection to inferior, browner, races coming here. In other words, open racism and white supremacy.

This is why the Right is openly lying about family based immigration, claiming that anyone can bring in distant cousins and so on. They can’t. But that isn’t the point. The point is to drum up fear of brown people and (as usual) shut down immigration of “inferior races.”

Now, to be clear, while I do not find anything wrong with Family Based Immigration in general, I believe that using it as our main way to immigrate is problematic because it excludes, well, anyone who doesn’t have an immediate relative here. That’s a lot of people who can’t get in under this method.

Another problem with family-based immigration is that it was proposed as a way to exclude undesireable “inferior races,” but without being obviously racist about it. After all, more people from white countries had relatives here, right? It didn’t quite work out that way, however, because over time, enough Latinos and Asians came here to take advantage of this method of legal immigration. (For more on the history of the act, and the racist motivations behind the family-based portion of it, see this excellent NPR article. Many interesting quotes which are relevant today.)

Another problem is that immigration caps, both by total number and by per-country and per-region quotas, reduce the total “legal” immigrants to fairly low numbers, which is why there is a waiting list for family-based immigration. (Except for spouses and minor children - the quotas don’t apply there.)

For some solid facts on how family-based immigration works, and the long waits for family immigrants from certain countries really is, this New York Times article is helpful.

Let’s look at the next path in:

2. Employer Sponsored Immigration

This one is often misunderstood. I would say it is the source of much of the “why don’t they come here legally” nonsense. Let me admit that I too got this one wrong for a long time, until I actually went and looked things up. (It’s a good habit, I recommend it.)

The misconception is that just anyone can sign up for a job here, get an employer sponsorship, and viola! legal immigration! Not so.

First, let me point out that a number of these employer sponsored categories are for temporary work visas. (The H1-B, which has been in the news lately, is one of these.) You are fine as long as you keep your job, but you may well have to leave if you lose it and can’t find another similar job immediately. Even these temporary categories do not generally apply to non-skilled, non-specialty jobs. You can’t just apply to be a migrant farm worker, for example. In practice, you see these for STEM fields, entertainers, artists, chefs, and so on. That Korean software engineer, the Indian surgeon, the French chef, the (ahem) Slovienian model - these are classic H1-B immigrants. These coveted visas typically reach the quota amount in the first week of every year.

There are also more permanent visas. If you look at the chart in the link near the top of this post, you can see that the preferences are for highly educated, highly skilled workers in high-demand industries. The cap on “unskilled” workers of any sort is a paltry 5,000.

As it is, there are far more potential Employer Sponsored immigrants than there are slots, so there is a line to wait in here too.

And if you are uneducated, poor, and don’t work in a skilled field, forget about it. You aren’t getting in through this path.

Let’s touch on the final path:

3. Refugees and asylum seekers.

This is a broad category, with a hodgepodge of specific categories and arcane rules. I’m not even going to attempt to make sense of it, other than to say that it isn’t easy to get in this way, it isn’t available in practice to people from most countries, even if they personally are threatened, and please don’t even attempt this without an attorney to assist you. Also, you probably have a 6 year wait, and you probably will spend it locked up. For more on asylum, see here.

There are also a number of other exceptions and kludges here and there, but the vast majority of people won’t qualify for them.

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So, let’s summarize the legal ways to get in:

1. Be an immediate family member of a US citizen or LPR.
2. Be an educated, skilled worker in a high demand field, with a guaranteed job.
3. Qualify for as an asylum seeker or refugee.

Now, think about this:

Let’s say you are an average impoverished person in a country somewhere in the world. You have no immediate relatives here. You can’t afford an education, even if one was available to you. You aren’t a refugee and don’t qualify for asylum.

How the heck are you getting in legally?

The answer is pretty obvious:

You aren’t.

There is no line. There is no process. There is no legal way in.

So what do you do? Well, maybe you come here anyway - or send your children. It does beat crushing poverty, or violent drug wars, right? Just keep your head down, work under the table for an ag giant, have some children here so that at least they will be citizens and have a better life. Realistically, it isn’t that different from what my ancestors - and probably yours too - did. The difference was that the law let our ancestors do it, and it doesn’t let today’s immigrants do it.

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BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE:

Country-based immigration caps and the diversity lottery

Let’s start with the first one. No country may have more than 7% of the total legal immigrants admitted. So there is an overall cap on the number. (More or less 500,000 per year, in practice, if I am reading it right), but there is also a cap on how many can come from any one place. Using big round numbers here, that means that your total legal immigration from, say, Mexico or India or the Philippines is limited to about 35,000 per year, which is FAR below demand, even for family reunification or employment visas. So there are long waiting lists.

It isn’t a mystery why these limits were put in place. As the writers of the 1965 law stated baldly, it was to prevent a change to the ethnic makeup of the US. In other words, the same race and nationality based exclusions, just by a more euphemistic name.

About the next:

What even IS the diversity lottery?

This, along with family-based immigration has been targeted by the Right as Bad Things About our Current System™. But what is it? Most people do not understand it at all.

The Diversity Lottery was put in place as part of the 1990 revisions to the law. (That’s during George H. W. Bush’s term - back before the GOP went Nativist.) It was intended to increase the diversity of immigrants by opening a pool of 50,000 per year to countries that didn’t send more than 50,000 a year to the US. These were people from countries without the same level of family ties as, say, Mexico or India, and thus didn’t have enough family based candidates to immigrate under that program. These people would still have something to contribute, but couldn’t get in through other channels. You can read more about it here.

The program recognized two things: first, the family based system excluded a lot of otherwise eligible immigrants from around the world; and second, that diversity was a source of strength.

Again, there is nothing nefarious here. Just an attempt to work around the restrictions of family based immigration and let in qualified immigrants from around the world.

Note too that the TOTAL number of diversity lottery immigrants is 50,000 yearly, and no one country can get more than 7% of these visas.

I suspect the problem with this program, to the Bannons and Millers of the world, is that it lets brown people from poorer countries in, which is anathema to them. As I will note in a future installment, their vision is to limit legal immigration to educated, wealthy people - which would be a de facto way to limit legal immigration to first world countries plus Japan and Korea (and maybe China.) Third world immigrants, unless of the wealthy class, need not apply. Keep the dirty brown people out.

I’ll talk more in a future installment about the expressly racist vision for immigration (or more accurately, a vision without immigration) that the Trump administration has embraced.

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For now, let me leave it at this: under our current system, it is difficult to legally immigrate, and downright impossible for most people, particularly those who lack wealth, connections, or education. For the most needy, our doors are shut, and yet there is a strong push to close the door even more.