Tarnished dreams of new beginnings - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 6: Our Global Face
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Daniel Flitton
OF COURSE, DEBATES ABOUT MIGRATION INEVITABLY DRAG US INTO the nebulous area of identity politics. Australia is not alone in grappling with these questions. In the United States, for instance, Samuel Huntington's latest prognostication drew the ire of many pundits who questioned his characterisation of America as a bastion of Anglo-Protestant culture. Huntington once made famous a supposed "clash of civilisations" in international politics. Now, in his latest book, Who Are We? (Simon & Schuster, 2004), he worries that the "massive influx" of Hispanic immigrants into the US, particularly those from Mexico, threatens to divide the country "into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages". It is the language issue, that "powerful homogenising" force, which Galligan and Roberts highlight, that animates Huntington's argument.
Huntington is gripped by fear that "native" English-speaking Americans will be excluded from their own society as Spanish becomes the language of government and business. Especially in California, historically once a part of Mexico, he is anxious that the reconquista is well under way.
Many Americans are far more sanguine about the issue.
In 2004, a pair of Los Angeles comic filmmakers released a mockumentary A Day Without a Mexican. The story-line followed the overnight appearance of a mysterious fog that swept in over the City of Angels and then disappeared, taking with it all the Mexicans and other Latinos. The Washington Post describes the result:
The helpless gringos awaken to find no nannies, no gardeners, no janitors, no valets and no fresh salad. Crops rot on the ground and tomatoes must be bought by the bag from shadowy dealers. All that, and the Dodgers (baseball team) lose most of their infield and the seventh-largest economy on Earth grinds to a standstill because there is no one left to build, cook or clean anything.
The point, according to the film's director, "was to make the invisible visible". The Hispanic contribution to modern America is immeasurable, both economically and culturally, and extends far beyond the stereotypes portrayed in the film. This recognises that cultures change, morph, evolve and grow.
Rather than adding to the mix of American society, Huntington sees the Hispanic culture in parasitic terms, as a subsequent add-on. Mexicans and other Latinos, he claims, form their own political and linguistic enclaves and reject the values of traditional American culture. He uses exclusionary language to sharpen this distinction. "There is no Americano dream," he says. "There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English."
He acknowledges that the various waves of migration since US independence have had important effects on the country, along with advances of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, so that today, "Americans now see and endorse their country as multi-ethnic and multi-racial". And he recognises that the key element of American identity is its ideological basis, which he argues is captured in a creed expressed by the Declaration of Independence (and presumedly, too, through the Bill of Rights amendments to the US Constitution).
This actually serves to undermine Huntington's own argument. Identity formed by the acceptance of values should be open to anyone, regardless of his or her heritage. If these values are truly universal, they transcend language. That is certainly the model that America promotes and countries like Australia profess to follow.
Huntington emphasises that this creed "was the product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers". True enough, just as in Australia. Yet values can be rooted in history without being stuck there, unchanged by the passage of time. Identity evolves through the experience of the nation. One of the US's founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, recognised this truism: "We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilised society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." What Huntington misses, that Galligan and Roberts catch in the Australian context, is that immigrants both adapt to and adapt the society around them.
While Huntington frames an identity debate that is sure to resonate, at least one issue is clear; the idea of identity bound to a particular nation-state is being challenged by people movements. And the compelling reason for this? In that marvellous American catchphrase – it's the economy, stupid.
A Mexican worker who makes it into the US can expect as much as nine times the salary that he earned in Mexico. People are simply following economic opportunity, just as business does. Commerce transcends language. Yet people do not enjoy the same benefits as capital. The North American Free Trade Agreement deregulated barriers to commerce between the signatories. The US border patrol works to ensure that the barrier to stop people remains firmly in place. While paradoxes of this type exist, where money is free but people are not, the debate on identity will continue.
AFTER BILLY LANE'S EXPERIMENT IN PARAGUAY FAILED, HE EVENTUALLY SETTLED at the other end of the political spectrum, as a reactionary newspaper commentator in New Zealand. When he died in his 50s, an obituary said of the once firebrand utopian, "Lane, in his younger years, did much good work; and that can be conveniently remembered – and the rest charitably forgotten."
If governments refuse to confront the obvious paradox of today – that the free movement of capital is facilitated while people are refused commensurate rights – this ode to Billy Lane might also become a fitting epitaph for the latest era of globalisation. The advance of globalisation has done much good work. Yet people will grow ever more tired of the economic wisdom that takes government regulation out of the financial marketplace, increasing profits, while at the same time putting severe limits on labour movements. The counterargument runs that if governments failed to control migration, the labour exodus from developing countries would be catastrophic. It is interesting that this same logic is not assumed for capital. The other alleged consequence, that a massive influx of desperate people will crash through open borders and threaten "our way of life", is a distraction. This conveniently forgets the powerful connections between people, their lands and nations.
Governments should never surrender control over migration, just be more generous in allowing people everywhere to join in the opportunities of economic globalisation. There is already pressure on rich countries, like Australia, to share the fruits and advantages of their wealth. One means of release is to untie our immigration policy, to reject the misplaced ideal that we can continue to take only the "best" people, the cream that the world has to offer. Australia needs new immigrants to grow as a nation. This economic imperative is equally a social rationale.
When someone next stands on the national doorstep, knocks and says, "Hello! I'm searching for New Australia", we should respond with enthusiasm, to give people everywhere more faith than a whole century of talking and preaching. ♦