On the question I
keep getting, and the two very different responses I could give.
At the risk of
sounding like David Carradine in Kung Fu,
as I’ve wandered the land for these past few months, giving
book talks and saving innocent villagers and whatnot (okay, yeah, that was
straight out trying to sound like Carradine), I’ve gotten one particular audience
question far more than any other: so what would you say about immigration
policies and debates in our own moment? How, the implication and often the
direct question goes, would better remembering histories like those on which my
book and talks focus (the Chinese Exclusion Act and its era; broader
American histories of immigration, law, and diversity) impact these
contemporary concerns? And, usually unstated but very much caught up in those
questions, is a more self-reflective kind of query: is it your (my)
responsibility, duty, and/or right as a public AmericanStudies scholar to
connect my histories and stories and analyses to these present issues and
debates?
The answer I’ve
generally given is roughly the same one I advance in my book’s conclusion (which
is entitled “So What?”), is also roughly the same one I’ve articulated at
various points in describing this blog’s primary mission, and is certainly
something I believe: that my central role is to connect us more fully and in
more depth, more accurately and with more complexity, to our past and identity,
our history and community, to what America has been and meant and included (in
the worst and the best senses, and everything in between) throughout its
existence. As I’ve indicated in those answers, I most definitely believe that
having a more full and accurate understanding of all those topics would and
will impact our contemporary conversations and debates as well—but I also have
tried to make clear that I don’t think those impacts would have to lead to any
one definite position or perspective, that there’s any one overt lesson for our
present in these better memories and understandings. The key, I’ve said and
meant, is that as long as our conversations seem so a-historical, so
disconnected from our past and identity, they are at best extremely limited and
partial.
And yet. There’s
a part of me that wants to answer differently, to note that when it comes to
immigration history, any accurate understanding leads to one very clear
conclusion: America had an entirely open immigration policy and border for most
of our history; and when we developed immigration laws, we did so solely and
purely to discriminate, to try to exclude certain communities from immigrating
and being part of our national community. So in this particular case, I kind of
want to say, better remembering the histories would indeed seem also to point
to a definite argument about policy in the present and future. To be clear, I
don’t think that’s always, or even usually, the case, with any of the histories
and stories I try to better remember in this space (or elsewhere). But as
perhaps this week’s series illustrates, if and when it is the case I’m having a
harder time lately feeling that I shouldn’t connect my analyses to those
present and future meanings. Perhaps that evolving feeling is another part of
becoming a public scholar more fully—and in any case, I don’t much want to
fight it.
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
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