On many occasions I've been driven to reflect on the immigrant experience. Apart from my Germans who came from Russia in the late nineteenth century, my ancestors almost all arrived in North America back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. My point being, apart from the one branch, my family doesn't have an 'immigrant story' that is located within memory.
And with regard to the aforementioned Germans – apart from
some prejudice directed against them for being from Russia (and being confused
with being Russians) – their assimilation process was pretty easy. As Northern
European Protestants, the leap into American culture wasn't all that great and
late nineteenth century America while different than the old world, had enough
in common with it that the cultural differences were not insurmountable. And in
pre-WWI America, there were still a lot of German cultural pockets and cases of
overtly German culture.
I've shared these stories before but I remember reflecting on
all of this in an Indian restaurant years ago. At a nearby table, there was a
family from the Subcontinent, the grandfather (who was obviously a first
generation arrival) was with his daughter and grandson. Looking at the grandson
I guessed his father might have been of other than Indian extraction.
The grandfather had a thick accent and while he had (by all
appearances) done well for himself in America, he was still very much a man of
the Old World – despite his evident embrace of American money, status, and a
drive for 'success' as defined in the Western context. The middle aged daughter
was a little harder to read – still somewhat Indian but in many respects
assimilated. But with the grandson there was no doubt – he was fully American, given
over to pop-culture cool, disrespectful to his elders, and he clearly had no
interest in Indian food, much to his grandfather's utter disgust.
None of this was surprising – it fits an oft seen pattern.
And, there's no telling as to what may happen down the road. The grandson may
rediscover his roots at some point and take interest in them. Who can say?
But I always think about the grandfather. Was it all worth
it? To come to a new culture and experience 'success' but at the same time you
make so many compromises that you risk losing your soul (so to speak). And
while some immigrants of another era were happy to see their children and
grandchildren shed their roots, I have to believe there are some mixed feelings
– all the more if religion and values are tied into these questions. The
grandson wasn't just disrespectful, he exuded the consumer ethos that dominates
America's individualist capitalist society and that's a far cry from the values
of the Subcontinent.
As far as those immigrants who insisted their children only
speak English and become full dyed-in-the-wool Americans – I find it kind of tragic.
I know Americans, and especially Right-wing Americans love those stories, but I
think it was shortsighted on the part of their parents and in many respects
they robbed their children of something profound. American immigrant stories
can be moving at times but as the years go by I see many of them as
mammon-inspired. There's a lot of talk about freedom but really what people
want is prosperity. Once again, I wonder how many later reflected on that?
Sure, they 'made it' as the world reckons such things and maybe they're proud
to see their kids attend college and so forth, but is that what life is all
about? I know for many Americans it is and I'm sorry but that's a shallow dream
that puts little value on culture or things transcendent. And it's telling as
American culture when tested – is demonstrably lacking in substance.
There is an added layer to this discussion regarding the
desire by Right-wing Americans for immigrant assimilation. They erroneously
consider American culture to be Christian. A conversion implies leaving many
things in the old culture behind – and rightly so. But what folly to think that
somehow the adoption of American values and culture is akin to the pilgrim
ethos of New Testament Christianity! Nothing could be farther from the truth.
And of course many immigrants found the American Dream wasn't
in reach and for others the traded one type of oppression for another. This is
why you see the various mafias come to the fore within immigrant communities –
it's a testimony to the failed American Dream. In some cases, the prosperity
was found but it took a couple of generations and had to be modified to some
extent.
Or on another occasion I've told the story of being at a local
Greek festival back in the year 2000 and having a conversation with an Armenian
man that was in fact 100 years old. He died a few years later and I was able to
fill in some of the blanks from his obituary. He told me rather passionately of
the genocide which he experienced as a teenager – seeing columns of people
being marched into the deserts of Anatolia. He came to America, eventually made
his way to our part of Pennsylvania and ran several small businesses including
a pub. He was with his grand-daughter and great-granddaughter at the festival
and once again you could see the progression in assimilation. The middle aged
granddaughter was thoroughly American but also rooted in the culture of the
East – or at least had an interest in it. You could tell the pre-teen great-granddaughter
was struggling a bit. The whole Orthodox context, the bouzouki music, and the
food were in fact foreign to her. To be fair they were Armenians – I don't know
if they had a familial Greek connection apart from similar cultural elements,
the Orthodox context, and a mutual hatred for all things Turkish, which he was
still rather passionate about.
Anyway, the great-granddaughter was hardly resisting it, but
you could safely say that even with her exotic looks – she was and is
thoroughly American. I'm not implying that someone with 'exotic' looks is
somehow non-American but at one time that would have been the assumption. Not
so today, but culturally the great-granddaughter was thoroughly American –
maybe in some respects even more than I am. For my part while walking down the
street in Scotland I was frequently mistaken for a local. These categories of
national identity and cultural norms are rather fluid and as much as some might
try to make it a question of race, it's really one of culture.
It's interesting though as one considers the recent contest
for prime minister of the UK. On the one hand Rishi Sunak is thoroughly British
and yet perhaps (for some) still not quite British enough – at least not to
hold the PM office. It's one thing to have immigrants in the cabinet but the PM
is different (a kind of face for the nation only superseded by the monarch) and
one wonders if that wasn't a factor in the final selection of Liz Truss? I
don't have the answer but I doubt I'm the only one how wondered this.
For my part I find them both repulsive human beings.
Speaking of immigrants, we at last come to my latest
reflection regarding Khaled Hosseini. The author became famous in 2003 with The Kite Runner which in addition to being
a good novel was also timed perfectly for the moment. I enjoyed The Kite Runner as well as 2007's A Thousand Splendid Suns. And yet the
novels also have their shortcomings – stretched plots, overplayed symbolism and
foreshadowing, coincidences and plot holes that sometimes beggar belief, and at
times a kind of naiveté about geopolitics and some other issues. After
re-reading them and reflecting on them, at times I wonder if they were
specifically (if somewhat cynically) crafted for a Western or American
audience. That said, there are parts that are still moving even on a second or
third reading.
In addition to the father-son and mother-daughter dynamics
and some of the types of piety and even hypocrisy seen in the world of Afghani
Islam, The Kite Runner in particular
also touches on the immigrant experience and one gets the feeling there's at
least a little bit of autobiography in the tale and a snapshot of life in
California's Afghan immigrant community of the 1980's.
As Amir's father 'Baba' is somewhat atypical of Afghan refugees
– a previously well-to-do and thoroughly secular man, his ability to deal with
American culture would have been a little different from the experiences of
others – and yet he too struggles. For a man of status, the immigrant
experience of handouts and low-wage work is degrading. Other immigrants from
Afghanistan would have experienced an increase in the standard of living but
would have wrestled far more with decadent secular American culture.
For the protagonist Amir, America is liberating not just in the
civil sense, but in terms of his life and the skeletons in his closet that he
wants to leave behind in Afghanistan. He can be a new person – and that too is
sometimes the immigrant experience or even a story told in the context of small
town America and the people who flee to the city – not just for opportunity,
but to escape and be reinvented. And some of these people never come back or
even look back and even come to despise small town life, its people, and its
values.
Given Hosseini's willingness to appear with the Bushes, and
work with the UN and so forth, it's been clear for a long time that his
immigrant experience is of the type that he's not looking back. And while he
clearly admires Afghanistan and has a type of affection for it (as is seen in
the books) he has no real interest in being an Afghan. He wants to be an
American and has made himself such.
I was saddened to read some recent news regarding Khaled
Hosseini – that his son has come out as transgender and this decision is being
supported by Hosseini and his wife. This is taking assimilation to the next
level. He had not only become American but to such an extent that his own
children evidently possess no roots in the culture of their father. There are
no ideological or moral foundations present and the door was left wide open to
the full import and scope of Western degeneracy and decadence. Usually we see a
pattern of integration and then after a couple of generations, assimilation –
the pattern outlined above. For Hosseini, the assimilation is absolute and has
occurred within a generation. That's startling.
As I think about the old Armenian and Indian men mentioned
above (both dead by now) – I wonder if in their reflections they were gnawed by
doubts – doubts regarding their decision to leave their old cultures behind.
For the Armenian man his situation was desperate and so he probably thought of
it in different terms and yet as an Armenian – apart from the small rump state
of Armenia which became part of the USSR and was such for most of his life –
there were other options. There are Armenian communities throughout the Levant
and the Middle East wherein he could have retained the culture. But maybe he
didn't want to.
And yet I think Hosseini's story is a sad one and represents
a kind of tragedy – an immigrant who embraced it all and fully assimilated
perhaps not understanding or reflecting on the gravity of what this meant and
the nature of the culture he gave himself and his family to. He seems to
celebrate his son's decision which is also tragic. Maybe he too will someday
come to regret his choice to become 'American'. And yet if he's fully embraced
the thinking and ideology that produced this perversion within his son he may
be thinking in terms of – 'Wow, I'm glad we live in America because if my son
had come out as transgender in Afghanistan or Pakistan he would have been
killed.' – never imagining that that such thoughts or proclivities would have
never entered his son's head in that context. They are not suppressed thoughts
but cultivated ones that are planted and watered in this decadent context that
has now taken individualist consumerism to the point of absolute self
destruction.
I don't pretend to know what is in his mind but it's a sad
story to me – an immigrant tragedy by estimation, a person who naively drank
the cultural Kool-Aid as it were. He's a millionaire but the price was his own
soul and now the life of his son – a life literally destroyed.
I read A Thousand
Splendid Suns a couple of times over the years – again despite the plot
holes and caricatures, it's still a very moving book. But despite that, I never
was moved to pick up his later works and I think I can safely say I probably
won't bother with them. I'm afraid my respect for him as an author, thinker,
and person has plummeted. I don't have to 'like' an author to read his or her
work. That's not the point but in the case of Hosseini – I don't respect him
enough anymore to hear what he has to say or interact with his moral judgments
or reflections. The Taliban is appalling to be sure but Hosseini has no moral
compass to criticise them apart from bankrupt Western secularism. I can't say I
find much interest in that.
His stories are filled with tragedy and yet the greatest of
all is his own life and his failure to be a father and moral guide to his son.
I suppose in that regard his real life story is very much in keeping with the tragic
familial themes of tension and betrayal found within his writings. But to add a
layer of gloom is the fact that he doesn't see it that way.