I turn 40 next year. That’s four decades on this increasingly perplexing planet, 38 of which I've spent as an immigrant. And yet, despite my substantial tenure, I find myself repeatedly dumbfounded by the same recycled drivel masquerading as social discourse. Is it just me, or has the world somehow missed the memo on progress? For the love of all things holy, why are we still stuck in the same rut of xenophobic rhetoric and social stagnation?
When I was younger, barely out of my teens, people would brush off my idealism with a patronizing pat on the head, saying, "You'll understand when you're older." Older came and went. I'm almost middle-aged now, that supposedly enlightened stage where you're neither too young to be naive nor too old to be jaded. Yet, I still hear the same worn-out complaints about immigrants stealing jobs as I did when I was barely old enough to comprehend the concept of employment.
Here's a fun fact: I've been an immigrant nearly all my life. That's right. For almost four decades, I’ve been the subject of the very accusations that are still being hurled around like confetti at a particularly tacky party. "Immigrant" has somehow become a dirty word, dripping with more disdain than a toddler’s bib after spaghetti night. And I can't help but wonder, why?
Let's dissect this, shall we? Picture it: early 2000s, the dawn of the new millennium. There I was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, convinced the world was on the cusp of a grand societal evolution. We had the internet! Information was at our fingertips, connections could be made across continents, and surely, surely, we were on the brink of a new era of understanding and inclusivity.
Fast forward to today, and what do we have? The same old, tired grievances. "They’re taking our jobs!" Really, Gary? Are "they" really taking your job, or did you just fail to secure employment because you didn’t realize that your CV in Comic Sans and your propensity to insult the interviewer’s tie weren’t the winning combination you thought they were? Newsflash: blaming immigrants for your personal shortcomings is like blaming gravity for making you fall after tripping over your own feet.
Oh, but it gets better. Nowadays, the word "immigrant" is often whispered as if it's Voldemort’s real name. People hesitate, stutter, and look around nervously before dropping the i-bomb, like they're afraid they'll summon an angry mob armed with pitchforks and flaming torches. How did we get here? How did a term that simply describes someone who moved from one place to another become so loaded?
I blame the media, partially. Somewhere along the line, "immigrant" got tangled up with "criminal," "terrorist," and "job thief" in a web of sensationalist headlines and political fearmongering. If I had a nickel for every time a news anchor conflated immigration with crime, I’d be lounging on a private island, sipping a margarita, rather than ranting about societal inertia.
But it's not just the media. Politicians, those paragons of integrity, have milked the immigration issue dry. They promise walls, they vow to "take back control," and they fan the flames of xenophobia to distract from their own ineptitude. It’s like watching a magician distract an audience with one hand while picking their pockets with the other. Only, in this case, the magician is a sweaty, orange-faced demagogue, and the audience is a confused electorate wondering why their wallets feel lighter.
And don’t get me started on the internet trolls. Oh, the internet trolls! The ones who crawl out from under their digital bridges to spew vitriol at anyone who dares to suggest that maybe, just maybe, immigrants are people too. "Go back to where you came from!" they type furiously from their parents’ basements, the irony lost on them as they scarf down takeout pizza from the immigrant-owned joint down the street.
But here’s the kicker: I get it from both sides. As an immigrant, I’m perpetually in this strange limbo where I’m too foreign for the natives and too native for the foreigners. It’s like being stuck in a perpetual identity crisis, only with more paperwork and fewer support groups. And the constant rhetoric doesn’t help. It’s like trying to swim upstream in a river of molasses, with every stroke met by a new barrage of outdated stereotypes and misplaced blame.
So, here I am, 40 years old and still trying to wrap my head around the fact that despite all our technological advances, despite our so-called enlightenment, we’re still grappling with the same basic issues. We can send rovers to Mars, but we can’t seem to grasp that people moving from one country to another isn’t a threat to our way of life.
Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I’m expecting too much from a species that still can’t figure out how to merge lanes properly. But is it really too much to ask for a little progress? For a bit of common sense and decency? For the realization that diversity enriches us rather than diminishes us?
In the end, perhaps the joke’s on me. Maybe expecting rational discourse from a society that gave us reality TV and viral conspiracy theories is the real folly. It’s like asking a squirrel to solve a Rubik’s Cube—an exercise in frustration more than anything. But as absurd as it might seem, I refuse to let cynicism win. So, I’ll keep my eyes open, my voice loud, and my hopes high, even if the world feels like it’s stuck on repeat. After all, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that progress often comes in fits and starts, and sometimes, the loudest rants are the ones that spark the most change.
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