Heat versus Brain

It has been unbearably hot over here in STL.  Temperatures in the 100s with heat indexes that much higher.  My brain feels like that anti-drug use commercial.  Eggs, hot pan, and "this is your brain on drugs" as the eggs sizzle away.  There is so much work to be done, but I have been beyond lethargic.  Plus, when your work consists of reading and writing, you want to leave the house and go for a walk, for example, to get away from the page.  Not possible at this juncture.  Even Grover gets out of breath walking round the block. 

Heat puts in mind the "emotional races" of my previous post on immigration and I found yet another volume in which the authors expound on the dangers posed by the lesser races of Eastern and Southern Europe.  In a chapter titled "The Immigration Problem: ITS PRESENT STATUS AND ITS RELATION TO THE AMERICAN RACE OF THE FUTURE" by Robert DeC. Ward published in the 1904 volume of The Survey (by Edward Thomas Devine and Paul Underwood Kellogg who were "Survey Associates, Charity Organization Society of the City of New York"), Ward writes: "The question before us is, therefore, a race question.  Slav, Italian, Jew, not discouraged by the problem of maintaining high standards of living with many children, are replacing native Americans.  ...  There can, then, be absolutely no doubt that the recent change in the races of our immigrants will profoundly affect the character of the future American race." How so, you may well ask.  According to Ward, it's a mixed bag and we should stick to our known superiority rather than risk tarnishing Anglo-American perfection:

The increasing proportion of Alpine and of Mediterranean blood will "soften the emotional nature, but it will quicken the poetic and artistic nature. We shall be a more versatile, a more plastic people, gentler in our thoughts and feelings because of the Alpine strain; livelier and brighter, with a higher power to enjoy the beautiful things of life," because of the Latin blood. "We may doubtless learn courtesy from many an Italian; virtue from many a Slav; family loyalty from many a Jew; the beauty and the refining influence of music from many a Hungarian." Turning to the physical side it is clear that the average stature will be reduced and that the skull will become broader and shorter. He would, indeed, be a hopeless pessimist who should maintain that this racial change will have naught but undesirable effects, mental and physical, upon the future American race. We probably need less nervous energy and push; we shall undoubtedly benefit by a quickening of our artistic and poetic nature; we shall probably not be injured by an infusion of some of the "conservative and contemplative stock which comes from eastern Europe." The good qualities of the new races we may need; their defects we should be willing to do without. Yet, when all is said regarding the benefits which we may, or even must, derive from these new elements in the blood of our race, are we not, as it were, giving away to the philosophy of despair? Are we not, most of us, fairly well satisfied with the characteristics, mental and physical, of the old American stock? Do we not love American traits as they are? May we not be rather reckless in assuming that everything will settle itself for the best? It may be that the American race of the future is to be a far better race in every respect than the old one. But we should remember that, as it has been put by a recent writer, "in forming a race of unknown value, there is being sacrificed a race of acknowledged superiority in originality and enterprise."

Way to deliver a backhanded compliment!  Why should we pay for poetry, music, or family (stereotypes all) with shorter statures and smaller brains when we are so perfect already? 

Immigrant Fridays: The Insane Immigrant

Immigrant Fridays turned into Saturday.  I wrote too soon when I promised regular theme days.  The semester started and, as always, hijacked my life.

Toward the end of the 19th Century, examinations of immigrants began at places like Ellis Island.  To this day, immigrants with certain diseases like syphilis, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS [the last one until 2010 when Obama got rid of it--thanks Ben!] are barred from legal residency.  Back in the day, insanity and idiocy were also on the list ("insanity" differently defined is on the list now too) and I often wondered how officials determined the two.  I found a 1903 volume titled Book of instructions for the medical inspection of immigrants by the U.S. Public Health Service ("Prepared by Direction of the Surgeon-General"), which answered my questions not at all, but was entertaining enough especially since it contains a reference to "ignorant representatives of emotional races." This last one goes unexplained so I guess everyone knew who they were talking about.

Here are some of the instructions:

The medical examination should be made by daylight and never, except in an emergency, attempted in poorly lighted rooms or by artificial light. The preliminary line inspection should be conducted on an even, level surface, so that the passengers may not be tempted to look where they are stepping. ... Care should be taken to prevent crowding, to maintain a single file evenly spaced, with the individuals well separated (10 feet).

Good to know about the lighting.  You can't see crazy in the dark. 

Below are two of the document's subdivisions.  One on insanity and the other on "idiots."  Both of them pose ethical issues today, but how in the world did they determine these at the turn of the century (daylight notwithstanding)?  How could English-speaking officials, with few if any translators, keep an ear out for illusions or hallucinations?

Subdivision III.—Insane persons.

The following definition of insanity may be accepted for guidance: Insanity is a deranged and abnormal condition of the mental faculties, accompanied by delusions or hallucinations or illusions, or manifesting itself in homicidal or suicidal tendencies or persistent mental depression, or inability to distinguish between right and wrong.

In the case of immigrants, particularly the ignorant representatives of emotional races [!!!], due allowance should be made for temporary demonstrations of excitement, fear, or grief, and reliance chiefly placed upon absolute assurance of the existence of delusions or persistent refusal to talk or continued abstinence from eating.

Persons suffering from acute attacks of delirium tremens should be certified as insane. Those presenting less active evidence of alcoholism should be regarded as coming under the heading of likely to become public charges, as should also all cases of simple epilepsy or hysteria.

At least two officers should concur in a certificate of insanity, and when this is impracticable the medical officer should recommend the employment of a local physician in good standing, and they shall jointly sign the certificate.

The evidence on which a certificate of insanity is based should be made a matter of permanent record. It should always include, among other things, the physical appearance, character of hallucinations, delusions, or illusions, and a brief history of the peculiarities noted while the case was under observation.

Subdivision IV.—Idiots.

The following definition of an idiot may be accepted for guidance:

An idiot is a person exhibiting such a degree of mental defect, either inherited or developed during the early period of life, as incapacitates the individual for self-maintenance or ability to properly care for himself or his interests. (Richardson.)

Idiocy is a defect of mind which is either congenital or due to causes operating during the first few years of life, before there has been a development of the mental faculties, and may exist in different degrees. (Standard Dictionary, by Maudslev; Responsibility in Mental Diseases, chapter 3, p. 66.)

In case of persons of impaired mentality to whom the term " idiot" or " insane," as above defined, is inapplicable, certificates should be made in such terms as may be deemed best calculated to convey an idea of the degree of disability in each particular case.

Immigrant Fridays: "Its Evils and Consequences"

Going a couple of decades earlier than the promised 1880s because of an 1856 volume informatively titled Immigration: Its Evils and Consequences by Samuel Busey, M.D.  The title leaves little to the imagination and the contents confirm Busey's attitude.  

Busey writes that unless evil German, Irish, and British immigrants are stopped, we shall see the end of American institutions and freedoms for while the Germans organize German associations, the Irish elect their own, and the Brits kowtow to the Queen ("Once an Englishman, always an Englishman").

Busey outlines familiar suspects as complicit in destroying the very fabric of America woven so carefully by "our forefathers" (methinks 1856 is a bit early to be talking about "forefathers."):

• they send their money home instead of investing their earnings in America
• they take jobs away from Americans, work for less and "depreciate the value of American labor."
• they have too many children thus engendering "absorption, either partial or complete, of the American character."  
• they are criminals and paupers
• they bring "disease, disorder, and immorality"

On a related note, one of my favorite segments of The Daily Show was the one where Stewart took on the leprosy scare of 2007 shored up by media outlets and politicians:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Immigrant Disease
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Yeah, it's that ridiculous.  Hodgman and Stewart are not exaggerating.  

Immigrant Fridays

I've decided to have some regular features, things related to a single theme.  Fridays will be related to things immigrant and some days to food (mostly grandma's recipes but not only).  

Immigrant Fridays are my way of A/ keeping up with immigrant news; B/ digging into the past via books written between 1880 and 1924, years when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was at its height.   I'm interested in the latter as at this time anti-immigrant feelings ran high, reminding me of what's going on today.  The target's changed but the game remains the same.  Whenever something's not right politically or economically, we run over the most disenfranchised members of society, blaming them for whatever ails us.  It's like we'd rather blame "illegals" now for the state of the economy than Wall Street.  WTF, right?

Problems in American Democracy by Thames Ross Williamson was published in 1925 and lists "Immigration and Assimilation" as one  of its chapters in the section of the book called "American Social Problems."  Some of the other chapters in this section include "Crime and Corrections," "The Negro," and "Industrial Relations."  Enough said. 

Even before the Act of 1924 which restricted all immigration to a mere Northern and Western European trickle, Act of 1917 excluded anarchists, criminals ("except those who have committed political offenses not recognized by the United States"), "insane persons, idiots, epileptics, beggars, and other persons likely to become public charges."  Oh yes, and also no "contract laborers" and no persons over 16 years of age who "cannot read English or some other language."  Just imagine the testing going on at Ellis Island to determine, for example, whether someone was a beggar or an idiot.  We all know what administrative bureaucracy does, even today with all of the technological know-how, so I can only imagine what it did then.

Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Williamson explains why Japanese and Chinese immigrants were not welcome by pointing to their supposed racial and cultural differences: "The most important social reason for the exclusion of these two races is that the differences of race and religion existing between Asiatics and native Americans render assimilation of the Chinese and Japanese extremely difficult if not impossible."  This 150 year old stereotype of the inassimilable ethnic persists even today and Asian Americans get complemented on their English.

1886 advertisement for detergent

Williamson (and he was not alone in this) maintains that the "new immigration," which began around 1880 and came primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe was very much unlike the "old immigration" hailing from "Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries" (this reminds me of current immigration debates which mistakenly posit Mexican immigrants as unlike those who came before them).  Why?  For one, the "the old immigration was largely made up of individuals who were similar to the original American colonists in political ideals, social training, and economic background."  However,

Those who make up the new immigration have assimilated less rapidly: they are relatively unlike the native stock in language, race, and customs; the volume of immigration is very great; and rather than being uniformly distributed, the new immigrants tend to concentrate in cities, where they are often little subject to contact with natives.

This also erroneously implies that there was no protest against the earlier, "old" immigrants and that they were indeed welcomed with open arms.  Not the case as we know from the Irish immigrant experience and the Chinese and Irish immigrants of the mid-19th Century were represented as equally dangerous.  

Aside from the immigrant/ethnic groups accused of not assimilating, how is this different than today's outrageous debates around "illegal" immigration?  Just as a century earlier, today's anti-immigrant sentiments have little in common with facts.

Return Flight

Back from the motherland. Unlike my flights there, I wasn't lucky this time, neither in terms of seating nor in terms of connections.  While I realize how lucky I am to fly across the world to visit family, I cannot help but complain (I'm not Polish for nothing.  We're not known for positive thinking).  No one in immigration processing, for instance, cares that you have a connecting flight to catch.  Everyone you encounter as you run to your gate, however, assures you that it's possible only if you hurry.  So you have the bright time-saving idea to keep your shoes off after passing security.  You thus discover how inadvisable it is to run barefoot, even if in socks, on moving walkways.  While the first feels uncomfortable, the third feels like hot coals.  I arrived at the gate with shoes in hand about five minutes too late and got rerouted to another flight.  On a positive note, when you're sweaty and miserable, you get to ride to your new gate in a special needs vehicle.

The Lufthansa flight I took from Munich to Charlotte was on a giant airbus where all six bathrooms were downstairs.  Freaky.  I did have an individual video screen and watched four films (shut up!  It was a ten hour flight!).

Water for Elephants: a circus elephant named Rosie who understands Polish.  Enough said. [I'm also a sucker for films framed as memories of old men.  Except for The Notebook.  That sucked.]

Beastly: Beauty and the Beast with a pervy teenage twist.   Also, disturbing racial and disability dynamics.  I doubt the youth of today learned that beauty's on the inside.

Paul: a surprisingly illustrious cast for a cartoonish alien flick.  Refreshingly pro-science and anti-creationism.  Funny as shit!

Thor: gods learn life's lessons super fast thus becoming kings of heaven. No matter how bad, however, I enjoy a comic book-based movie.  Also, Natalie Portman's range now includes Your Highness, The Black Swan, and Thor. 

On an unrelated note, beware of American friends' love of vodka and furry slippers.  They're liable to start on both in the middle of a hot summer morning.

The Suspicious Pickle

The pickle was featured in a New York Times op-ed (Jane Ziegelman, author of 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement) a day after I wrote about pickling and souring here.  Germ found the article and sent it my way.  Though now that I think about it, I'd rather be associated with something less pungent. 

My grandma prepared this jar of pickles for immediate consumption. They take only a few days to sour in a mixture of water, garlic, and dill.  The furry stuff is washed off beforehand.

Anti-immigrant feeling at the turn of the 20th Century was as rank as a furry garlicky pickle.  As Ziegelman points out, many anti-immigrant crusades were fought on the battlefield of food.  Immigrants, it was believed,

used too much garlic, onion and pepper. They ate too many cured meats and were too generous with the condiments. Strongly flavored food ... led to nervous, unstable people. Nervous, unstable people made bad Americans. 

I wonder what the reform experts noticed first, the pungent foods or the nervous people, as I have no doubt that immigrants were nervous.  They were new to the country, confused by its rules, and poor.  Many came from places torn apart by wars, and the Jews of Eastern Europe, having escaped anti-Semitism there, had to deal with it here.  

Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were acknowledged to be somewhat assimilable since they were, after all, somewhat Caucasian.  The Slavs' assumed lack of mental acumen, however, was under much discussion while their drinking habits scared the crap out of the temperance movement.  In a 1906 The Incoming Millions, Howard Grose mentions that "they tell us that the Slavs are mentally, socially, and morally undeveloped; that they live like beasts, lower the tone of the community, and are possessed of but one virtue — courage."

As the NYTimes op-ed points out, the pickle became enemy number one in the tenements of New York.  It stunk and was sour, had none of the sweetness of applesauce, and was the preferred snack of the poor and disenfranchised Jews of Manhattan's Lower East Side.  I think the shape of the pickle had something to do with it too and these do-gooding reformers couldn't get their minds out of the gutter.  

The pickle has gained favor, but immigrants keep taking turns getting the short end of the stick.

Barry Deutsch

Arrival

I arrived at LAX on the third of July in 1985.  I don’t celebrate it as an anniversary, but it always reminds me about my first few months in the Promised Land.  There were Taxi reruns that summer and then high school began in September.  One of the things I remember most is the heat.  I had six classes that semester: four hours of ESL, PE, and math.  You’d think that it would have been the four consecutive ESL classes that got to me, but no, that wasn’t it.  In fact, I felt most at home during those four hours.  I didn’t feel embarrassed when I couldn’t answer a question or didn’t understand instructions.  None of us did.  PE, however, was the pits.  The class met at one in the afternoon and we did something outside most of the time.  Polish climate was much much cooler than it is even now, and definitely cooler than SoCal’s.  So there I was, playing softball during the hottest part of the day.  Adolescence is an embarrassing time of life, but add to that 90 degrees and a game this immigrant had never heard of, and you’ve got yourself one traumatized teen.  I’d look around and no one appeared to be bothered by the weather all the while sweat poured down my reddened brow. Then, manifesting all the color characteristics of a beet, I'd sit sweating it out in an un-air-conditioned algebra classroom. I may tolerate heat now (St. Louis + 90 degrees = midnight in July.  Bring it!), but I still don’t get softball. 

Pole Dating

This is not a confessional about how I can’t meet the right man (paging Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy!), but a query about food and culture.  Let me say though that immigrant dating is a fraught venture.  I am too American for Poles and too Polish for Americans.  No wait!  Poles are too Polish for me and Americans are not Polish enough.  No wait!  Poles are not American enough and Americans are too American.  No wait!  I am too American for Poles, and too Polish for Americans.  It’s a predicament.  Add to that equation my “wet blanket/I can’t live without you—I don’t need you/get a life” personality and you’ve got yourself what my fellow Poles ever-so-endearingly refer to as an old maid. [*Bicultural digression: I was not aware of any words to describe unattached women in Polish except for panna (maiden—ugh!) or stara panna (old maid) until the arrival of democracy and capitalism when Poles began to adapt the English word “single” as a noun.  If you’re a single woman, the hip crowd refers to you as a singielka.  My rather large extended family is not hip.*]

A few months ago, I went on a rather strange date.  Not strange enough for abadcaseofthedates.com, but strange enough for me.  We made plans to meet for dinner.  Date said something rather strange over the phone as we agreed to meet at a local Chinese restaurant, but I dismissed it.  He said something about “hitting up” an Asian grocery store before dinner.  I dismissed it because who goes to the grocery store on a date and, more importantly, who goes to the grocery store when they don’t need to?  But I get so nervous during these initial date exchanges that I quickly chalked up his suggestion to my own Polish-inflected hearing.  

Immigrant or not, I’m no idiot and was not about to have a guy I’ve never met pick me up at home.  We agreed to meet at the restaurant of my choosing.  I arrived a couple of minutes before my date and the place was dead.  There were two people there and one of them was working.  When my date arrived, I proposed that we drive down to another restaurant, just minutes away.  He told me to follow him.  I did.  I knew the other restaurant and was surprised when he made a left turn blocks before we arrived at our destination.  God help me, I followed (it's not like it was a dark alley, so I kept going).  I quickly saw, however, that it was, CRAP, a local Asian supermarket.  We got out of our cars and he suggested that we check the place out.  Let me emphasize, I am waaaaaay too nice to people I’ve just met.  My friends will tell you that I am waaaaay nicer to strangers than I am to them.  This is true.  I am working on it, but may need professional help for it.  But I digress.  We walked into the store.  I had been to that store before and had no idea why he wanted to “check it out.”  Check it out he did.  I followed him up one aisle and then decided that I was A/ embarrassed and B/ needed some groceries.  We separated for a few minutes and met up in the market’s impressive seafood department.  “Mmmm,” he said, “it smells horrible.”  What the hell?  “That’s what fish smells like,” I responded.  By now, I was both hungry and embarrassed, so I said “I’m starving, can we get dinner now?”  Why I didn’t just leave him there, I don’t know. “This doesn’t gross you out?” he asked.  I’m not a vegetarian and having grown up in a small town/farming community, I harbor no illusions about the source of my dinner.  “Nope,” I said, “can we go now?”  I had a few items and needed to pay.  I did and, to my relief, we left and drove to the restaurant.  Again, why I didn’t just leave, I really don’t know.  Perhaps, despite my Polish upbringing, I am an optimist?

At dinner, my date disappointed further.  For one, he was one of those thigh-slapping jokesters who make inappropriate comments to the servers (if you have ever worked as a waiter/waitress as I have, you know who I’m talking about).  For another, though he professed to be a liberal, he told me that he was “conservative on some issues.”  When I asked which ones, he told me “like immigration.”  Ouch!  To make a long story short, in order to avoid a full on conflagration (which I can handle with friends, but not strangers), I called him Archie Bunker and he ended up calling me “Ms. Ellen DeGeneres Stalin.”  Except for the genocidal maniac part of it, I felt vindicated.  

All of this to say: how is it that we live in one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world and yet feel that a trip to the local supermarket is an adventure into the realm of the unknown?  To be fair, my date may have been an exception to the rule.  He did tell me that he doesn’t read the newspaper or listen to the news.  No need.  All he needs to do is walk down the street to know what’s going on in the world.  CRAP!

Sounds

You know that time between wakefulness and sleep?  You’re not quite asleep and not quite awake.  Your mind begins to wander and ends up in strange places (Proust wrote about it.  Hells yeah, I’ve read Proust!  Ok, a tiny fragment of Proust’s mammoth.  I appreciate what he did for literature, but Remembrance bores the living daylight out of me.  How many details can you cram into a single sentence, anyway?).  For one reason or another, before I fell asleep last night, my mind ended up hearing the theme music from Taxi.  Memory works in funny ways.  Even when you haven’t thought of something in ages, a sound or smell or taste all of a sudden brings it back full force (damn Proust wrote about that too, just spent way too much time detailing it). 

Taxi was the first TV show I watched (via what I now know were late night reruns) when I ended up in the U.S. back in the eighties.  I didn’t understand a single word of it, but after a few a weeks, began to distinguish a word here and there.  I loved it!  I’d like to think it was because of Latka Gravas.  

I’d like to think that even without getting the dialogue, I spotted a fellow immigrant, even one from a made-up country because, let’s face it, Andy Kaufman oozed alienation.  

Whenever I hear or even think of that wistful theme music from Taxi, I remember my first American summer and cringe with contradictions of delight and misery. 

What melody or sound reminds you of a crucial part of your life?  Not a song, mind you, because then we’d have to take stock of the lyrics.