Immigration Part 7: My Family's Story

 

This post is part of my Immigration Series. Please read the introduction, particularly the disclaimer. 

 

***

 

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.

In the fourth part, I looked at the realities of current immigration law, which provides no legal path to entry for the vast majority of those who wish to immigrate.

In the fifth part, I examined the openly racist goals of the Trump Administration.

In the sixth part, I looked at the rough breakdown of immigration views on the right and left, and why this has meant that we cannot - or will not - fix our broken system.

 

***

 

Other issues have taken our national attention away from immigration. While the Trump Administration continues to be viciously racist and anti-immigrant, a certain pandemic combined with civil unrest over ongoing racist police brutality have taken the headlines. Still, immigration will continue to be a long term issue. 

 

I want to take the time to give my own family’s history. I tell this history as I heard it passed down to me, which means I cannot vouch for the accuracy of every detail. It’s oral history, and I believe it to be true in the key facts, if not in every single detail. 

 

***

 

I am, like all citizens of the United States except for the Native Americans, the descendant of immigrants, voluntary or enslaved. As far as I know (and I can’t be certain), I have no Native American ancestry. Furthermore, none of my relatives came over on the Mayflower, were Puritans, or are related to royalty. In fact, my ancestors pretty much were the epitome of poor, downtrodden, “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Or, as our current administration might put it, we came from the “shithole countries” of our time, were politically unpopular religious fanatics, and were about as “worthless” and “suspect” as immigrants could be. 

 

Let me start with my father’s side of the family. My paternal great-grandfather was Swedish. He was a dirt poor preacher in Eastern Montana. My late grandfather told us plenty of stories about near-starvation, how he kept alive on the onions and soured milk donated by desperately poor parishioners who had nothing else to give. I can’t remember a whole lot about the history on that side. H---- and I--- were (if I recall), second or third generation immigrants, and nobody who came before was anyone notable. As far as we know, they came over during the 1880s or 90s during a wave of Scandinavian immigration. The usual pressures applied to us: overpopulation, crop failures, starvation, etc. The usual story. Life sucked, kids died due to malnutrition, and so they left. North America was a big place, and the Native Americans were easily evicted, so...well, you can guess the rest. 

 

My S------- ancestors ended up in Eastern Montana, where they settled and raised families. On that branch, I come from a long line of ministers, I am told. If anything, I credit that for my innate sense of justice and morality. It is from my ancestors that I take inspiration to be a decent, moral person even when it costs me. 

 

***

 

On my paternal grandmother’s side, I am German. Specifically, German Mennonite. The T------ were part of the Anabaptist sect known as Mennonites. Most people know them today because of the Amish, which are a particular (and peculiar) subsect of the greater Mennonite tradition. While our branch of the Mennonites never rejected technology, from what I can tell, we were adamantly pacifist and non-violent. 

 

Our branch of the family was part of a German Mennonite community that became quite unpopular in Germany because of our resistance to military conscription. Sometime in the late 1700s or early 1800s, my ancestors fled to the southern Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), where they acquired land, and lived in peace for a while. 

 

Then, in the 1870s, they lost their exemption from military service, and fled Russia to the United States, eventually settling in Eastern Montana. There, they took advantage of the Homestead Act (in practice, open only to whites…), used government loans to get a grub stake, and established themselves as farmers. (If you ever hear reference to “hard red [Russian] wheat,” that’s our contribution to this country. We are inordinately proud of that fact, and a bit smug that Russia underwent famine in the 20th century because they evicted us and our knowledge of wheat horticulture. Immigrants: we get it done!

 

In addition to the above government programs, my family on that side has benefited from the public education system, farm and ranch subsidies, and more. (So much for welfare, right?) My relatives still farm and ranch property near Savage, Montana, beneficiaries still of the Homestead Act. 

 

***

 

The story of my maternal grandfather’s side of the family is much the same as the above. Also German Mennonites, they were part of the same Russian community, and fled in the 1880s. However, they settled in Kansas. There are plenty of pictures and stories on this branch. Two generations of men with unusual names from the Bible, and eventually my great-grandfather, who was apparently stung by a scorpion in a dugout on a Kansas homestead as an infant near the turn of the 20th Century. He survived and had 10 kids - we are a fertile family. 

 

The E----- side of the family is big, and we kept records. So I know, for example, that I am related to Bob Dornan, which is not something I am proud of. (Not that I have met him. Something like a 10th cousin, I believe…) 

 

For what it is worth, “E-----” is one of those last names which was invented at Ellis Island. The original was pronounced something like “Eggdyosh” in pronunciation - something German and not “American” enough for the clerk who checked us in.

 

As you might have guessed, this does mean that my parents were probably related somewhere way back on the German side of each branch. I think the best guess is 7th cousins or some such. Nobody has solid knowledge, but somewhere back in Russia in the early 1800s, they were part of the same greater community. 

 

Like my T------ ancestors, the E------ ancestors gained access to the middle class because of the Homestead Act, a major government program not available to immigrants today. 

 This is how my ancestors came to America: through Ellis Island in the late 1880s

 

***

 

Ah, the final branch. This is the most mysterious and unknown side of my ancestry. My great-grandfather was a Wedgwood, a member of that illustrious English family that made the famous china. Josiah Wedgwood, legend of England and still familiar today. In fact, my mother got a few hundred bucks from the estate of some scion of the Wedgwoods who died childless decades ago. Because of this connection, I am also related to Charles Darwin. Very distantly related.

 

I don’t know all the details of this connection and how my English ancestors came to the United States, although it would have occurred sometime in the 1800s. My own guess is that we were descended from some sort of disreputable bastard cousin of old Josiah, and came to the US because we had no inheritance and no future and a worse reputation. My great grandfather did serve in WW I, got gassed in the trenches and never really recovered. Drank and smoked himself to death, and left my grandmother damaged in many ways. Every family has its skeletons... 

 

And then there is the R-------- side. Nobody knows who my great-grandmother’s father was (and she died long before I was born.) She was a bastard in the traditional sense, with an unknown father and God only knows what in her ancestry. Although based on skin color, it was damn lily white. Maybe a drunken Irishman, maybe a drunken Scot. God only knows, but more than likely booze was involved...and an infamous seduction. As I said, this is the part of the family that doesn’t get talked about anymore. 

 

***

 

So anyway, that’s my story. Of the people we can trace, everyone came here in the 1870s through the 1890s at the latest. During that period, white people could immigrate without restriction, and then get citizenship five years later with few questions asked. 

 

And that’s what we did. We came here. We got some free land from the government. We farmed it. We sent the kids to free public schools and got some semblance of an education. My father’s generation was the first truly college educated generation. My generation was the first to get graduate degrees (at least until some of my father’s generation went back to college after retirement…) We are boring, ordinary middle class white Americans. Nothing you would write home about, but generally solid citizens, tending to contribute to society, stay out of legal trouble for the most part, and raising our families like ordinary people. 

 

But the story wouldn’t have happened today.

 

My ancestors - none of them - would have been admitted to the US legally under current law. 

 

***

 

Oh, I can’t forget to tell you about another family skeleton! 

 

I’m not going to give every sordid detail, but here goes:

 

My late paternal grandfather was a missionary to the Philippines. (My dad was born there, but is a US citizen under the laws - see part 2 of this series.) During his time there, he engaged in a little bit of extracurricular activity, so to speak. He knocked up a young woman who was a house servant, who then bore his child. This scandal led to his dismissal from his post, his return to the US, and about 18 years of irresponsible behavior after he essentially had a nervous breakdown. (A lot about the dysfunction in our extended family can be attributed to my grandmother’s untimely death and my grandfather’s episode of bad behavior. I loved him, but he had some really glaring faults. And I don’t think, given the circumstances, that the sex could have been considered consensual by today’s standards.) 

 

So now, we have a Filipino girl with an inconvenient child, a father who has fled back to the US, and a big ol’ mess. As usual in our world, the older white male skates, and the consequences happen to the poor, young, brown female. To prevent really horrible things from happening to the mother, the child is adopted by her parents, my grandfather never acknowledges his paternity, and that branch of my family remains in the Philippines. 

 

Many, many years later, after being widowed twice, my grandfather, for the first time in this tale, makes an altruistic decision, and marries the woman he knocked up, and brings her to the United States. Soon afterward, he goes to his reward, and the rest of us have a fun mess. The child was adopted out to relatives, officially, and isn’t legally related to my grandfather. So a bloody immigration mess results, and the upshot is that despite the best efforts of some truly fine attorneys, there is no legal way for a Filipino family to reunite with their American relatives. And so there you are.

 

I will confess that prior to this mess, the younger me really believed a lot of the right wing propaganda about immigration. I naively thought that my relatives could simply get on a waiting list, and come here 5ish years later. 

 

Wrong. 

 

There is no waiting list. 

 

As I will point out in a later post, there is, in fact, no legal path for them to come here under current law. They are stuck there, despite all our efforts, their efforts (including learning English and getting professional licenses.) That is what our current laws say. “Stay out, f-ing foreigner!”  

 

[Just a hint: please don’t give me your magic solution. Some well respected immigration attorneys from a major metropolitan area spent many hours working on this case. The problem isn’t lack of representation. It’s the fucked up immigration laws we have combined with some poor decisions on the part of my grandfather, who is dead and therefore can’t help at this point.] 

 

***

 

So there you have it. My family’s story.  I believe it is relevant to our immigration discussion because it illustrates the massive change in law and policy between the 1880s and the present time. It also illustrates just how the current debate leverages falsehoods about the past - including the government benefits whites received in the past - to slander and exclude current (non-white) immigrants. 

 

I’ll talk more in future posts about our current laws, and also about some of the falsehoods about immigrants past and present that the Right insists on repeating over and over. 

 

***

 

I recently read a book about Filipino immigrants that let me to revisit and finish this post. America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo really brought back some memories, and reminded me of my own connections. 

 

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Source of book: Audiobook from the library. 

 

For some reason, we have tended to listen to books by or about African Americans on our trips to Shaver Lake over the years. I still associate that drive (which is pretty wicked with a trailer and underpowered truck) with Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. This time, we chose Brown Girl Dreaming. While the book was memorable, I must confess that the most memorable part of this trip turned out to be having to evacuate because of the Creek Fire, which started about the time we arrived, and blew up out of control overnight. 2020 sucks. It really does. 

 

But the book most definitely does NOT suck. It is a rather lovely book, and made me put a few more Jacqueline Woodson books on our list. Brown Girl Dreaming is a rather unusual sort of literature. It is non-fiction in poetry. Woodson tells the story of her childhood in (mostly) free verse. Because she narrates the audiobook, we get to hear her voice telling her story in her own poetic way. It is a good combination. While most of the book is in free verse, there are a number of short parts in other forms from haiku to hymn stanzas. 

 

Woodson was born in Ohio, but later moved with her mother and siblings to segregated South Carolina to live with her mother’s parents. Later, they move to New York City. The story itself ends with Woodson still a child - teen, I believe - but dreaming of becoming an author, thanks to an encouraging teacher. In between are the usual, everyday things that most of us experience. She was clearly loved by her family, and grew up about as happy as any of us can. But also, her parents divorce, her grandfather dies, her favorite uncle is incarcerated (and later converts to Islam), her younger brother nearly dies from lead poisoning, and her mom has a child with a white man who is never part of their lives. In an interesting twist from the usual narrative, Woodson was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, although her parents never really bought into the faith. (Grandma was the one who pushed it…) Woodson herself fully rejected that faith, presumably in part because of her sexuality. I found the description of the JW lifestyle and community to be wonderfully nuanced. Woodson in general writes with a non-judgmental tone, looking for the positive. 

 

[Personal note here: While I am not a fan of the cultic aspects of the Jehovah’s Witness organization - particularly the family shunning - I know and respect a number of people who are part of that faith. Most notable was the family next door to us when I was ages 9 through 16. They were a mixed race family - he was white, she was black, and their kids could have passed for Latinix - and often did at school: the racial ambiguity helped them avoid pressure to join local gangs, which were a problem in the neighborhood. As the other family on the block that didn’t tolerate swearing, we made common cause with their kids, and gained a sort of popularity because together we made sure our sports games in the street or backyard were always fair and civil.] 

 

One of the things that is nice about this book is that it isn’t specifically civil rights oriented - although obviously any realistic autobiography set in the 1950s and 60s would have to include some references to the movement and to experiences of racism. But Woodson focuses on the everyday in this book. Friendships, school, relationships, life’s complexity and variety. She describes the settings in a way that make them seem real and vibrant. Her extended family seems so real and so ordinary-in-the-best-possible-way. There isn’t really a central arc to the narrative in this case, because it is just her life, as she and her family (for the early parts before and after she was born) remember it. She lives and grows and loves and grieves and just is. 

 

Don’t get me wrong. We have listened to plenty of books about civil rights, and I think they are an important part of my kids’ education. But important too is to hear ordinary stories about ordinary things. No matter who you are, rich or poor, white or black, the fabric of our lives tends to be those everyday moments and the people who are dear to us. Experiencing that human universal is important too - humans are more alike than different, regardless of what white supremacy tries to convince us. And likewise, cultural values are more similar than we tend to think. We have far more in common than not. 

 

As I said, I have added some more Woodson to our list, because this book was quite enjoyable. It is also appropriate for all ages, although the very small might not have the vocabulary yet. Woodson did a fine job narrating her book as well. Not all authors should read their own books, but Woodson is perfect for her stories. The audio version adds to the story because of what Woodson brings to it. 

 

Labor Day: Adam Smith, Notorious "Socialist"

 

I posted this on Facebook last year, and thought I would make it a blog post this year. I have included stuff from some of the comments, and expanded it a little.  

 

***

 

Thoughts for Labor Day: 

 

I was in my 20s when I first read Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations cover to cover. I was struck by the fact that Smith in many ways sounded closer to Marx than to Ayn Rand (and modern right-wing economists.) He was anti-corporate, anti-investment banking, considered high profits to be the sign of a sick society, said that the greatness of a nation could be seen in the rising living standards of its working poor, and warned that employers would organize to artificially lower wages while raising profits. Here are a couple of quotes that are on point:

 

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

 

I have been branded a "socialist" for suggesting that in the 21st century, wages should be high enough for food, clothing, lodging, and health care…

 

"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate."

 

Then, as now, there is hostility toward unions, and laws enacted to make it difficult to organize. Meanwhile, employers naturally conspire to keep wages low.

 

Make no mistake: Adam Smith did not support the kleptocapitalist nonsense we have today - he warned against much of it, despite living 200+ years ago.

 

I have found that most right wingers who love to name-check Adam Smith have never actually read him. If they did, they would be much more cautious about enlisting his aid in promoting unregulated corporate capitalism that grinds the faces of the poor. (And pretty much anyone not filthy rich.)

 

Much of what we take for granted these days: a five day work week (rather than seven), 40 hour weeks or you (most of you anyway) get overtime pay, no child labor, regulation of working conditions so employers can’t simply assume a percentage of their workforce will die on the job - or get maimed and not be able to work, minimum wage, and so on, came because of unions and protests - one might even say riots. Smith understood that labor will always have structural disadvantages, exacerbated by poverty. Thus, labor needs to inflict genuine pain on those in power to succeed in creating a more just distribution of resources in our society. 

 

For Labor Day this, and every, year. Let us raise a glass to Adam Smith, and with him insist that the greatness of a nation is not measured by the wealth of its filthy-rich oligarchs, but by the living conditions of the poorest members of our society. And purpose to raise those conditions through our votes. 

 

***

 

A few more:

 

Smith also warned that inequality had horrible social effects, because the rich will spend their money on self-aggrandizement, rather than benefit the rest of society. Hmm…

 

He also had great hostility toward "rent seeking," which has pretty much become corporate policy these days.

 

A lesson for Il Toupee: tariffs don't fix trade deficits, they just raise prices and increase smuggling.

 

Smith said that taxes should never fall primarily on the poor, but should be directed at reducing the profits from "rents," that is, income from existing wealth that is not put back into the business. Hey, that sounds pretty "socialist" by today's standards too! That’s the sort of progressive income and wealth tax that people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren call for. (Which is further proof, by the way, that what is considered “far left” in the US is actually center to center-right elsewhere in the world - and even 200 years ago.) 

 

 

 

America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo

 

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

I put this book on my list after it was recommended by NPR. I just read the really short summary, which was enough to hook me, but having read the book, I realize that neither the summary nor the cover blurb really does justice to what this book is about. 

 

Also, the title itself is confusing, because this book is not an anti-American book. To us white Americans, the title might seem to have nothing to do with the book itself. I looked into it, however, and it is a sly reference to America Is In The Heart, by Carlos Bulosan, which is kind of the Filipino equivalent of The Scarlet Letter in the sense that it is a part of the curriculum everyone reads. 

 

 

 First, let me back up a bit, because one of the reasons that this book emotionally affected me like it did was because of my background. My parents were both born overseas as missionary kids; my dad was born and raised in the Philippines, so we grew up eating pancit and adobo and biko. Later, when I was in my teens, my grandfather became an associate pastor at a Filipino church in the Los Angeles area. I got involved with that because they needed a versatile musician to help out. Over a number of years, I played stuff from guitar to drums to violin as needed, both for the regular services and for the bigger musical productions. At the time, we lived in the mountains, and once yearly, they would all come up to our place after sledding, and put on a feast. I have so many fond memories of those times. After my grandfather died and I moved out and started a family of my own, I lost track of everyone, sadly. This was pre-Facebook, and geography and busy lives meant more difficulty staying in touch. If anyone runs across this post and wants to reconnect, drop me a line… 

 

This history was one reason that I was intrigued by the book. A Filipino immigration story? Sign me up. But the book is more than that. A lot more than that. It is the story of three generations of women torn in some way between the United States and the Philippines. It is a compelling love story between two women and the fallout from that. It is an unflinching look at the effects of trauma. It is an uncomfortable story of class boundaries and how they interact with social and legal power. It is a well-told and compelling story that is hard to put down. It is also a window into another culture - the Filipino-American culture in California during the 1990s. That’s the culture I experienced, and man, it took me back. It was an emotional ride in so many ways, but the memories it brought back were a trip. Oh, and in the Philippine scenes, I knew a lot of the names, because they were my dad’s old haunts, from Manila to Bagio. 

 

One of the reasons that the culture comes to life in this book is that Castillo made the conscious decision to write it with the characters talking the way they would talk. Which means that there are a lot of non-English words. Tagalog is the main secondary language, and, having been immersed in “Taglish” for a while, I kept up reasonably well. I mean, I am certainly not a Tagalog speaker or listener, but I know the honorifics (Tita, Tito, Ata, Nimang, etc.) fairly well, and the food better than I realized. (I mean, I could practically smell and see the dishes in my head - a restaurant is central to the story, so there is a LOT of food. Now I’m getting hungry again.) The rest, I won’t claim to know what the words mean, but in those cases where a speaker switched to Tagalog midstream, I was able to get the gist well enough without resorting to Google. 

 

Less successful was when Castillo’s characters used Ilocano, or especially Pangasinan. Those are outside my experience, so I had to look a few things up, or do the best I could with context. I am okay with Castillo’s choice, however, as she had good reasons. In fact, you can read her own words about why she wrote the book the way she did. She is spot on that she has no duty to write specifically for white, monolingual readers. There is no “one, single” American voice - and I am certainly not the only important reader. (Also, we white guys need to get over ourselves…) 

 

So, what IS this book about anyway? Well, it is a bit sprawling (in a good way - I was sad to get to the end) and covers a lot of ground in time, place, and character. Most of the book is from the perspective of Hero (short for Geronima), a 30 something Filipina who has just moved to Milpitas California to live with her uncle and his family. She has an interesting past, to say the least. Born in a rich family, she drops out of medical school to become a field medic with the New People’s Army. Ten years in, she was captured (probably mistaken for one of the leaders), tortured, and then released after the government realized that she was just a medic and was part of a family that was close to Marcos. Her family has mostly disowned her, except for one aunt who takes her in while her broken thumbs are surgically repaired (as much as possible - she remains somewhat crippled), and her uncle, who facilitate’s her trip to America and lets her live with them. 

 

Uncle Pol (Apolonio) is an interesting character. He was a well known surgeon, part of the rich and influential De Vera family (descended from the Spaniards, Chinese and Japanese Traders, and Ilocanos), but ended up in America for, well, that’s a story in itself. To understand that, you have to know the back story for his wife, Paz. Born into poverty, Paz grows up in a completely different social strata from Pol. However, her father, whatever his philandering faults are, manages to get hired on the American military compound on Guam, become an American citizen, and then bring his family over one at a time to California. Paz completes nursing school in the Philippines and works for a while, until her dad gets her a green card. After she immigrates, however, Pol, who has been pining for her for years, manages to contact her and convince her to marry him. (There is a whole backstory to Pol too - his first wife, his close relationship with Hero, who he believes is dead at the time, and his reputation for being a “babaero” - a playa, so to speak. Although the women love him because of his legendary cunniligus talents…) Anyway, to get the girl, Pol comes to America, but cannot work as a surgeon, having to be a lowly security guard while Paz brings home most of the bacon. It is a traumatic reversal of status for Pol. And a bonus for Paz, who has had to put up with nastiness from Pol’s family. 

 

Paz and Pol have a daughter, Roni (also short for Geronima - named after Hero who was believed dead) who is age seven then eight during the course of the story. She too has a hidden trauma - her older cousins molested her when she was there for babysitting. 

 

Hero comes to the US, but has no way of getting legal status - she remains undocumented. At first, she simply helps with childcare and household stuff, as well as driving Roni to and from school. (And no, she doesn’t have a license and cannot get one - this is a legitimate dilemma for undocumented immigrants.) Because Roni has eczema, Paz sends her to a traditional healer, Adela, who also owns a restaurant with her husband Boy. (Nicknames are a thing in Filipino culture for sure - the book is filled with them.) Adela’s grandaughter Roselyn works next door as a makeup specialist. When Roselyn meets Hero, she falls hard in love (although she is quite closeted, perhaps even to herself.) Hero, like the author, is bisexual, and is attracted to Roselyn, but doesn’t want to ruin a good friendship. Also, as we find out, Hero’s relationship to sex is complicated, and she has not done well in romantic or committed relationships in general. 

 

So, there’s that part of the plot. It’s a damn good love story, too, full of emotional complexity and realistic bumbling toward understandings. The book would qualify as true literary fiction for that reason alone - the nuance and perception of the relationship dynamics between the characters - all of them - are really superb. 

 

There are other subplots going on too. We gradually learn the story of Hero’s experiences, first in her “first life” growing up as a spoiled rich girl, then in NPA through her torture and imprisonment. The uncomfortable dynamic between Pol and Paz becomes open warfare when (near the end), Pol takes Roni back to the Philippines so she can be raised there by his family and he can return to his surgical practice. (I won’t spoil the ending beyond that…) There is the partial disintegration of Rosalyn’s family after Boy’s sudden death and the discovery of Rosalyn’s sexual orientation. 

 

Oh, and the book opens with thirty pages of back story written in the second person from Paz’s point of view. Personally, I found the second person thing annoying as hell, but that appears to be just me. Plenty of reviewers liked it, so your mileage may vary. Also in second person is a brief chapter giving Rosalyn’s point of view. As I said, it’s 400+ sprawling pages. 

 

There are two other writing tics that grated on me a bit, which probably means I am an old man. First is the fact that Castillo never uses quotation marks. Sure, not every language uses them, and you can figure out when someone is speaking. But I miss them. Second, in many of those dialogues, Castillo does the period. thing. Like that. With periods to indicate pauses, but with no capitalization. At this point, I shall shake my cane and mutter “Damn Millennials!”  

 

Throughout, Castillo examines the experience of immigrants in America from a somewhat different perspective. There isn’t much racism in the book, in part because the characters mostly exist in respect to each other, not the white world as such. Immigrant communities here in California do often have some insular characteristics, and tend to be more close knit and supportive than white culture. I find that admirable in a lot of ways. It isn’t unwelcoming either - I was embraced, although I was never and could never be a true insider. I was one of many non-Filipinos who were part of the group in that way, and it was a great experience. I think white Americans could learn a lot from that. 

 

They also could learn some history. Although I give my parents credit for teaching me more about racial issues than our curriculum, and for impressing on me that America wasn’t the only country or American Christianity the only “true” Christianity, I don’t think they really understood the effects of Colonialism in the countries of their birth. I could be wrong, but there were a lot of historical “facts” that I now realize were part of the “whitewashed” jingoistic American history myth. As I said, better than most in their generation by a good margin. But, that said, this book points out somewhere between 600,000 and 1,400,000 Filipinos were exterminated during the Philippine-American War after the US took over from Spain. Most died by disease and famine as a result of US policies to “subdue the natives.” Oh, and the forced conversions from Catholicism to Protestantism, the suppression of indiginous beliefs and traditions, and so on - if this sounds a bit like how we treated Native Americans...yes, it is part of the American tradition, sadly. There are some horrific quotes in the book from American commanders, from President McKinley - who openly called the war an “extermination” of the natives - to the various generals who were committed to “disarming the native population of the Philippines, even if we have to kill half of them.” Oh, and the answer to the trivia question, “When did the US first use waterboarding to torture people?” is “The Philippine-American War. We need to be honest about this history. We Americans LOVE to think of ourselves as the great white saviors of the world, but our legacy is a bloody trail of violence and genocide. If we hadn’t somehow ended up on the right side of World War Two (and maybe World War One), I find it hard to make a case for any of our military “adventures.” 

 

Speaking of history, the passages on the NPA are fascinating. I’m not defending the NPA in general, although the book certainly gives a different perspective from the white American one. But let’s be honest about one thing: Communist movements do not arise in a vacuum. They happen when there is genuine and horrific injustice and oppression. The description of the land grabs the wealthy (and lighter skinned…) Filipino oligarchs made at the expense of the poor is horrifying. (And a bit too close to how things have gone in the US over the last 40 years too.) Land that had belonged to communal groups for centuries were systematically plundered by the rich, using the power of debt and government. 

 

Also worth remembering is that Communist movements, for all their faults, have tended to be egalitarian in some crucial ways. It is not an accident that the Nazis used the Communists as the bogeyman, or that all Civil Rights movements in the US have been tarred as “Communist.” Ultimately, exploitation is exploitation. As one female NPA leader says in the book, “abuse of women is class exploitation,” which is why rape got you killed. Ultimately, racism and sexism are just manifestations of the class issue: who is worthy of equal rights and access to necessities and safety. To justify denying these to certain people (the poor, racial minorities, women…) the oppressors create myths about the “inferiority” of the oppressed. 

 

There are a few other things I want to mention about the book. I am not sure entirely how much of the book is autobiographical in some sense or another. Roni is clearly the character with the same basic experience as the author, being born and raised in the US as a second generation immigrant, speaking multiple languages, and so on. On the other hand, I wonder how much of Hero - or Rosalyn - is an emotional analogue for Castillo. Castillo did have a distant cousin who was in the NPA, and gave her the background on the experience. Clearly, as Castillo has said, her own identity as a Filipino-American bisexual woman informs her writing. (As identities do for all of us who write.) Of course, whether or not something in the book is autobiographical isn’t really important - the story is what it is whether it is literally “true” or not. It is fiction, and there is thus that complex interaction between the author and the reader. 

 

The book is at times shockingly frank about sex. Castillo is a vivid writer, and some of the pictures she paints are painful or disturbing at times. This is real life, not rosy romance, and sometimes fucking is, well, fucked up. In line with my general experience that women write far better sex scenes than men (on average, at least), the central sexual encounter in the book is the rare one that is awkward, somewhat explicit, and yet both romantic and sexy as hell. I rarely want sex scenes to happen in books, honestly, because they seem some combination of gratuitous and uncomfortable; and they rarely seem to illuminate the rest of the book. This one is different, as perspective on who both Rosalyn and Hero are shifts as a result. We see them in a different light as a result of sex, and the events and unfolding of their respective traumas afterward make much more sense as a result. Leaving out the sex would leave a huge hole in the book, which makes the scene the very opposite of gratuitous. 

 

Also crucial to the characterization is music. Hero and Rosalyn, having completely different upbringings, have musical tastes that might be on different planets. Rosalyn has friends who are DJs (and not in the radio sense) trying to make it in the “freestyle” world. Hero likes older white emo stuff that she discovered as a teen. (There’s more to that story too…) But here is the great line:

 

Hero hates freestyle, Rosalyn said. She made me listen to her music in the car when I picked her up. She only listens to music about white people having feelings.

 

This is kind of classic Rosalyn too. Her defense mechanism is often to act like this. After all, it was Rosalyn who wanted to hear the tapes. (For context, this is before Rosalyn has admitted she is in love with Hero, even to herself. Although Adela clearly knew from the start.)

 

The last 50 or so pages of the book are emotionally intense. I had to step away a few times, honestly. As I noted, Castillo is an effective writer, and does relationship dynamics so very well. There is this one scene where Paz and Hero finally connect. The two have been at arm’s length for most of the book, because Paz feels judged by Pol’s family, and that includes Hero, while Hero feels an uncomfortable sense of obligation to Paz, who has given her so much. After Pol takes Roni, though, the two of them find common ground in their trauma. They have this late night of talking and getting smashed on Pol’s gin. It’s great writing. The next morning, though, despite the fact that Paz is tiny compared to Hero, she is up in time for work as usual, while Hero - hardly unused to booze or unable to hold it - is left with an epic hangover. I have met a few like Paz, who manage to grind out 24 hour shifts and still function. 

 

I could write all day about the other intense scenes at the end, and the devastating lines the characters deliver. As I said, superb emotional and relational writing. I should mention the scene where Rosalyn tells Hero her mom is kicking her out of the house for being a lesbian. 

 

You can’t talk to her?

What a great idea, why didn’t I think of that, Rosalyn intoned dryly. 

Look, she’s been suspicious about me for years. She gonna take a while to. Be okay with it. If she’s ever going to be okay with it. I don’t know. We’ve never--Rosalyn flinched. Anyway. Grandma knows, obviously. I didn’t even have to tell her and she knew. She knew about you and me before we even--like, before anything even happened, did you know that?

 

The way Castillo captures the cadence of conversations is wonderful. This is just one example, of course. You can see it too in what isn’t on the page. The words between the lines. 

 

There is one more scene that is fascinating. Hero, having more life experience - and a wider range of experience too - notices that Rosalyn has never really gone outside of a very narrow set of places. That is why moving out to her own apartment is such a huge thing to Rosalyn. Hero mentions to Rosalyn that she hasn’t even been inside any of the competing restaurants.

 

No, Rosalyn said, then a look came over her face. Hero recognized that look, remembered what it had felt like to tell other students at UST about Vigan only to discover from the look of terror on their faces that her perspective on the world had been so much narrower than she’d imagined, a knife’s width. 

 

It is impossible to get into all the context in that paragraph - one reason the book is so good is the way it brings to life those other places and experiences and the dynamics that would cause a Manillan to assume Vigan is a terrorist hellhole while she thought of it in light of her privileged upbringing. 

 

I feel like I can’t begin to capture this book in a blog post, although I have tried. I rather enjoyed this book, which was unexpectedly emotional and moving, and a thoroughly engrossing read. 

 

***

 

I linked one of them above, but I think that a couple of articles are worth reading about this book. The first is the one Castillo herself wrote, which is the polar opposite of an apology. She is beyond unapologetic about how she wrote it. She is aggressively assertive, and I mean that in the best possible way. (I like strong women, in case it wasn’t obvious.) It’s just badass. Read it. 

 

There Is No Single Voice of America (on Lithub)

 

“But the thing is, these types of questions aren’t asked of all writers. These types of specific questions about untranslated languages are typically asked about use of non-Western words in a largely English language book (I don’t see people getting stressed about all the ancient Greek or French in George Eliot’s novels), and in my experience, they’re asked much more of writers of color, immigrant writers, first-generation writers. Tellingly, it’s in the work of these specific types of writers that untranslated, foreign-sounding words come to represent specific lacunae that we somehow continue to find difficult, if not outright hostile, to engage with in American fiction. And that’s unacceptable. It was always unacceptable, but it’s egregiously unacceptable in 2018.”

 

“The reason I write in English, and the reason I use untranslated words, are one and the same, the punchline to that rambling, viciously grim joke also known as history: because I’m fucking American.”

 

Or how about this bit, which hit home as EXACTLY my experience as a guest in the Filipino-American world. 

 

“Let’s say I invite you to my house. And I dress up in my best and least offensive outfit, and I have everybody dress up in their own best and least offensive outfits. And there’s food laid out on the table, and all the dishes have been prepared to your taste. And we’re all talking to you, politely and clearly, so that you can understand every word we say, and all of our conversations are directed towards you, for your comfort and pleasure. When you’ve left the house—have you met us? Have you met any people, at all?

“On the other hand: I invite you to my home. I wear what I normally wear when I’m trying to look a little cute, and so does everybody else. There’s food laid out on the table, some of which you might eat, some of which you might not like the look of that much, and you’re free to take and leave what you will. The conversation flows among all of us; sometimes we talk to you, but sometimes you’ll overhear us talking to each other, and you might not understand what we’re saying. You’re also not the only guest—maybe a guest next to you does understand what we’re saying and can chime in, and maybe you get a little jealous, maybe you think she’s having a better time because of that.

“But then again: you’re not there to compete about who’s having the best time. You’re busy, maybe, connecting with someone at the table that you’re having a really good conversation with, maybe you guys like the same music or have the same sense of humor, maybe it’s just the slow-burning mystery of human chemistry, who knows, maybe you’re even flirting a little, fuck it. Connecting’s all right, food’s pretty good, and when you leave, you may not have understood every single word that was said, but I guarantee you: you will have met people.

“And in the end, it’s because of people that untranslated words are important in fiction. Because as long as we continue to uphold the belief that non-English words are somehow alien to American fiction, we will never have an American readership that is commensurate to its American reality, or the people it produced. People like me. Hi.”

 

Hell. Yeah. Preach it. And yes, I increasingly have zero patience for the racist asshats that want to Make America White Great Again. You jackasses aren’t the real America, and haven’t ever been. Get over it. 

 

The second article is the interview in The Guardian. It’s worth a read. 

Kenosha Explodes the Myth of the "Good Guy With A Gun"

 

FAIR DISCLOSURE: 

 

I am a gun owner, and have participated in gun-related activities since I was a kid. I have taken a number of gun safety and concealed carry classes, am a life member at a local shooting range, and have worked with my father-in-law (also an attorney) on a number of gun law related cases over the years. Much of what I write in this post was discussed extensively in the concealed carry classes - so it is definitely not some sort of anti-gun propaganda. Rather, it is how responsible gun owners are taught to think. 

 

***

 

So, you are a “Good Guy With A Gun.” Let’s call you Mr. (or Ms, if you prefer) G. G. Wag. You have been through the classes. You know gun safety. You know better than to point a gun at anything (or anybody) you do not intend to destroy. You know to keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to pull it. You certainly wouldn’t get caught on film violating these key safety rules. 

 

No, you use your gun in a safe manner. You have a legal license to carry a concealed weapon, and often do so.

 

So, you are out one evening in, let’s just say a place in Wisconsin, although it could be anywhere and there seems to be a disturbance. Yeah, you heard about protests, but haven’t seen anything on this block. Someone says shots were fired, so you look around to see what you can do. After all, you are G. G. Wag, potential hero. 

 

Then you see him: a young white guy carrying an AR-15. OMG, it’s one of those mass shooter dudes! Here is your chance. You pull your gun, and fire a carefully placed shot. He goes down. 

 

But wait! He is there with some buddies dressed in black or camo. And they have guns too. They come running, having heard the shots. One of their own is down! Must be those Antifa people that the Orange Messiah keeps talking about! So Bubba squeezes off a dozen rounds with his AR. You are hit, but not fatally, and you get down. Next to you, a woman and her child are struck with rounds from Bubba, who has more enthusiasm than practice aiming. 

 

Suddenly, it’s on. Several other legal carriers realize these yahoos with military-style weapons are shooting into the crowd. They all draw, and exchange fire. But sometimes with each other. After all, there are a bunch of people with guns. Which are the “Good Guys”? 

 

The cops come running with guns drawn. 

 

They see...well what do they see? Multiple bodies down. And a bunch of guys with guns drawn. And they do what they can to neutralize ALL of the shooters they see. 

 

By the time the smoke clears, we have several dead, more wounded (including you, Mr. G.G. Wag), and nobody can figure out what happened.

 

And most importantly:

 

EVERY SINGLE SHOOTER THOUGHT HE OR SHE WAS THE “GOOD GUY WITH A GUN.” 

 

None of these G. G. Wags actually helped things. Rather, all of the violence was committed by these supposed good guys.  

 

***

 

While this scenario might resemble a certain series of murders in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it actually is drawn from a scenario that we discussed in our concealed carry class. And the lesson was that a gun is to defend yourself, not play hero. 

 

Now, this very well could have happened in Kenosha, and almost certainly will happen somewhere unless some changes are made. 

 

What did happen was this: a person in illegal possession of a military-style weapon crossed state lines, walked right by the police, got into a series of altercations with protesters, shot three (two died), and was allowed to drive back without being arrested. 

 

However, my scenario will probably happen because people are now on edge about idiot young men carrying weapons where they have no business doing so. 

 

If we lived in a functional society rather than a failed state, we could put a stop to this. Unfortunately, we live in a highly dysfunctional society, with one segment (right wing white people) eager to start a bloody war against everyone else, the cops on their side, and many local officials unwilling or unable to take common sense steps to prevent this kind of violence. 

 

Here is the bottom line:

 

In a functional society, it is easy to identify who the Good Guys With The Guns are. They are wearing a uniform and a badge.

 

We have two problems with this already. First, the guys with the uniform and badge are not, generally speaking, the Good Guys. At least for African Americans and other minorities (and the poor, often), they are instead a likely reason that Daddy isn’t coming home tonight. Or perhaps ever. 

 

This is WHY we are having the protests in the first place. Until our policing (and our prison-industrial complex) are reformed in a significant and substantial way, we will continue to have protests. 

 

But it goes deeper than that. Police are, it is becoming increasingly clear, deeply in bed with White Supremacist groups, including terrorist groups. Sure, not all cops. But the “bad apples” spoil the bunch - and they are not being removed as they need to be. 

 

I am related to a lot of cops, and I just don’t get the lack of concern on their part about maintaining public legitimacy. You can’t just increase violence against a population indefinitely. You either descend into a pure police state (and those eventually collapse under their own weight) or you end up losing the confidence of the citizens and get defunded or replaced. Truly effective law enforcement requires that element of legitimacy - and that requires working for everyone, not just wealthy white people. 

 

Second, we have an armed population with fantasies of vigilantism. That’s how you get underaged young men carrying illegal weapons driving across state lines to go mix it up with protesters. (I am trying to figure out the logic here. Is it really as simple as “Hey, let’s go bust some caps in some N----rs?”) I think Trevor Noah nails it here:

 

“Let me tell you something. Nobody drives into a city with guns because they love someone else’s business that much. That’s some bullshit. No one has ever thought, ‘Oh, it’s my solemn duty to pick up a rifle and protect that T.J. Maxx.’ They do it because they’re hoping to shoot someone. That’s the only reason people like him join these gangs in the first place. And yes, I said it, a ‘gang.’ Enough with this militia bullshit. This isn’t the Battle of Yorktown. It’s a bunch of dudes threatening people with guns.”

 

That this is leading to violence is completely unsurprising. People don’t bring guns to protests to be peaceable. They don’t run their trucks into protesters to be peaceable. They don’t shoot paintballs and pepper spray. They do this because they are violent and wish to commit violent acts against those they disagree with. 

 

(No surprise, by the way, that these are Trump supporters. He has encouraged violence since the start of his campaign in 2015.) 

 

***

 

Now, let’s talk about how a functional society would deal with this. And really, this is common sense. 

 

(1) Local officials should make clear that weapons will not be tolerated at protests. Period. Government has the right to establish “time place and manner” restrictions, and this seems to me to be a basic use of that power. No guns. No bats. No torches. No weapons. Period. There is no legitimate need to bring a weapon to a peaceful protest - on either side. 

 

(2) Enforce it! This is where the police have failed in their most basic job of protecting public safety. It seems as if they see themselves as in a war with half (or more) of the population, and that is a problem. If police were to confiscate weapons and arrest and prosecute those who carry them, they would both make things safer and increase their legitimacy.  

 

(3) Reform the police, which is why you have the protests in the first place. A significant majority of Americans believe that there is a problem with police bias and brutality. A functional democracy would listen to the people, and make changes. 

 

That’s how a functional society would address this. It is my hope that at least in the more progressive cities in our nation, local governments will take this step. Here in California, at least, you can’t open carry weapons around in public, and need a permit to carry a concealed weapon. That has made our protests safer for sure. 

 

Local governments can also use the threat of defunding the police to enact changes. Money talks. And funding cutbacks have a powerful voice. Perhaps with the threat of massive job losses, cops will agree to disarm right wing agitators - something they should have done from the start. 

 

On a more individual level, we need to recognize some truths about the myth of the Good Guy With A Gun. 

 

Even those of us who are trained and responsible with our guns are not going to be able to stop the Bad Guys With Guns. We probably won’t even be able to identify them in that split second. And neither will those who see us with our guns. This myth just serves to distract from the real issues we need to address, which include why it is absurdly easy for bad or irresponsible people to get guns in this country. (The Kenosha shooter was carrying illegally, but had he been older, he would have been legal despite clearly lacking judgment. Same goes for his parents, who have no business being permitted to own or carry weapons - they are straight up irresponsible.) 

 

We also need to acknowledge what is a pretty obvious truth: our guns haven’t made our society safer. They do not lower risk of injury. They do not lower crime rates. They increase the risk of accidental and intentional death. While I am not particularly anti-gun (and as I said, am a gun owner), they are far from some panacea, and our current laws do virtually nothing to keep guns out of the hands of either bad actors or irresponsible owners. Fixing our laws is beyond the scope of this post, unfortunately, but I think those of us who are responsible gun owners need to think carefully about what we can do to actually make things safer. 

 

(Hint: leave the gun at home rather than bring it to a protest.) 

 

***

 

One final unpleasant thought:

 

Kenosha has now given a blueprint to the next mass shooter. With schools, bars, and concerts mostly shut down or online due to Covid, people wishing to go out with a bang have limited options. How about murdering protesters? 

 

The plan is easy. Drive across state lines in a generic vehicle with your AR-15 and a few 50 round magazines. Walk to the protest. If you see any cops, wave at them. If they as, you are just there to protect some property. Wear a facemask to conceal your identity on camera - and also, avoid spreading Covid, right? Find a concentration of protesters - preferably people of color, so the cops won’t care if you kill them - and unload. 

 

Then, wave at the cops afterward, tell them you heard some shots and decided to bail before you got hurt. Drive back across state lines. Change your clothes and dispose of the others. And, well, disappear. Nobody stopped you. Nobody got your license plate. The cops assumed you were on “their side” and didn’t do anything about you. Probably nobody knew who you were, where you were from, or where you went. You might never even get caught. 

 

And even if you are caught or killed, you still got to carry a military-style weapon to the scene of your crime knowing the cops wouldn’t bother to stop you...