Responding to the Immigration Debate: Us vs. Them mentality

Today is May 1. This doesn’t mean find a maypole and dance a jig.

Today is a historical day signifying the organization of workers, often manifested by labor unions, to fight for workers rights. It is an internationally recognized movement. In this country, we benefit from the labor movement through the creation of a minimum wage standard, an eight-hour work day, weekends and holidays off, and laws against child labor. More recently, May Day events advocate for a living wage policy and immigration reform.

The immigration debate is emotionally heated and often gives way to us vs them language. However, on this day last year, thousands of immigrants—documented & undocumented, Central & South American, Asian and European—gathered to protest the unfair, racist immigration policies in the United States.

This debate really isn’t about foreign workers taking jobs from Americans. This is about a racist ideology that the US is a nation of English-speaking, freedom-loving, truck-driving, flag-waving, gun-toting, white patriots. To be truly “American” one must do all the above and then some. The face of closed-borders, guest-workers ideologues is a white face. And often a male face. In contrast, the face of the immigrant is stereotyped as a brown face. Often a Spanish-speaking face. The fallicy of this belief is evidenced in the multicultural, multiracial, united front present at immigrant rights rallies across the nation.

Immigrant rights should not characterized by brown vs white arguments. Go back to your history books folks. We are all immigrants.

Thus immigration laws, essentially labor laws, should be the concern of all citizens. Immigration rights are not a brown struggle, a black struggle, or a white struggle. It is a working class struggle. It is a struggle that is above and beyond tiffs characterized in the slogan, “Stop immigration and keep Americans working”. Amazingly enough, is anyone doing the $*# jobs that so many immigrants are willing to work? The irony behind the “us vs them mentality” is that we are “them” and they are us.

Slogans like “Let’s get rid of the Mexicans” or “Immigrants bring crime” are indicative of the racist attitudes aimed at keeping hierarchical social order. If you want to talk about immigrant crime, then let’s talk about the atrocities done to the Native Americans by the British settlers.

Behind the disparity in jobs and wages is the capitalist machine, the hand of the corporate greed. It’s to the benefit of Big Business to keep the worker pool low-skilled and low-paid. In a way, it’s out-sourcing on home soil. Our solution isn’t to send anyone anywhere—we’d all be gone if that was the policy. We should be working to for the benefit of all workers. What would it look like for workers to actually make what it takes to live, for families to have healthcare, and for CEOs to receive a pay cut?

We should all be concerned with issues of justice for every member in society. And to the fellow holding the "I didn't ask for diversity" sign I say, why don't you go home. Or better yet, dig a hole, climb in, and bury yourself. You can't avoid diversity.

On Branding...Part I

Logos, labels and brands serve two main purposes.

1. To assign a name, ideal, or value.

2. To declare ownership.

While the two purposes often work concurrently, the former covertly hides the power of the latter. But before we get ahead of ourselves…

Historically, the Middle Ages utilized livestock branding to demonstrate property ownership. Industrialization and the mass production of goods created the need for branding (naming and declaring ownership) of products. Today branding extends beyond livestock, to include logo placement on products, territorial art on human canvases, and categories by which we organize and understand our relationships.

As it pertains to products…

When we see a product with a particular label you now have an idea of who is staking territory and what values this company represents. As stated by Naomi Klein in her book No Logo,

Logos, by the force of ubiquity, have become the closest thing we have to an international language, recognized and understood in many more places than English.

This universal language has cultivated a “happy family” mentality and empowered the “one-world” airline motto as the world becomes smaller and smaller through technology and globalization. In fact, we are one big, loving community. We can smile and nod as we sip a latte at Starbucks in Hong Kong. We can exhale with a sigh of relief when we see the comforting Colonel Sanders as we hike up The Great Wall. We can pretend we speak the same language and hold the same values by bribing our native hosts with a Value meal because McDonald’s golden arches denote family fun around the world. McDonald’s emulates American ingenuity as its menu changes to reflect culture—including items like fried chicken & rice in the Philippines, vegetable & seafood soup in China, the McGreek in Greece and of course the McTurk in Turkey (which looks and tastes just like the McGreek). Thus, through corporate symbols the citizens of a global economy appear to get along.

Logos, brands, and labels thrive on appearances. As communicated in a brainstorm with my students, brands like Nike symbolized quality and speed, while Sean John and Phat Farm are deemed symbols of urban, hip-hop lifestyles. Appearances are manufactured through seductive ads that promote partial (if not completely false) truths.

While some may think of brands as a form of advertising, Klein puts it this way,

Think of the brand as the core meaning of the modern corporation, and of the advertisement as one vehicle used to convey that meaning to the world.

The meanings conveyed to the world inaccurately reflect the ethical, political, or fiscal values of these companies. In fact, the flying Jordan effectively detracts from the sweatshop conditions and the abhorrent wages paid to under-aged workers in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam.

Some companies like The Gap try to soften the image of the eight-year old child sewing a the label onto a pair of jeans by announcing a code of ethics that coincides with a respect for human life. Only time will tell whether or not these companies have repented of their wicked ways. Alas, skepticism is a virtue when it comes to trusting the self-serving corporate world. However, it is with a glimmer of hope that I read such news.

End Part I.