On America's Promise-- a response to Mystic Melange

First, let me say that I am angry. I am angry because all the (American) media I have been exposed to from childhood has told me that I can be anything I want to be, once I work hard enough and smart enough. I could rise from rags to riches, once someone saw my talent; I could be pushed from the gutter to the gold. And it was a bald-faced lie. I am angry at them for telling it. I am angry at myself for believing it.

Here is what the (American) media (in the form of Walt Disney movies, Hanna-Barbara cartoons, Buena Vista and Lorimar Television, and others) did NOT tell me from childhood: You cannot be anything you want to be, even if you work extremely hard and extremely smart, unless you are born in the right place, to the right parents...or someone wants to single-handedly function as they would.

Malcolm Gladwell, an American with Jamaican roots, makes this point abundantly clear in his ground-breaking book "Outliers", which details the many areas of human life in which excellence flourishes, from Canadian ice hockey players to East Asian mathematics whizzes to the Beatles. He makes an unassailable argument that it is not only the WHO but also the WHERE and the WHEN that matters, not MOST, but EVERY time greatness is achieved, whether by a child or by an adult.

However,the (American) media does not say so. They leave that to the immigration lawmakers and officials. They are the ones who tell those of us with dreams of making it to Broadway or some other institution unavailable in the lands of our birth, "Come back when you have money," "Come back when you have a sponsor," "Come back when you have a spouse", "Come back when you have a full-time employer willing to sponsor your application", "Come back when you have parents or guardians who are rich enough to pay for your application, or to support you while you stay in our country,". These words never get told to the thousands of less talented, less motivated natives of the country, simply because they happened to have been BORN there.

An accident of birth does NOT constitute merit or worth. This is plain for most Americans to see when the issues of Affirmative Action or racism come up. But they become suddenly blinded when the issue crosses the ocean. "I have a right to take full advantage of the opportunities that exist in the world" applies suddenly, only to those born in a particular country, only to those born to a certain cross-section of non-local people, able or willing to command a certain amount of financial resources and support.

This makes me angry. My view is that I should not have to marry someone to take advantage of the Lion King auditions (I could not audition for Broadway without a green card); I should not have to work a nine-to-five when creative performance is my calling, because only well-established creative performance managers can afford to pay $5000 for an HB1 visa application; I should not have to make oodles of money from my talent FIRST in order to get a green card (a pass to compete for talent jobs) on the basis of Extraordinary Ability. For a country which so poignantly thwarts me and many others truly talented, yet offers succour and opportunity to those far less so, in reality shows and elsewhere, on the principle of an accident of birth, I shall not develop goosebumps while listening to its anthem.

What is more, it is clearly inconsistent that a person should claim to consider political will such as Rosa Parks', admirable, while not having any such will herself: will to stand in front of the Red House conducting a hunger strike; will to assemble mutinously in front of Mr. Manning's residence, will to refuse to work or to wear red when the political unions call for a strike, will to vote, even as a national abroad, against the political system, will to make clear the case for a despot-watch by the UN in Trinidad and Tobago. It is clearly inconsistent that both successful emigres and second-generation Americans state that those who remain in Third World countries should nation-build, while they enjoy the fruits of others' nation building, and leave us to an ever more difficult task in their absence. It is clearly inconsistent that they should, Pilate-like, wash their hands of their countries as soon as they have grasped the opportunity promised them via their chosen calling.

I smile, because I note the humour in the irony in these inconsistencies. And I have vented, so I am no longer angry. But I will find a way to make my siege. Serenely.